I'm Through with White Girls

I saw this last night, with a packed house at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, as part of the Roxbury film festival. I can't remember the last time I went to the movies and missed some of the dialogue because the audience was laughing so hard.

The lead actors are both terrific, with a strong chemistry between them. Lia Johnson, as the lead, was especially noteworthy. I hope we'll see her in a lot more films. (She was co-producer, too.) What a relief to see a romantic comedy that deals with race that doesn't have to drop down into base stupidity or stereotypes. (Not that the characters don't sometimes do stupid things.)

It's interesting to see conscious references to Spike Lee's, She's Gotta Have It. (I remember seeing that at a festival when it first came out.) First-time director Jennifer Sharp doesn't have Spike's sense of innovation or visual style, but she does provide the film strong visuals and a fast pace.

The story is somewhat reminiscent of High Fidelity (slacker guy has a phobia of commitment), but in a good way (lots of scenes in a record story helps, too). But here we have race as the excuse that he's been using for his lack of commitment. Jay dates a long string of white women, yet always breaks up with them (by note), when it gets too serious, writing that maybe the world isn't ready for a relationship like theirs. Interestingly, though, the movie isn't about Jay trying to get in touch with his "true blackness" or about how white women really are horrible and now that he's looking for a black woman, he'll truly find happiness. Instead, it's really about him having to learn to grow up and allow himself to commit to the right woman. The woman he finds, Katherine, is awfully amazing (bestselling novelist, very smart) but with enough quirks to make her seem fully human, as well.

It's awfully tough for black films to get theatrical distribution, but this is one that's smart, that lots of people can relate to. I hope it makes it.

Why 9 out of 10? Because we don't see enough depictions of Black men like this in the movies. This movie won't win any awards, Jay is a nerd and goofy, but this is a really cool movie. I am so tired of all the romantic comedy movies going to the same "Adonis" white guy or the same goof-ball comedic white guy. Black men are more complex than all the ghetto-bangin' bull that we always get on screen. There were no guns, no woman got called, "bitch" and no scenes of police arrests. Yes, this movie is entertaining and worth giving a view. The title is more of a commentary on the "misfit" Black guy who is really good at the core, but just lost in the shuffle of stereotypes that seek to define him without giving him the benefit of the doubt. Stereotypes that he feels that he must maintain in order to have a sense of his own Blackness. In the end he has to decide whether to cross that chasm and go for something true or stay stuck in his own comfortable adolescent musings. Give this movie a try and leave your preconceptions at the door.

I don't usually write comments for movies, I usually just read them. But this one movie I had to put up something for. The best thing about it was that it was unpretentious, the characters were very real - for once we didn't have to put up with an unrealistically gorgeous female, or worse: an average looking guy with a gorgeous girl, as if to say guys can pass up being average looking, but girls can't when it comes to movies. There was not ONE dull moment in this film, it was fast paced and the humor was GREAT. Worked on ALL levels. I'm so proud of it. More people should see this.

And yes - the title is very stupid, misleading almost. But it was the title that got me watching this.... :)

I saw I'm Through With White Girls last night, and liked it a whole lot. And I had absurdly high expectations, too; so for me to say that means something, since whenever I head into an encounter with art possessing absurdly high expectations, I usually come away disappointed. Not this time.

I'd say this is easily the purest, most self-consciously post-soul film I've ever seen (I would say "ever made" instead of "ever seen," but obviously there could be another one out there). Actually, I'd have to put Afro-Punk right up there with it, except that the latter is a documentary, and this is an absolutely delightful romantic comedy.

It's got all the PSA aspects one could want: non-traditional representations of blackness in conflict with---and in connection with---traditional representations of blackness; social class issues; the way cultural blackness plays out among white characters, particularly white men (and the great thing about it is that these black-culture-influenced white characters never descend into caricature, as do, sadly, the working class black characters); the tension between stereotypical black behaviors and individuality (and that tension plays out on both white and black cultural planes, of course); bi-raciality and the question of blackness (not only is the female lead bi-racial, she's not even a native of the United States). Oh, there's all sorts of great, symbolic, contextual stuff in the mix.

But the wonderful thing is that the film stands on its own as a plot-driven romantic comedy that skillfully moves along the boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-regains-girl, happy-ending format. (I get impatient, quite frankly, with people who get impatient with the romantic comedy format---to me, that just means [1] that person just doesn't like romantic comedies---because the format is what it is, or [2] that person doesn't realize that the romantic comedy form is just another form, and it's what you do with it, how funny it is, how the pacing works, what it tells you, culturally, about the world the characters inhabit, that informs how well or poorly one deals with that form.) In any case, I thought it was a successful film on the PSA level, for sure, but also on the pure filmic level, as well.

I liked, as well, the persistent references to Paul Beatty's novel The White Boy Shuffle: [1] there is a moment in the film when the specific words "the white boy shuffle" come out of the male lead's mouth; [2] when the female lead is reading from her novel at a bookstore, you can jusssst barely hear her describe HER male lead as being named "Gunnar," echoing Beatty's hero's first name; and [3] one of the running gags throughout the film is that Jay Brooks can't dance!---yet another Gunnar-esquire gesture. In addition, there's an explicit reference to a memorable scene in Spike Lee's "She's Gotta Have It" that also becomes a running gag. Like I said, the film sure seemed, in more ways than one, a self-conscious post-soul aesthetic document, even if they don't use that term on their website.

Very, very enjoyable film. The only shame is that it didn't get the theatrical release it deserved. I wish Will Smith had the courage to star in something like this. I thought Anthony Montgomery was great, but with Smith it would have had the eyeballs on it that the film deserved. Woulda had to change that unfortunate title, though, and that would have been all to the good; it's the only thing I didn't like about the movie.

I saw this film at the 'Africa in the picture-festival' at the Filmhuis The Hague. I had not heard or read any review about this movie, but based on the plot synopsis I expected a politically correct flick. First of all, this is a very clever and funny movie, with likable characters. Actually it's one of the best comedies I've seen in years. Its fresh originality reminded me of earlier Spike Lee movies like 'She's Gotta Have It'. Unlike Spike Lee, Director Jennifer Sharp keeps the tone light all the time. This is no a criticism, she obviously intended the movie not to be too dogmatic. Probably the most rebellious thing about the movie is the excessive smoking of the main characters; I'm sure this is intended as a sneer to all that non-smoking Hollywood movies you see nowadays. The movie deals with stereotypes of all sorts, but in essence this movie is more about fear of commitment than about race. I've seen many new faces in this movie and all the actors perform very natural. Anthony Montgomery is brilliant, but Ryan Alosio steals the show as his best friend who is bluffing his way into rap in order to get a job at a record store to get close to a girl he fancies.