The images in this film have not been sped up in any way.
You can tell me I live under a rock, but I'd never been to the Tribeca Film Festival before. Perhaps it's because I loathe long lines, especially when trapped in between stupid people. The ones to the left of you have matching dreadlocks and leather patchwork coats, and the Gramercy Park whore to your right is on her cell phone talking dead-seriously about the Moby show she went to the other night when, oh, thank god, her psychopharmacologist cuts in on the other line.
YT has a knack for picking random movies that end up being really fun to go see (with a few exceptions--most notably, the unwatchably claustrophobic Swedish nachtmare that zoomed in for no apparent reason on labia reductive surgery and unmentionable things with food, penetration, and regurgitation, which I walked out on within twenty minutes without holding anything against YT unfairly except for the fact that he actually stayed until the end). A couple of weeks ago he read something in Time Out New York about a Tribeca Film Festival documentary directed by celeb photographer David LaChapelle. It was called Rize. YT was most drawn to TONY's description of South Central kids "krumping," the dance that the film centers around. Krumping was compared to epilectic seizures which made YT think of The Crucible and inspired him to tell everyone that he wanted to be referred to by his new Krump Name from now on -- Goody Proctor.
We went to see Rize without knowing what to expect, which is often the best way to see a movie. We had to move our seats twice because the mix of perfume and hair products emanating from the older woman two seats away and the two blondes in front of us were making my eyeballs roll back into my head. We watched MTV's John Norris walk in with a soft, young boy. He dropped their bags in their seats and then headed back out to the men's room scratching his nose in anticipation. When did the 00's become the 80's, I often wonder. Did Studio 54 re-open and no one told me about it? In walks Michael Musto and then the incredible Amanda LePore, the LaChapelle muse, with her motley entourage. It was almost like a scene out of Weekend at Bernie's. I didn't see her move an inch once seated. Not even an eye-blink. It's weird that someone with such enormous features can look as though they might crumble to dust and blow away in the wind if touched the wrong way.
It's hard to talk about Rize because it's an experience. There's plenty of press you can read about it anyway -- even the trailer is a knockout -- but I don't have words to do it justice. There are natural parallels between this film, Paris is Burning and Style Wars, if that means anything to you. I can say that it is required viewing come it's June 21st release. I can also say that when we walked out of there, YT felt like he was rolling on E, I don't think I was walking straight, and we both agreed that we were not the same people coming out of that documentary that we were when we walked in. That's the biggest compliment I can give for a film. And I've only given it once before. ...Okay, maybe twice, but don't let that deter you.
