Lots of interesting stuff to talk about today; The Dark Knight, my little sister’s upcoming wedding, a new addition to the Where the Long Tail Ends family and maybe even a review of Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil’s Son-In-Law. Now normally I would have a totally self indulgent opening to bump up the word count before I go into my review, but today I feel like changing things up a bit in honor of the unconventional Petey Wheatstraw. For a brief moment in time I even considered rhyming the review, but I’m quite certain that would have driven me, and possibly you, insane.
But like I said earlier, I have other matters to discuss before I tackle Petey Wheatstraw. First up is the incredibly thick cloud of hyperbole surrounding The Dark Knight. Now I liked the film, quite a bit actually, but for people to make this out like the second coming of The Godfather is more then enough to choke a donkey. Yes Heath Ledger is outstanding in possibly one of the first great performances of the year, but could we hold up on the Oscar talk until, I don’t know, the year is over with?
I’d go into my critiques of the film even more, but I am trying to hold out to write an actual review of the film. Needless to say the self-indulgent running time, numerous continuity errors, and heavy handed approach to the themes will be some of the areas I will cover. Let me reiterate I liked the film, and plan on giving it a positive review, but there are flaws, and some of them are quite noticeable. I’m far more annoyed with the critics who seem to be rolling over like dogs to have their bellies rubbed by Christopher Nolan et al in an effort to … well … I don’t know what they hope to get by slathering praise on a very good film in an effort to make it appear to be a great film. But hey those idiots like Heat too even though it sucks at life.
Next up, my little sister is getting married next weekend. Yeah yeah, hooray and all that jazz, but more importantly, because of this blessed event I will be out of town next weekend, and if the wedding is even partially successful should be intoxicated for much of the weekend. What does any of this mean to you? Well I might be a tad late next week with my review. And by late I mean I may just skip writing a review next week. Primarily because I am lazy and want to take a short break, and secondarily because the card I am giving my sister is decidedly funny but very, very crude and inappropriate. And if my father discovers that he most likely will kill me. So closed circuit to my family reading this at home, I move to have this entire paragraph stricken from the record.
As far as additional news for this site, I had planned on making a post specifically devoted to the newest addition, but instead got a little caught up with other things and thought now was as good a time as any to introduce Christian Dumais. Christian has been given his own column, as yet untitled, to use however he wishes to cover movies, books, comics, comic book movies, and books on comics in movies. Quite possibly even other subjects as well. I’ve known Christian for some time now, and I think you’ll find he will fit in perfectly around here. And for those of you worried he’ll just bring much of the same opinions as I do let me assure you were are quite different. He was raised near a large body of salt water (Tampa Bay). I was raised near a large body of fresh water (Lake Michigan). He has a shaved head and a goatee. I have a shaved head and a beard. He favors Ultimate Spider-Man. I prefer Amazing Spider-Man. We are totally different people. Hopefully, because of these many and varied differences this will become a much more well-rounded and entertaining site.
This brings us, unfortunately, to Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil’s Son-In-Law. I’ve been trying to stall for time in an effort to avoid having to talk about this movie but it seems I’ve plum run out of other things to distract you with. So I might as well cut to the chase, Petey Wheatstraw is a horrible movie. Let me be clear that it is not bad in a good way, but bad in a terribly racist, misogynistic way. This formula works quite well with Dolemite, which plays more as a ridiculously extreme examination of black inner city culture in the seventies, while Petey Wheatstraw just comes across as inane at best and vile at worst.
Perhaps if Petey Wheatstraw, played by Rudy Ray Moore, hadn’t started with such a ridiculous opening scene I might have taken a kinder view regarding the film, but opening with a black woman giving birth to a watermelon certainly isn’t the best way to put a mild mannered Midwestern white boy at ease. While Petey Wheatstraw seemed to be attempting to be a farcical representation, using a joke that black people love their watermelon so much that they are born with it seemed to me in extremely poor taste, and as one of those jerks who propagated the legend of goat.se during the dawn of the Internet, I’m not one who is easily offended.
But while this initial joke grossly backfired, the follow up was most amusing. After giving birth to a literal watermelon, the woman gives birth to a fully formed and functioning ten year old boy. Who proceeds to attack his father for “Keeping me awake every night.” Now that kind of tasteless humor is right up my alley. Unfortunately, now at the five minute mark of the film, Petey Wheatstraw has hit its high point.
From there we watch as over the opening credits Petey is taught Kung Fu by an aging master, and then discover Petey’s love of comedy, which seems to entail him rhythmically insulting his audience in iambic pentameter. Well not quite, but that would have at least been interesting and possibly entertaining.
From there it only gets worse as Petey takes his entourage to a nearby city to put on a comedy show, only unbeknownst to him he is infringing on the territory of a mob funded show thrown by Leroy and Skillet (Leroy Daniels and Ernest Mayhand). Feeling threatened, Leroy and Skillet proceed to have the younger brother of one of Petey’s friends murdered, and then during the funeral procession they kill everyone else in Petey’s gang, including Petey himself.
From there Petey is discovered by Lucipher (G. Tito Shaw), who agree to bring Petey back to life if he will agree to marry his horribly ugly daughter (Ebony Wright) and conceive the Anti-Christ with her. In return Lucipher will bring not only Petey, but all his friends back to life, and grant Petey the use of a magical cane which will allow him to seek vengeance on those who attempted to kill him. Petey then uses his cane to make his enemies poop their pants, and then the film makes sure to have a five minute running joke about how awful the poopy pants man smells. Just to make sure you understand why he smells so bad, director Cliff Roquemore (The Human Tornado) makes sure you get to see said poop stained pants for hilarious effect. From there Petey Wheatstraw devolves into an even crappier film, yet mercifully doesn’t take that statement literally. If you have stuck around this long be sure to last at least until Petey reveals his nefarious plan to get out of his agreement with Lucipher. It really needs to be heard to be believed.
Now I went into Petey Wheatstraw expecting some fairly shallow entertainment, so I have no one to blame but myself for having to witness this abomination, but Petey Wheatstraw might have succeeded if it hadn’t merely been content to have the star of Dolemite play a character suspiciously like Dolemite, in a film that is trying to mock Dolemite. Such a plan is a recipe for nothing less then a confusing disaster.
