THE REWATCHABLES · May 26, 2020
A 1992 romance / comedy directed by Reginald Hudlin, covered in the complete Rewatchables archive.
ON THIS EPISODE
FROM THE CONVERSATION
WHY IT WORKS
WHAT DID NOT WORK
SCENES THEY KEPT COMING BACK TO
The movie opens its character dynamics through a lunch scene packed with banter about race, food, and male friendship.
About 40 minA comic sequence of seduction, awkward morning-after shame, and Eartha Kitt's teasing.
About 48 minTheir first electric exchange is treated as one of the film's best chemistry moments.
About 40 minWitherspoon reveals the full mushroom outfit, and the scene becomes a legendary comic set-piece.
About 56 minA quieter friendship scene where Eddie learns about Halle Berry and reacts with embarrassed restraint.
About 1:04The three friends reconcile on the roof, and the scene is treated as a satisfying emotional payoff.
About 1:12The boardroom and commercial scenes showcase Grace Jones and Jeffrey Holder's outrageous ad-world comedy.
About 1:12Halle Berry cheers Eddie up, and the art-class gag helps define her as warm and funny.
About 48 minWHERE THEY DISAGREED
Bill SimmonsYes; it's a transcendent comic set-piece and the movie's best scene.
Wesley MorrisMaybe structurally unnecessary, but the movie's looseness is part of its charm.
Van LathanHalle Berry wins the movie.
Wesley MorrisEddie Murphy wins because his performance changes his career and the movie around him.
Bill SimmonsLeans toward Eddie as the central comeback figure, while praising Berry heavily.
Wesley MorrisIt is both: the specificity is the point, but critics mistook it for foreignness.
Van LathanIt is a strength and an important cultural milestone.
Bill SimmonsAgrees the backlash was coded and unfair.
Wesley MorrisMaybe the roof scene was the original ending and the rest feels appended.
Bill SimmonsThe added material still works, even if it feels patched.
Calls the film personally important and says it revived Eddie Murphy after a slump.
About 8 minArgues critics expected a black version of a white rom-com and were unprepared for a movie that was just authentically black.
About 8 minDescribes the film as delightful and as a celebration of black professional life.
About 8 minArgues Murphy is at peak powers here and that the movie changes the trajectory of his later roles.
About 16 minSays Givens deserved more and that the film helped rehabilitate her among black audiences.
About 40 minSees Berry as a star-in-waiting whose performance shows she should have become a bigger movie star much earlier.
About 24 minTreats the Witherspoon sequence as the movie's funniest and most rewatchable stretch.
About 56 minArgues the movie feels loose and edited in a way that helps its rewatchability but keeps it from being fully polished.
About 56 minSays the film is responsible for much of Witherspoon's later comic legend.
About 56 minHighlights the soundtrack as one of the great 1990s soundtrack albums.
About 32 minThe hosts see the film as a rare mainstream portrayal of successful, stylish black adults in love and at work.
About 8 minThe episode argues that white critics and audiences treated the film as alien or suspicious simply because it centered black people.
About 16 minThe movie works by making an arrogant womanizer lose control and forcing him into emotional vulnerability.
About 16 minThe episode stresses how the film helped reveal or amplify the star power of Robin Givens, Halle Berry, and others.
About 24 minA lot of the movie's best material is described as improvised or loosened up by the cast's chemistry.
About 56 minEddie Murphy wrote the op-ed response to the criticism in the Los Angeles Times.
About 16 minThe movie cost about $40 million and made roughly $131 million.
About 32 minThe soundtrack includes Boyz II Men, Toni Braxton, PM Dawn, Johnny Gill, and A Tribe Called Quest.
About 32 minEartha Kitt was the hardest person to cast and objected to some original jokes.
About 1:20Grace Jones had an extra naked airport scene that was cut.
About 1:20Lela Rochon reportedly had her feet made to look ugly for a scene.
About 1:20 · medium confidenceHudlin said the movie was originally meant to end on the roof before the later resolution was added.
About 1:04Van Lathan says the film was a cultural event for his family and community.
Opening minutesUsed to discuss Eddie Murphy being described as 'more than black' in popular culture.
About 8 minCited as Eddie Murphy's critically savaged prior film.
About 8 minUsed as the model for Eddie Murphy's earlier more streetwise persona.
About 16 minReferenced as the rom-com template where a character ruins things and then repairs them later.
About 24 minCompared to Robin Givens, Sharon Stone, and the film's seductress energy.
About 32 minUsed as an example of a movie built around a white world without troubling Bill.
About 1:04Referenced to explain how white-cast romantic movies can ignore black presence without critique.
About 1:04Referenced for the way it awkwardly inserts black characters after the fact.
About 1:04Cited as a parallel black professional rom-com with Halle Berry.
About 1:04Named as a later film that follows Boomerang's playbook for black romance and friendship.
About 1:04Used as part of the lineage of black romantic films influenced by Boomerang.
About 1:04Mentioned as a later black love story in the same tradition.
About 1:04Referenced as another later black romantic film in Boomerang's lineage.
About 1:04Hudlin said it influenced the triangle structure between Angela, Gerard, and Marcus.
About 1:20Mentioned as the closest thing to a black rom-com of Boomerang's scale.
About 1:04A recurring quote from the lunch scene used to joke about coded racism and food service language.
About 40 minA John Witherspoon chant that becomes a running celebration of his scene-stealing performance.
About 56 minGrace Jones's perfume pitch becomes a recurring joke about outrageous ad copy.
About 1:12The hosts keep returning to the film's everyday black-world details as a source of pleasure and novelty.
About 8 minRepeated praise for the soundtrack as defining the movie's mood and era.
About 32 min“I am Mr. Romance when I meet a woman.”Opening minutes
“Don't be pussy-whipped, whip that pussy!”About 56 min
“Love should have brought your ass home last night.”About 1:36
“When I seduce you, if I decide”About 40 min
“Steel vagina.”About 1:12
MAKE IT A MOVIE NIGHT
WHAT TO WATCH NEXT
Three movies to watch before Boomerang, and three to watch next.
ON THE MIC
Bill SimmonsThe Rewatchables
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