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Dolemite Is My Name

Welcome to a new version of Film Shapes. I primarily blog about films I've just seen at the cinema but, what with the closures and lockdowns, I don't know when I'll get to do that next. So, like most of the world, I've decided to do my viewing online. My plan for now is to do a short write-up and record a podcast, WITHOUT SPOILERS, for each film. It may change as we go on but that's the idea for now. Please enjoy.

The first film in this 'new' format is Dolemite Is My Name, available on Netflix. This is a film in a film for the most part, based on the 1975 film, Dolemite, brainchild of Rudy Ray Moore. Eddie Murphy plays Moore in this bipoic and he does it with gusto. It reminded me that Murphy was a genuine superstar in the 80s. Not sure if I really appreciated him back then.

The film follows Moore in his attempts to strike it big. He's an old style showman, singer, MC, comedian, raconteur, and he thinks he should be a success. Ripping off an old homeless drunkard is his way in and thus, his Dolemite character is born. From around the start of the second act he decides he should be up on the big screen and it's here that the film picks up for me.

Dolemite Is My Name is a fun, star-driven diversion and I reckon one of the best Netflix-produced efforts yet.

See also:

The night after watching this, I revisited Beverly Hills Cop (1984), directed by the now defunct Martin Brest, and it still holds up, particularly as a vehicle for Murphy. For other 'film in a film' films, you could do worse than Tom DiCillo's Living in Oblivion (1995) and Michael Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005).

Listen to "Dolemite Is My Name" on Spreaker.

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