Yes it did, and this reviewer is also incorrect in suggesting that C.Thomas Howell's decision to take on this role dramatically hurt his career. He was one of many actors from the cast of The Outsiders who did not go on to have two decades of blockbusters. By the early 90s half of that cast including Diane Lane, Ralph Macchio and Emilio Estevez were basically done as far as big A-list draws go.
The problem is, it was the 80s. A time when we didn't dwell on petty BS, and knew how to laugh at ourselves and at others without everyone having an aneurism over it. Welcome to the 2020s, where if anyone COULD get triggered over something, you can best believe that 100 people will get triggered instead, and then someone gets triggered because another person was triggered over THAT person's opinion. I've really learned to hate people in this era.
@@kiillabytez anyone who unironically uses the word "triggered" is immediately discarded by most people as being a koala, this is not an exception this movie flopped critically and people hated it, it was seen as minstrelcy in the 80s, it was minstrelcy, it still is, etc. get some ridges to your brain, my guy you're the only one dwelling on anything petty, in this case people you literally made up to get mad about a fictional scenario you made up in your head.
@@retroguyst8132 that isn't the rebuttal you think it was, it's literally just "nuh uh, other people also" everything i was able to glean from everywhere i looked indicated it quite literally *did* hurt his career, the existence of other people who also didn't take off is just... nothing, it's literally nothing, it's not a rebuke or debunking, it's completely impotent. they are not him and did not have the career he did, their own trajectories are not some standard or trend, some barometer, it's the most nothing of nothings. it's whataboutism. "this hurt his career" "what about other people's careers?"
A while back I was wondering why C. Thomas Howell's career didn't take off after The Outsiders like so many of his castmates' did. Looked him up on IMDB and discovered this thing exists and, woah, boy sure explains why. Great video as always! (was just thinking the other day "Hm...wonder what the next Matt Ammar vid is gonna be?")
I was the same way! I love the Outsiders book and movie. And, when I was a kid, I thought it was so weird that everyone took off but C. Thomas Howell! That explains it! And thank you so much! I hope I can keep up with the anticipation!
Loved your wall review, glad to see someone ACTUALLY review it. Love your content and love your hair! I'm surprised I haven't heard of this film because I'm a huge film nerd and am a big fan of comedies from the 80's and 90's, but this one was a YIKES moment
Thank you so much! I use Mane n Tail on it! 😆 Also, most people don’t know about Soul Man, but the ones who do are trying to prevent it from being buried! Haha
as i’m sure many others have done, i was comparing c thomas howells movies to his co-stars in the outsiders, and i was so confused. When i tell you i was SHOCKED by the amount of movies he’s done, almost none of which were high budget or popular, i made the normal, rational decision to watch every movie he has ever done. I…I see now why he never took off after this movie…
Matt Ammar The movie😂. Trust me, your run time and content are a billion light years better than his. As well as not being any of the horrible things Shane is.
@@hansruhlmann454 I thought they WERE friends before. Unless they played it for views. That kiss, though! Yuck! And to be clear, that yuck was because it's Shane Dawson and Greg (Onision), not because it's two dudes.
I was nearly crying with laughter when the 1812 kicked in - your editing there was genius. But seriously though…what the actual f*ck were they thinking 😬😱 😵
It's also the name of a sitcom starring dan Aykroyd, though it's about a reverend. Only other yhing worth noting is it had a crossover with home improvement
"they told you to stay golden not become black!" X'D I'm fucking dying lol. as soon as I heard "biotech tanning" I was like 'oh shit they're about to Rachel Dolezal this man.'
I can make better ideas for a movie like this in five minutes. How about this: Its a thriller-comedy about a black student whose minority scholarship is cheated out and given to a scheming douche, and the plot's about trying to prove it to the racist authorities.
I was a college kid when the 1984 summer hit song ,Rock Me Tonight by Billy Squier took off. I didn't care much for the tune personally but in spite of that, the song was massively popular getting loads of radio play for about 1 month or so, But by September of that year, the song was gone, just like Millie Vinillie, almost never to be heard again on the radio or from the public. which I thought was kind of odd. Until last year when I saw the Rock Me Tonight video on You Tube for the first time. I was shocked and horrified. It was the most embarrassing, cringe worthy music visual id ever seen. One of those "WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING" moments . Like Howard the Duck and Soul Man. It was the Edsel of 80's music videos. it ruined Squier's reputation and mainstream career.
