The 40-Year-Old Version

Had a fair bit of secondhand cringe watching this. Some of it seemed intentional, others not so much.

How the hell can you be "authentic", whatever that means? How do you tell a story about yourself without making it about those you're telling it to? And why would they listen? Well, because it's both funny and clever and dodges a lot of holes lesser movies would stumble into. Might be slightly overlong, but even those bits are there to tell a story.

The line "this ain't dangerous minds..." had me in stitches and after that I was totally sold. Rap culture is often about authenticity (which is why there are never any cover versions in the genre, right?) and Radha explores and satirizes the impossibility of striving for authenticity in equal measure, and its hilarious!

Not as corny as some would have you believe but definitely not as profound as most would lead you to believe. It has a couple decent jokes.

Charming enough if a little on the nose and simplistic. The black and white photography does nothing for me. Reviews harkening to Allen and Spike makes sense wrt it being an authentic piece of New York storytelling. Unlike them, she needs to work a lot more on the visual element.

Overlong, uneven character study is too forced and didactic, leaning heavily into "woke" tropes, but is almost compensated by Blank's impressive multi-hyphenate work - as a performer, she delivers a pleasingly relaxed and likable performance, while her direction reflects a fresh and vibrant take on the backstage/artistic struggle (the B&W cinematography is outstanding). With some tightening, and more subtle writing, this could have been great - and hopefully serves as a marker of things to come.

"I heard it from the hallway—that shit was corny."

It misses the mark at times and could have used some trimming, but Blank is a charismatic and naturally funny centre and there is plenty of charm and sharp observation to balance out the longueurs.

This was really good! Funny, insightful, and filmed in a very nice black and white.