Dolemite (1975)

(Tubi Streaming, December 2020) Aaargh. I know that Dolemite is a bit of a cult classic, and I can see where the fuss comes from: The grander-than-life nature of Rudy Ray Moore’s character is hard to resist, and the flowery use of language is the kind of thing I really like in movies. I approve of the filmmakers’ agenda at play here in taking back blaxploitation from the big studios (especially given how much I like blaxploitation already), and I really enjoyed the demented pimp-centric world that the film sets up, bit by bit. But let’s be honest: Dolemite is far too often a chore to get through. The production values are abysmal, the audiovisual quality is terrible, the script is borderline moronic and the moral values promoted here are abominable. You can definitely see it as a comedy, but seeing it as a satire takes substantial presumptions to cut through the amateurish filmmaking to see which point the film was trying to make. I watched Dolemite as prelude to 2019’s fictionalized making-of Dolemite is My Name, and I don’t regret it. But I would have had a much harder time and a much harsher appreciation had I tried watching it on its own, without a much slicker production right afterward to help make sense of it.