Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Memorable, crazy movie

Lack of good storyline.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

This movie is a sketch on a napkin, a Kodak photograph of a counter- culture going mainstream, going pop culture. In spite of all the loose ends and the technical laziness, i thought the movie had some good elements, like the cast or the improvisation. But the main value of the movie is the report that Toback makes about what was happening, and how this phenomenon came to exist, through a vast range of characters. From the DA psycho son that don't understand what is it all about, to the childish film maker and his homosexual boyfriend, not forgetting the bitch anthropologist and the rich bower character with his crew of pirate street kids.There are a couple of scenes that reflect America in someway, how business and violence are so intertwined and also the misconception that if you have the money you can be anything you want (studio scene). Rich Bower and his close friend Cigar Eco's on what America was built on, grabbing the opportunity by any means necessary, and transcend the conditions where you came from. Specially Rich, he is the "noddles" character (Once Upon A Time in America) in a different time from a different culture, but the same guy.It's all about getting up, don't be afraid.

James Toback directs an extremely underrated film that plays out like a slick, urban version of a Robert Altman piece. Things unfold like a sledgehammer towards the end (I like how a rap music video carries the closing credits into a sort of weird epiphany). The performances are solid and the plot lines intertwine with a feverish tone. Black and White got an extremely unfair ribbing from critics. I think it's powerful stuff. In terms of the acting, Ben Stiller as the unacquainted lead, anchors things and he deviates from his comedic persona to give a unhinge performance. Also, look for a scene where co-stars Mike Tyson and Brooke Shields share a weird and poignant moment. All in all, Black and White gets my full recommendation. See it again (or for the first time) and give it its rightful due.

So, in an alternate universe, where all white men are gay, weak and flimsy, we have "black and white". And this title is descriptive of its portrayals.Total extremist garbage that manages to be racist on multiple levels, depicting white males as weak, sniveling sycophants and black men as powerful, desirable specimens that all white women want to do the deed with because their white husbands are just nowhere near as amazing as the black men. Premeditated filth intended to soothe racial relations but managing to twist them out of proportion. Of note is the fact that the only 'manl'y white guys depicted here are the ones who try to "act black". Incredibly ridiculous and not worth your time.

Robert Downey Jr. is fantastic in all of his 60 or so seconds in this film. I think he is one of the best comic actors of all time.Brooke Shields also does a spot-on amateur documentary film-maker shtick. I didn't even recognize her in her dreadlocks in the first half of the film. She and Downey trail a bunch of rich white high school kids half their age, trying to be one of them as they go slumming. Shields best moment is when she meets a recently married old friend on the Staten Island ferry, and you feel the disparity between Shield's refusing-to-grow-up character and her ordinary, grown-up old friend.Downey's best moments are when he tries to pick up Mike Tyson and when he tries to pick up one of the high school students, reprising his character in Wonder Boys. It's too bad Hollywood has an insurance clause against him now, because everything he does is exceedingly knowing.The flattest moments are the James Tolback Obligatory Sex In Central Park scene, apparently a rehearsal for an identical one in this year's "When will I be loved?", and in the contrived Typical Banker's Family Dinner with the Sullenly Rebellious Daughter While The Manservant Ladles the Soup. Please. We know Tolback has a lot of celebrity friends; they're all in his movies. I doubt he has met a single real banker in his life.Also we are treated to the same flaw which is in Black and White, namely the highly implausible plot devices that tie all of the characters together, wherever they live in the movie and whatever their social strata. He is a big buyer of the Deus Ex Machina.He's also a big buyer of improvisation. In the DVD he says almost all the films are improvised except the one where Claudia Schiffer impersonates what one critic called "the world's most unlikely graduate student", and another called "a surprisingly believable turn as a faithless brainiac". Whatever. She looks hot for the most part except towards the end where they're one outdoor shot in a riverside park where her lips just look too big and she looks like a squeaky and insufficiently made-up skinny yin-yang. What can you do. Her funniest moment was the split second sitting next to and conversing with Robert Downey Jr. when he turns to compare perfume notes with the young man sitting next to him, and she figures out she's no longer the center of attention and suddenly gets up and walks away. Her least likely moment is when she is about to have sex in a bathroom with her boyfriend's best friend. Not that the premise is unlikely: She is just too Teutonic and awkward beneath all that prettiness to look like she's about to tongue-wrestle with a big sweaty gangster. (Much more believable is the news story about her I read the other day where she is applying to private schools for her unborn child.)Tolback cast himself as Tolback pretty much, as usual. If you're the director, why not throw yourself a cameo? It's just a stone's throw from there to writing in a sex scene with the lead actress, but if he did that he'd have to write himself a lead part and then he'd be Vincent Gallo, but he's not, he's more of a voyeur; enough to write those Central Park scenes and shoot them in closeup with full improvisatory rein given to the actors. Let them really get into the moment, keep the cameras rolling.Am I boring you with this review? Is it running on a little long? Does it seem a little disconnected?If you think this is bad, go see the movie.