So, I decided to look this up after you commented this. Oof. It's like Squier was trying to be Olivia Newton-John doing a lighter rip-off of Dio's "Rainbow in the Dark." I did laugh a bit though. 🤣
I was a Billy Squier fan since 1980. he had other classic hits like The Stroke, Emotions in Motion, In the Dark, You Should Be Highlove, My friends saw him live many times. Girls were into him. he packed stadiums. Rock Me Tonight would of been a classic too if it didn't become the sound track to the officially designated worst music video of all time. I think his label and video director did a back room deal to coaxing him into doing questionable moves making him the sacrificial whipping boy.
Over the course of the review, different ideas for how to change the premise just kept popping up: Imagine if Mark did accept the scholarship, is appropriately framed as an asshole, and his friends/family concoct a convoluted plan to show how bad BLACKFACE is. The whole plot is just Mark getting endless shit until he owns up to his stupidity. They could even keep some of the dumb "liar revealed" bits, with Mark coming up more and more lies to "hide" his whiteness (with the ultimate punchline of everybody already knowing he's white). Or imagine if two guys with the same generic name got mixed up-- the white guy ended up getting the black guy's scholarship. White guy feels guilty and the two guys hatch a harebrained scheme to both attend Harvard. Or a white guy gets accepted into Harvard, and to help pay for it he picks up a part-time job at a club or a restaurant, somewhere with primarily black clientele. This one could still have the social commentary--with Mark realizing how easy he has it--or the producers could make it more generic and change the focus to Mark being torn between the profitable law degree and his passion for soul/jazz/whatever music. Or hell, if the movie was about him just trying to kill his dad and use inheritance to pay for Harvard, that would probably be a better movie.
Literally ANY of those ideas would be better than the final product! Honestly, as long as it was seen as bad from the start, and not some quirky “oh, you!” bullshit that we got in the movie.
@@mattammarofficial A very, very, VERY smart decision. You don't even need to dip a toe in that pond, touching it with the end of your toenail is enough to make you drown in seconds.
i don't think Cuties is really all that great (it's Moonlight but very mediocre, plus its reliance on shock overshadows the intended message of the film itself), but I think all the big arguments against it are either fallacious (the "it's like being a serial killer who serial kills just to prove that murder is wrong" argument is entirely based on emotion and deliberately misses the point, plus it conveniently ignores that Always Sunny and Little Miss Sunshine did a lot of the same stuff as Cuties but in a more subtle and satirical way, making it pretty clear that this shit isn't good, whereas Doucoure takes a very ambiguous and serious approach, giving the film a sense of "maybe this can be okay" when it's trying to say "no it's not"; most of the anti-twerking arguments tend to revolve around "twerking is sexual" when it's been appropriated and commodified into a more watered down form, even as early as twerking becoming a thing in the New Orleans bounce scene) or don't take into consideration how utterly stupid the Internet is (the "it should've been animated" crowd doesn't get that animated underage characters often get put into actual child porn - i.e. look at what happened with Peni Parker when Spider-Verse came out) or miss the point on entire film tropes (the "just have the kids be doubled by adults during dance scenes" not only misses the point of Amy and her friends not actually feeling mature when they twerk, but it seems to forget about the entire parody-film trope of replacing leads with obvious stunt doubles because "haha isn't it funny that the red-headed princess is being doubled by a buff black dude in a dance scene" - you really cannot turn that into a dramatic point) it's better that Cuties is not touched with a 39.5-foot pole - the controversy still reeks of QAnon managing to get a bunch of normies to rant about boneless Moonchild with twerking because all they had to do was frame it in accessible language (no really, I was there when people started bemoaning the movie on Twitter under the TVMA hashtag - all of those accounts were QAnon) - but the arguments against it are often really bad. Soul Man on the other hand...oh boy, that's legit a big-ass yikes. tl;dr - Cuties isn't great (or fuck, it's not good in most cases), but the arguments made against it are bad arguments made in bad faith. I wouldn't really consider that and Soul Man on the same par.
I just found you through your review of The Wall, and I'm loving your stuff. I was surprised to see you made a review on this!! I saw this as a kid in the 90s and we knew this movie was offensive then. I just never understood how the hell this thing was made unironically. Also I, like basically everyone in my age group, had such a crush on C. Thomas Howell as Ponyboy. This movie pretty much erases that.
