By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
TORONTO (AP) --It took Eddie Murphy more than a decade to get a movie made about Rudy Ray Moore. Judging by the response to the film at the Toronto International Film Festival, the wait was worth it.
"Dolemite Is My Name" drew some of the best reviews of Murphy's career, following the film's premiere over the weekend in Toronto.
It had been a while. Murphy's last two leading performances — 2016's "Mr. Church" and 2012's "A Thousand Words" — were little seen and little loved.
But "Dolemite Is My Name" was a passion project for the 58-year-old comedian. He long ago met with Moore, who died in 2008 at the age of 81, to discuss making a movie about the comedian. Moore's famous character — the straight-talking, kung fu-fighting pimp Dolemite — was his stand-up persona and star of the 1975 Blaxploitation classic "Dolemite."
"I never let go of the idea. It was always something I thought could be a great movie. I had been sitting on the couch. I took some time to do nothing," Murphy said in an interview. "It goes back to when Rudy was alive. I literally went to see him at a club. It just didn't come together. And there was no Netflix back then."
"Dolemite Is My Name," directed by Craig Brewer ("Hustle & Flow"), will be released by Netflix in theaters Oct. 4 and begin streaming on Oct. 25. It's penned by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who memorably wrote another tale about an inexpert filmmaker: "Ed Wood."
"Dolemite Is My Name" chronicles the ramshackle, threadbare making of "Dolemite" with Wesley Snipes playing director D'Urville Martin. It's a paean to low-budget moviemaking and a celebration of creating something out of nothing, outside a movie system that made scant room for African-American stories.
For Brewer, a Memphis, Tennessee, native, it's a testament to the independent filmmaking of his youth.
"I came up in my career as a guerrilla filmmaker. You show up and you shoot. You don't have permits. You don't have professionals help you. You just have a bunch of other people like you who have a blind passion," Brewer said. "Sometimes those passion projects turn into something wonderful even though they're terrible."
For "My Name Is Dolemite," the reception in Toronto was electric — especially for a performance that for many recalled Murphy's performances of the '80s. During the standing ovation that followed the film's premiere, cast member Keegan-Michael Key suggested the lengthy applause shouldn't stop for Murphy. "
We should just stand all night and clap for him," Key said.
The film has helped kick off a comeback for Murphy. After years of working seldom if at all, Murphy is currently shooting a sequel to "Coming to America," also with Brewer directing and Snipes co-starring. Later this year, the former "Saturday Night Live" castmember will host the show for the first time since 1984. And after years away from the stage, he's plotting a return to stand-up, with a tour planned for next summer.
But before all that, Murphy was again performing stand-up, only as Rudy Ray Moore and outfitted in the costumes designed by Oscar-winner Ruth Carter for "My Name Is Dolemite." The filmmakers recognized what a privileged sight they were watching.
"Eddie comes in as Rudy and he starts telling jokes. And like Eddie does, he goes completely off book. If something comes, he just rolls into it," Brewer said. "Then he left and I turned to the audience and said, 'Y'all, do you realize what just happened? I don't think he's done that in like years! Decades!'"
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More