Shared Darkness

Ethnic
and/or race-based comedy is a notoriously slippery slope, but its
popularity shows no signs of waning, be it in the form astute
observation (see: Chris Rock) or any amount of material decidedly less
so (see: Carlos Mencia). Among the latest into the fray is Russell
Peters, an Indian-Canadian comic whose riotous live performances have
taken him across four continents and back again, thus making the cover
picture of him looming over a globe entirely appropriate.

This disc features a concert performance from San Francisco’s
historic Warfield Theater from January of this year. From the get-go,
Peters dives into differences of race, language and culture, and then
applies this lens to virtually everything, with far more of a bemused
than incendiary point-of-view. In one bit, he assays the nuanced
differences in various Asian tongues, remarking that certain dialects
are identifiable because speakers always sound like they’re falling off
a cliff.

Peters has a natural charisma and charm, but for me, some of the routine seems reductive. (“Black and
Latino?” he queries one audience member. “Your credit must suck!”)
Granted, he makes himself the butt of the joke as often as not (there’s
an amusing run about body hair), but in 2006 do we really need another bit about the differences between how white and black people dance?
Peters’ material is better when he’s examining the world through his
own unique perspective — whether it’s something as simple as his own
name (yes, he’s Indian, but that’s his real surname) or the manner in
which various Caucasian friends are so paralyzed by the idea of being
labeled racists that they’re scared in many instances to speak plainly.

Housed in a regular Amray case, Russell Peters: Outsourced is
presented in a 4×3 aspect ratio with a Dolby digital 5.1 audio track,
and clocks in at 72 minutes. It also features an interesting roster of
optional subtitles that includes English, Hindi, Cantonese and Mandarin
— the first comedy album to tout the latter three, the release boasts.
While some more interview material would certainly have been a welcome
inclusion, one can certainly view a purchase or rental of a title like
this as a lot cheaper than the combination of a date and doubled-down
two-drink minimum at almost any given local comedy club. If Outsourced
sounds like it’s up your alley, invest accordingly. Or if you have long
commutes, check out Peters’ same-named concert CD. For more information
visit his eponymous Web site. C+ (Movie) B- (Disc)

There
were a few brief, if strange, years in the mid-1980s through the early
’90s, when heavy-lidded hoofer Gregory Hines was a bankable film actor,
appearing opposite stars like Billy Crystal in big screen fare like Running Scared and A Rage in Harlem.
His skill set was a unique one, rooted in a leonine charisma, and three
years after his unfortunate passing from liver cancer, two of his
better known movies from this period receive special edition DVD
treatments.

The first is 1985’s White Nights, the rather bloated story of
world-renowned dancer Nikolai Rodchenko (Mikhail Baryshnikov), who,
eight years after defecting from Russia, finds himself back on his
homeland’s soil against his will when his plane is forced to make an
emergency landing. Concerned for their international image and wanting
to coax him into returning of his own volition, Soviet leadership sends
Nikolai to Siberia with American ex-pat Raymond Greenwood (Gregory
Hines), a talented tap dancer who’s requested Russian citizenship
because he’s tired of racism at home. Despite clashing ideologies, the
two men find that their love of dance overcomes principled differences,
even as they lean on one another in reverse fashion. Twyla Tharp’s
choreography and the two stars’ innate talent makes sequences set to
Lionel Richie’s “Say You Say Me” and Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin’s
“Separate Lives” compelling, but the political passages are typically
sludgy and inert.

1989’s Tap is the more interesting of the two movies. It
finds Hines cast as Max Washington, a recently furloughed criminal who
makes moves on an old girlfriend (Suzanne Douglas) and gets involved in
a jewel heist with a local crime boss (Terrence McNally) when the lure
of one big “last payday” becomes too tempting. The story, written and
directed by Nick Castle, is pure boilerplate, but it’s energetically
conveyed, nicely designed and allows Hines to toe-tap with Sammy Davis,
Jr., whose character Little Mo wants to cast Washington in a new revue.
Overall, it’s just a lot more affable and engaging than White Nights, which has a Reagan-era, dual-superpower gravity and somberness that’s out of step with modern circumstances.

Housed in regular Amray cases, Tap and White Nights
are each presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. The latter features
an English language Dolby digital 5.1 track, Portuguese audio track and
optional subtitles in French, Korean, Spanish and the two
aforementioned languages; Tap, meanwhile, features Dolby
surround tracks in English and French, as well as subtitles in those
tongues. Director’s commentary tracks anchor each release, and White Nights includes a nice little making-of featurette. Tap
doesn’t pull a hamstring, though, as four new mini-documentaries
include interviews with Castle, producer Fan Saperstein, Tony Award
nominee Savion Glover and many of the film’s dancers, as well as
beautiful vintage footage of Davis and Hines. C- (White Nights), B (Tap); B (Discs)