That’s so sad! The Outsiders is one of my favorite books/movies, but I can’t see it the same way after this either. Like I said, I think they were TRYING to have a good message, but this film is a masterclass on how to botch it.
Oh, god, that’s right! I remember I had something about that in the original cut of this video, but I took it out for pacing. But it’s pretty embarrassing!
Yup, I totally thought his friend was going to think he was being mugged. They telescoped that and should have just gone for it bc it was super obvious!
Oh my God, I forgot about this pile of garbage! (I like to believe my brain just hid it away to preserve my sanity). You were so right, this was bad BUUUT the music and backgrounds did help. Also: the meme power that 4:58-5:01 has is extraordinary
Haha one of the biggest issues I failed to mention is, beside the blackface, the movie is entirely forgettable. And, I’m glad I still got some meme power in me! 😆
Soul Man is, above all, a criticism of the ridiculous racial quotas for university entrance in the second half of the 1980s, which today have been generalized to all areas of society and of a person's life. But this movie lacks enough humor and sarcasm to make that claim, and it turns out to be a disaster and the movie is even more ridiculous than the racial quotas themselves. The United States of America is the land of the free and the home of the braves, and no one should be discriminated in any way, positively or negatively, because of race, sex, religion, physical appearance, or economic status.
The thing is I totally get what they were going for, and it’s not like I don’t think a movie like this could NEVER be made. But you’re right, the movie lacks the necessary sense to make their point.
Yep, this movie has aged like a fine diarrhea. Sad to say 7 year old me thought it was hilarious, and found the makeup convincing. . . but that kid also thought Gymkata was the apex of action cinema. I couldn't help but notice you had Krippendorf's Tribe on the TV. Are you going down a college fraud rabbit hole?
@@mattammarofficial I'm from the UK and I remember watching this on network TV with my parents in what must have been around 1990-1991? (films used to take years to appear on TV here in the UK following cinematic release). Then about 5 years ago I got super into the legendary mathcore/metalcore band Botch who have an amazing song titled 'C. Thomas Howell As the "Soul Man"' and that triggered the long buried memory of this film. A friend and I watched it as it was available on fucking Amazon Prime around this time last year and it was not a comfortable watch!
Obviously not to be confused with the sitcom which is also called Soul Man, and no...not the Cendric the Entertainer one, the one with Dan Aykroyd as a priest.
Haha I originally had a segment in the video about Dan Aykroyd’s Soul Man tv show, and the Blues Brothers! I cut it for pacing, but it’s fir sure better than the movie! 🤣
I feel something when I saw the infamous face. I am Black. I don't know whether I should feel disgusted, angry, or shock. Maybe all at once? I can handle off-color humor, but this is...Not good.
I agree, this is a massive yikes of a movie! I also agree about the off color humor. When it's got a point, and it's funny, then it can be used as a great tool for learning.
What makes a racist joke even worse? The fact that it doesn't even make sense. A vasectomy doesn't cause impotence, it just stops the flow of sperm to the seminal fluid. .....but yeah, a completely tone deaf and inappropriate movie.
You know, that license plate joke would actually if they got accepted into UCLA. Come on, that joke was pratically handed to the writers on a silver platter by the comedy gods!!!!!
I remember hearing Soul Man years ago from one of Watchmojo’s videos about controversial movies and I definitely see why this awful film is on the list. Yeah I seen it years ago as well and it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.
Yeah my 8 year old self didn't understand the plot if the movie, but 21 year old me understand it now....sheesh. Plus I found a copy at a goodwill for 50 cents, I shut you not. And I'm now a new subscriber to your channel.
2:46-2:50 the perks of being a celebrity, I mean look at people like Green Day's lead singer billie Joe Armstrong that guy is almost 50 and he looks like he's in the same age group as his sons (who in their 20's)
I had someone try to tell me people liked it when it came out, and younger people not liking it is a generational thing... Critics at the time would definitely disagree with that.
Because it was the 80's and white media didn't care what black people thought, LoL. I'm saying this as a 44 year old black man who grew up in the 80's until now and the only representation we were allowed to have were the musicians/dancers, the sports icons, or the token black person in the white group.
matt...mattaniel...this movie Hurts Me. like i knew the plot, but the clips and your review....i am physically recoiling... THAT SAID your video (eeeeeeeeech of the source material aside...) is excellent tho! it's been great watching you become more comfortable in front of the camera and continue to even further improve your quality and writing just in the past year or so. you were already super solid and polished for just starting out, and it's great to see you hitting your stride -- while still knowing it's still early on! most people don't have the luxury of starting at a baseline level of really good, you know, lucky duck. it's like getting in on a really cool indie game that's still in beta - even if you restrain yourself from being a smug hipster about your good taste out loud once the thing becomes popular, you're still like...lbr. internally, the feeling is there. you just get to be smug on the inside instead anyway, i'm gonna go hit that bell like Right Now, bc ofc yt didn't notify me that you had a new video out until two weeks later. figures! glad to have found this anyway, ofc, made my night. despite....eeeeeeuuuuuugh......
Haha thank you so much! It was a hard watch, especially having to edit and rewatch it many, many times! It's neat being compared to a beta indie game, it's still surreal to me that the channel is growing like it has been! Be as hipster about it as you want, it's safe for all here. 😊 And I'm glad you still found the video, despite RUclips not telling you of it's release. 😆
I realize I'm like super late but when I first read the title of the video I honestly thought it was going to be about a christian super hero, it was worse.
If this is the worst 80s film you've seen, go check out Howard the Duck, Ishtar, Hard Rock Zombies, and Leonard Part 6. If you don't survive, I apologise in advance.
@@gwenofair628 There's a RUclips channel called "Dingo Pictures Plus" that has all the films in multiple languages and in pretty high quality. I love to see bad movies sometimes, and the best of the worst are Dingo and Wakaliwood.
Great review of probably one of the most atrocious films ever made. Bad all around! That’s Ron Reagan Jr playing one of the basketball coaches. I’m sure he regrets that now. I grew up in the 80s and it was a weird time.
I saw it in the theater. Everyone was laughing….There was a movie called True Identity (1991)..About a black man who disguised himself as a white guy to hide from the mob..That was a funny movie too,.
This is a horrible movie with terrible implications but atleast he's not doing a blaccent yet. I'm not at the end yet so who knows Update: THEY DID IT BOYS!
I’ve been thinking about doing a video about the films I have in my collection, a lot of which are underrated! But maybe I’ll do a video just recommending underrated media? Thanks for the suggestion! 😊
@@mattammarofficial Yeah, good suggestion. I actually remember when my family rented "White Chicks" one time and I left at some point early on because it was just so stupid and it even made me feel unclean. I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like for you watching "Soul Man".
@@gengle8565 Thank you so much! I'm trying to figure out how to get my work out there. But I'm very grateful for the positive response I've been getting all around! 😊
Also this movie's theme song is the white cover of Soul Man by the Blues Brothers and not the Sam and Dave original, fun fact in a movie about blackface, FYI not calling the Blues Brothers itself racist just saying this movie never stops even in the background 😂
It's actually right down the middle. It's a cover of Soul Man performed for the film by Sam Moore and Lou Reed. So it was one black and one white guy. Maybe they did that on purpose? If so, what a weird take.
Sounds like a funny movie, a lot of people now just got they're fists clenched and prepared to go to war over every damn thing that is offensive in the slightest.
Sorry Matt, I totally disagree with you on everything. I liked Soul Man. Is it a top comedy? Well no, but it wasn't that bad either. It was a comedy version of Black Like Me. I was not offended by it, and I am Black.
*"How the hell did they think they were gonna get away with this?!"*
The film made back nearly *8 TIMES* its budget. They GOT AWAY with it.
Haha I meant critically, but I like this anyway. 😆
Yes it did, and this reviewer is also incorrect in suggesting that C.Thomas Howell's decision to take on this role dramatically hurt his career. He was one of many actors from the cast of The Outsiders who did not go on to have two decades of blockbusters. By the early 90s half of that cast including Diane Lane, Ralph Macchio and Emilio Estevez were basically done as far as big A-list draws go.
The problem is, it was the 80s. A time when we didn't dwell on petty BS, and knew how to laugh at ourselves and at others without everyone having an aneurism over it. Welcome to the 2020s, where if anyone COULD get triggered over something, you can best believe that 100 people will get triggered instead, and then someone gets triggered because another person was triggered over THAT person's opinion.
I've really learned to hate people in this era.
@@kiillabytez anyone who unironically uses the word "triggered" is immediately discarded by most people as being a koala, this is not an exception
this movie flopped critically and people hated it, it was seen as minstrelcy in the 80s, it was minstrelcy, it still is, etc.
get some ridges to your brain, my guy
you're the only one dwelling on anything petty, in this case people you literally made up to get mad about a fictional scenario you made up in your head.
@@retroguyst8132 that isn't the rebuttal you think it was, it's literally just "nuh uh, other people also"
everything i was able to glean from everywhere i looked indicated it quite literally *did* hurt his career, the existence of other people who also didn't take off is just... nothing, it's literally nothing, it's not a rebuke or debunking, it's completely impotent. they are not him and did not have the career he did, their own trajectories are not some standard or trend, some barometer, it's the most nothing of nothings.
it's whataboutism.
"this hurt his career"
"what about other people's careers?"
A while back I was wondering why C. Thomas Howell's career didn't take off after The Outsiders like so many of his castmates' did. Looked him up on IMDB and discovered this thing exists and, woah, boy sure explains why. Great video as always! (was just thinking the other day "Hm...wonder what the next Matt Ammar vid is gonna be?")
I was the same way! I love the Outsiders book and movie. And, when I was a kid, I thought it was so weird that everyone took off but C. Thomas Howell! That explains it! And thank you so much! I hope I can keep up with the anticipation!
the fact alone that you gathered people to watch this and filmed the reveal is enough! please sir, take my like and subscription
Haha thank you so much! It was a difficult task, seeing this movie that many times, but it’s paying off! 😆
A much better plot device. 😂
"James Earl Jones in "Soul Man" and The Lion King Remake"
Darth Vader: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO000000000000
“He was a white! I felt it!”
Movie: "Have a nice thanksgiving"
Matt: "Fuck you"
Gold XD
Haha you can’t say something racist, then turn around and be wise and nice! 🤣
That was a brilliant review mate :). You're criminally underrated on this platform!
Thank you! I’m trying to get my work out there, but I’m happy people are enjoying my stuff! 😊
Tropic Thunder is everything Soul Man wasn't.
Very much agree!
this movie is like a carton of milk left in a hot summer school for months
Just the thought of this made me gag... just like Soul Man!
Omg that farmer in the dell instrumental takes me back to when RUclips would play it over Danny Gonzales’ outro 😂
After I put it in the video, I remembered that Danny Gonzalez uses it to cover up the copyrighted Outro! 🤣
Loved your wall review, glad to see someone ACTUALLY review it. Love your content and love your hair! I'm surprised I haven't heard of this film because I'm a huge film nerd and am a big fan of comedies from the 80's and 90's, but this one was a YIKES moment
Thank you so much! I use Mane n Tail on it! 😆 Also, most people don’t know about Soul Man, but the ones who do are trying to prevent it from being buried! Haha
as i’m sure many others have done, i was comparing c thomas howells movies to his co-stars in the outsiders, and i was so confused. When i tell you i was SHOCKED by the amount of movies he’s done, almost none of which were high budget or popular, i made the normal, rational decision to watch every movie he has ever done. I…I see now why he never took off after this movie…
Haha yeah… he’s not a horrible actor, but he made a horrible decision by taking in this movie!
I feel like this was written by Shane Dawson
The movie or my review?
Matt Ammar The movie😂. Trust me, your run time and content are a billion light years better than his. As well as not being any of the horrible things Shane is.
@@jackotherstar Haha whew! That's a relief! I don't wanna be anything like Shane Dawson! 🤣
Matt Ammar Maybe you should make a video on Shane like with Onision. I have heard they should be friends.
@@hansruhlmann454 I thought they WERE friends before. Unless they played it for views. That kiss, though! Yuck! And to be clear, that yuck was because it's Shane Dawson and Greg (Onision), not because it's two dudes.
I was nearly crying with laughter when the 1812 kicked in - your editing there was genius. But seriously though…what the actual f*ck were they thinking 😬😱 😵
Haha thank you! I knew I had to use the 1812 Overture, and get those reactions. I couldn't have asked for better results!😂
That's the CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST THEME at the end that's MY FAVORITE SONG!
And you put it in a soul man review.
There is a dagger in my heart LOL
I've seen a lot of weird things, but seeing Ponyboy cosplay as M. Night Shyamalan is certainly one of them.
It's certainly a twist!
I'd rather watch a Soul Man movie about a kid that kills himself because being a ghost is the only way to afford college.
Haha after I made that joke, I realized how funny that concept could actually be! 🤣
Me: The hit song by the Blues Brothers? Oh it’s a movie
Haha I was so close to adding a Blues Brothers reference, but it messed up the pacing, and the video was already so long! 😆
It's also the name of a sitcom starring dan Aykroyd, though it's about a reverend. Only other yhing worth noting is it had a crossover with home improvement
My brain just... I’m in shock I don’t believe this happened
It’s seriously an anomaly!
"they told you to stay golden not become black!" X'D I'm fucking dying lol. as soon as I heard "biotech tanning" I was like 'oh shit they're about to Rachel Dolezal this man.'
Haha as soon as I drove past that mural, I needed to use it! 🤣
Im so glad i found this channel. You deserve a lot more attention then you get. Phenomenal videos.
Thank you so much! I’ve been trying to find a way to get my work out there, but I am happy that there are people that enjoy what I make! 😊
In Portugal it got translated as "Preto no Branco" which if i translate to English it means "Black on White".
I like how strangely literal these translations are. 🤣
I can make better ideas for a movie like this in five minutes.
How about this: Its a thriller-comedy about a black student whose minority scholarship is cheated out and given to a scheming douche, and the plot's about trying to prove it to the racist authorities.
That is a way better idea! Soul Man definitely needed more than a single draft...
Yeah, that would've been better than the actual movie itself.
Cause it sucked hot rotten garbage.
gods i remember this movie being on tv once or twice in the 90's during "Mom has control of the tv" time
This aired on TV?!
@@mattammarofficial I know right!?
I'm just glad no one associates my name "Mark" with this movie. Thank God for Tommy Wiseau's The Room where the name Mark is more associated with.
Oh, hai Mark is certainly better than the alternative: "Hey! You do blackface!" 🤣
Oh, hai Mark is certainly better than the alternative: "Hey! You do blackface!" 🤣
I was a college kid when the 1984 summer hit song ,Rock Me Tonight by Billy Squier took off. I didn't care much for the tune personally but in spite of that, the song was massively popular getting loads of radio play for about 1 month or so, But by September of that year, the song was gone, just like Millie Vinillie, almost never to be heard again on the radio or from the public. which I thought was kind of odd. Until last year when I saw the Rock Me Tonight video on You Tube for the first time. I was shocked and horrified. It was the most embarrassing, cringe worthy music visual id ever seen. One of those "WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING" moments . Like Howard the Duck and Soul Man. It was the Edsel of 80's music videos. it ruined Squier's reputation and mainstream career.
So, I decided to look this up after you commented this. Oof. It's like Squier was trying to be Olivia Newton-John doing a lighter rip-off of Dio's "Rainbow in the Dark." I did laugh a bit though. 🤣
I was a Billy Squier fan since 1980. he had other classic hits like The Stroke, Emotions in Motion, In the Dark, You Should Be Highlove, My friends saw him live many times. Girls were into him. he packed stadiums. Rock Me Tonight would of been a classic too if it didn't become the sound track to the officially designated worst music video of all time. I think his label and video director did a back room deal to coaxing him into doing questionable moves making him the sacrificial whipping boy.
You should of got the double feature. 18 again has George Burns.
Haha it was probably the better idea in retrospect...
Over the course of the review, different ideas for how to change the premise just kept popping up:
Imagine if Mark did accept the scholarship, is appropriately framed as an asshole, and his friends/family concoct a convoluted plan to show how bad BLACKFACE is. The whole plot is just Mark getting endless shit until he owns up to his stupidity.
They could even keep some of the dumb "liar revealed" bits, with Mark coming up more and more lies to "hide" his whiteness (with the ultimate punchline of everybody already knowing he's white).
Or imagine if two guys with the same generic name got mixed up-- the white guy ended up getting the black guy's scholarship. White guy feels guilty and the two guys hatch a harebrained scheme to both attend Harvard.
Or a white guy gets accepted into Harvard, and to help pay for it he picks up a part-time job at a club or a restaurant, somewhere with primarily black clientele. This one could still have the social commentary--with Mark realizing how easy he has it--or the producers could make it more generic and change the focus to Mark being torn between the profitable law degree and his passion for soul/jazz/whatever music.
Or hell, if the movie was about him just trying to kill his dad and use inheritance to pay for Harvard, that would probably be a better movie.
Literally ANY of those ideas would be better than the final product! Honestly, as long as it was seen as bad from the start, and not some quirky “oh, you!” bullshit that we got in the movie.
