Trapped in the Closet: Chapters 13-22

I don't care much for rap -hip/hop music, but i caught this on cable and was Happily Surprised. Every chapter has a surprise ending to it. It's not pretentious and there are several funny parts. The singing and lyrics are amazing. Also i thought that R.Kelly was a really great actor, even a great comedic actor. Several comedians nowadays try to play multiple characters and it ends up coming off like a over the top characterization of real people that isn't funny. I think R. Kelly did a great job of playing different characters without making them so ridiculous it was unbelievable. The characters were believable with just enough parody to make them endearing.

Because you can't have R&B without the R.! When you consider all 33 (ever notice how that number pops up everywhere, especially in movies?) chapters this is surely the psychosoul (his own genre) genius' magnum opus. Which is pretty damn profound when you consider a near flawless body of work. Furthermore, the man is one of just a precious few soul singers left who doesn't have to depend on gimmicks, artifice, and/or studio magic (pro-tools, vexatious vocoders, etc.) to record a record. He's the genuine article. I dare you to find a smoother voice in the game, not to mention the unique lyrical abilities. Dude's a maestro. A master of the game. His own species.

I picked these chapters from the saga to review because another genius shows up here, namely preternaturally talented songwriter Will Oldham (a friend of the R.) as the Village People-esque cop. His performance, along with everybody else involved, is bravura. The R. brings so much imagination and originality to a stale, repetitive, genre where the wheel (with 24" rims) is constantly being reinvented. I applaud his work here. Presently he's being vilified for alleged crimes against groupies/goldiggers. Groupie abuse is par for the course in music. Led Zep were notorious for it...remember the Red Snapper Incident? How about Motley Crue and their Telephone Mom Trick? Then you have Bel, Biv, Devoe alluding to the vitiation underage groupies in a hit, oft-radio played song. R. is the subject of a blackballing, witch hunt just like M.J. was. It happened to James Brown back in the day, too. Sad as it is, I know the noble will rise above. Stay strong R. Thanks for sharing your talents!

Going into a little bit of a different trajectory here, R Kelly takes his Trapped in the Closet series-cum-music video into less the territory of a surreal string of cuckolded circumstances than that of the dangerous realm of your common gangster story. Well, common for what R Kelly can do with it at least. This isn't to say the second set of chapters isn't at times hysterically funny (unintentionally or intentionally, take your pick), be it with the close-ups shots of the Man With The Gold Teeth, or some more baby-daddy drama at a very "wha" moment. But... there's just something, oddly enough with such a horrible R&B beat going on behind every single repetitive, mockable 'lyric' Kelly gets into, that's a little off at times. I almost found myself actually paying attention to what the f*** these characters were saying, as if (like in the scene at the restaurant) like Kelly means it to be engaging like some convoluted 40s noir.

It is convoluted, I'll give it that. After a while, despite knowing who the characters (mostly) were, I didn't even care anymore. Where as in the first dozen chapters there was some continuity to the madness of another "GOTCHA" coming out of a closet or a cabinet or behind a door, this time there's a lot more that's meant to be going on. But it only works in spurts, which are a good few (i.e. just seeing a 'double' Sylvester in his white suit, as if his God character or something), but far in between. I don't mind if it's cheesy or stupid or meant to be wack-a-doodle nuts. For something like this I DO want it to be that way to get all the camp value for a few buck's worth. But if there's no "good" end result, it doesn't click as well. If the first dozen chapters are a finely tuned train wreck, this second set is more like an Amtrak that skids a little on the rails, but stays firmly on its tracks.

If you thought the first part was extreme, then this sequel does not, and will not disappoint you. In fact, it feels it might be a perfect sequel. Its rare for a sequel to be good, but this was really good. I definitely recommend watching it.

Awful and straight trash omg it's embarrassing. Thought it was comedy.