![]() This wasn’t Cosby and his assimilationist niceties. Observational toilet humor overstuffed with impression and song, but it’s incredibly poised: confident, brilliantly considered and perfectly delivered.Īnd it was fearless. Murphy’s standup is nearly a Vaudeville act. T, Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, Michael Jackson, Teddy Pendergrass, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, Desi Arnaz, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby. By my count, here is a list of all the masterful impressions Murphy unleashes over the course of his two specials: Mr. While his forebears are probably more influential within the grand history of the medium, Eddie is by far the most talented, and it electrified his take on the form. Eddie took the things we loved about standup and sketch in the work of Pryor and yes, Cosby, and blew them out. Today, Raw is still the highest grossing concert/performance film of all time. Murphy idolized Pryor so it isn’t so surprising he followed suit. Of the top 25 highest grossing stand up films of all time, Pryor is responsible for two, one of which remains at #3 and they’re also the oldest films on the list. He had the ambition, and the talent, to launch himself as an iconic one name celebrity powerhouse with total control over his career.Įddie’s own personal God Richard Pryor is the Abraham of the genre of stand-up features released in theaters. Delirious was the first indication that Murphy was not content to limit himself as a not ready for prime time player, or even a traditional studio system movie star. It’s been a long time, and I probably should’ve left you, but hopefully this lens finally gives me away to discuss these really complicated and compelling films without getting this website censured by the government.īy 1983, when Delirious was released on HBO, Eddie Murphy was the biggest star on television as the anchor of a new SNL generation, an unlikely action star with 48 Hours ( which stablished the buddy cop model), and two weeks after Delirious dropped, Murphy would star alongside Dan Aykroyd in John Landis’ Trading Places, a brilliant satire and generational comedy that’s still my favorite film of his. So, welcome back to The Eddie Murphy project. So much of Eddie’s philosophy espoused in his 80s standup pieces comes to bear in the plot and action of the 90s romantic comedy - so much that you can draw a straight line through the three films and interrogate Eddie’s corrupt logic in a way that limits having to unspool entire histories of gender theory, social change and base moralizing as a critic. ![]() ![]() What I realized as I watched is Delirious and Raw serve as a kind of Rosetta Stone for the noble intentions and troubled sexual politics that produced Boomerang. Then a while back I re-watched Boomerang, one of Eddie’s treasures that came towards the backend of his peak and in the grand scheme of black-produced films, one of the most important movies ever made, full stop. I didn’t stop due to laziness or lack of inspiration (or at least not entirely because of that), I stopped because it was time to unpack Delirious and Raw, Murphy’s two monumental, deeply problematic, star making stand up films from the 80s and I had no clue how to intelligently address them and the many, many issues they raise. I started with a look at the 48 HRS series and followed with a rundown of the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy. Several years ago, I started an ambitious project to write about every Eddie Murphy film ever made. Please support Passion of the Weiss by subscribing to our Patreon.Ībe Beame has never seen Charlie Murphy’s couch. As much as we’d like to party all the time, somebody has to work.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |