Bitchin'
Dave Chappelle's Block PartyUniversal
On a wet Saturday in September 2004, Dave Chappelle hosted a free outdoor show in Brooklyn with Mos Def, Jill Scott, the Roots, Kanye West, Common, Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli, Dead Prez and the Fugees' first performance in seven years. That the filmed document of this event, directed by weirdo genius Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) came out months after Chappelle left his Comedy Central show under hazy circumstances lends it more cultural weight than it was ever meant to bear.
Anyone seeking new sketches will be disappointed. Anyone expecting Chappelle to act like a mentally imbalanced crackhead will be disappointed. And anyone seeking unadulterated performance footage will be disappointed. But free of these expectations, the film is a lark. Snippets featuring Chappelle milling about his Ohio hometown and Bed-Stuy are intercut with slips from the concert itself, but few songs are shown in their entirety. Musical highlights include Kanye's "Get Em High," the Fugees' "Killing Me Softly" and Chappelle's jazzbo bongos-and-spoken-word turn. It's a little bit of a lot of things but not a lot of anything.
