Robert Townsend

A satire on the ups and downs of being a black actor in Hollywood. Bobby Taylor, a young black actor whose attempts to find work are dashed when told that he's not ₁black enough₂ for the roles being offered. With jobs limited to stereotypes (gang-bangers, pimps and Uncle Toms'), Bobby's struggles are told through a series of comic fantasies and dreams.

Harry, a devilish charmer turns up out of the blue on the South Central Los Angeles doorstep of his old friends. In short, order, Harry's presence turns a seemingly peaceful household upside down, exposing smoldering tensions between parents and children, tradition and change, virtue and temptation. Interweaving evocative strains of gospel and blues with rich, poetic-realist images, it is a sublimely stirring film from an autonomous artistic sensibility,...