Friday, July 25, 2008

Who keeps giving James Toback money?

The other night I tried watching The Outsider (a documentary on James Toback) on the Snag films website. There was a scene where Bijou Phillips says that Toback is one of the world's greatest filmmakers, which everybody knows. It was at this point where either the film froze or my theory; the computer made an editorial decision and would not continue. I don't really like Toback's films, especially his recent output. I basically wanted to see if he came off as a creepy, arogent hack or if they were going to try to make a case for his genius. It appered they were going for the latter. Starting with Two Girls and a Guy, he keeps hitting us with low budget mediocrities. You and your buddies could have made a more profound film about race at age 15 than Toback did in Black and White. In When Will I Be Loved, he had the gaul to cast himself as a professor of cultural relations or some bullshit like that. It was a bad idea when Woody Allen cast him as a professor. He didn't need to repeat the mistake. I think the only reason When Will I Be Loved was made was to show Neve Campbell nude. I did kind of like Harvard Man. The casting was its saving grace and there was a great cameo by Al Franken and his daughter. A couple of years ago I went to see Ben Kweller in Cincinnati and I was killing time at a coffee shop and I read an article about a female journalist that met Toback. He basically kept trying to sleep with her. She went back to his room. He passed out watching SNL and she snuck out unscathed. His new film is a documentary about Mike Tyson. Their friendship has always made sense to me. No, that is not a compliment.

2 comments:

troy myers said...

james toback's take on race in black and white shows us how far we have really come in america as all the black people represented are either rappers or athletes. no nevermind he's a douche, but a good douche as he really lets go of racist connotations in the fact that he will let blacks entertain him...thats not a typical view of race at all. insert sarcasm here.

Shane M. White said...

Yep, "Black & White" was pure shit. And no matter how cute Bijou Phillips is, I can't ever take her seriously if that's how she feels about Toback.

I actually have this Documentary in my Netflix Queue right now - from when I was recently on my Documentary fix. I don't know, after reading your comments, it might find itself removed before the end of the night.