Get Rollin' to Big Fun at the House Party
This time on Notes from the Back Row, Carlo and Dan are diving into a trio of hip-hop and music based feature films that span from the early eighties and into the nineties.
First, they check out Get Rollin', a forgotten 1980 documentary about roller-disco in New York City. This documentary follows three of the scene's characters on-and-off the rink, dabbling in pseudo-scripted scenes and featuring plenty of roller disco dancing. The film never captured a wide audience - possibly due to roller-disco being labeled a fad and dying out as hip-hop and rap took over the airwaves - and likely won't see a BluRay release any time soon thanks to murky music rights and (allegedly!) a rights owner who does not care to release it.
Next, we move to 1985 for Big Fun in the Big Town, a Dutch television documentary about the fracturing hip-hop scene - the new-school is rising with acts like Run DMC, Doug E. Fresh is beatboxing on corners, LL Cool J still lives with his Grandmother, and the Dutch television crew interviews them all and then some. This is a vital document of a scene moving in all directions at once and features incredibly candid interviews with major players, lesser-knowns and everyone in-between.
Finally, we move into 1990 as Kid n' Play's accessibly party-raps lead them to box-office success with House Party. This New Line-released comedy sees Kid struggling with whether or not to reject some of the toxic ways of his friends, and also features a very sweet central relationship with Tisha Campbell-Martin's character. We discuss whether or not this film has aged well, and what we liked about some of the movie's smaller character moments.
All of this and much more in our latest episode!
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