#AGREED
This Movie along with Netflix Cuties are YIKES
Cuties is like a spiritual successor to this movie.
Haha I’m not touching Cuties with a ten foot pole! 😆
@@mattammarofficial Me too. Already watch it and give it a THUMBS DOWN.
@@mattammarofficial A very, very, VERY smart decision. You don't even need to dip a toe in that pond, touching it with the end of your toenail is enough to make you drown in seconds.
i don't think Cuties is really all that great (it's Moonlight but very mediocre, plus its reliance on shock overshadows the intended message of the film itself), but I think all the big arguments against it are either fallacious (the "it's like being a serial killer who serial kills just to prove that murder is wrong" argument is entirely based on emotion and deliberately misses the point, plus it conveniently ignores that Always Sunny and Little Miss Sunshine did a lot of the same stuff as Cuties but in a more subtle and satirical way, making it pretty clear that this shit isn't good, whereas Doucoure takes a very ambiguous and serious approach, giving the film a sense of "maybe this can be okay" when it's trying to say "no it's not"; most of the anti-twerking arguments tend to revolve around "twerking is sexual" when it's been appropriated and commodified into a more watered down form, even as early as twerking becoming a thing in the New Orleans bounce scene) or don't take into consideration how utterly stupid the Internet is (the "it should've been animated" crowd doesn't get that animated underage characters often get put into actual child porn - i.e. look at what happened with Peni Parker when Spider-Verse came out) or miss the point on entire film tropes (the "just have the kids be doubled by adults during dance scenes" not only misses the point of Amy and her friends not actually feeling mature when they twerk, but it seems to forget about the entire parody-film trope of replacing leads with obvious stunt doubles because "haha isn't it funny that the red-headed princess is being doubled by a buff black dude in a dance scene" - you really cannot turn that into a dramatic point)
it's better that Cuties is not touched with a 39.5-foot pole - the controversy still reeks of QAnon managing to get a bunch of normies to rant about boneless Moonchild with twerking because all they had to do was frame it in accessible language (no really, I was there when people started bemoaning the movie on Twitter under the TVMA hashtag - all of those accounts were QAnon) - but the arguments against it are often really bad.
Soul Man on the other hand...oh boy, that's legit a big-ass yikes.
tl;dr - Cuties isn't great (or fuck, it's not good in most cases), but the arguments made against it are bad arguments made in bad faith. I wouldn't really consider that and Soul Man on the same par.
I just found you through your review of The Wall, and I'm loving your stuff. I was surprised to see you made a review on this!! I saw this as a kid in the 90s and we knew this movie was offensive then. I just never understood how the hell this thing was made unironically. Also I, like basically everyone in my age group, had such a crush on C. Thomas Howell as Ponyboy. This movie pretty much erases that.
That’s so sad! The Outsiders is one of my favorite books/movies, but I can’t see it the same way after this either. Like I said, I think they were TRYING to have a good message, but this film is a masterclass on how to botch it.
I am so offended. I loved Howard the duck!
I think time has been really kind to Howard the Duck.
There must have been too much lead in the gasoline during the 1980s cuz this whole movie is freaking ridiculous.
It's the result of racism and Quaaludes. 🤣
Well, when I started this video, I was hungry. I’m not hungry anymore. So... thanks, Soul Man. I think.
Losing your appetite is normal when watching Soul Man! 🤣
@@mattammarofficial Man, these fad diets just keep getting weirder and weirder lmao
There's a reason why most don't know about this movie...God was trying to protect us
And may he have mercy on us!
this movie gets worse when you learn that lou reed and sam moore recorded a version of soul man just for this movie
Oh, god, that’s right! I remember I had something about that in the original cut of this video, but I took it out for pacing. But it’s pretty embarrassing!
Yup, I totally thought his friend was going to think he was being mugged. They telescoped that and should have just gone for it bc it was super obvious!
The movie needed to either not be made, or have a tighter script not supervised by the director of Friday the 13th Part 3D!
Oh my God, I forgot about this pile of garbage! (I like to believe my brain just hid it away to preserve my sanity). You were so right, this was bad BUUUT the music and backgrounds did help. Also: the meme power that 4:58-5:01 has is extraordinary
Haha one of the biggest issues I failed to mention is, beside the blackface, the movie is entirely forgettable. And, I’m glad I still got some meme power in me! 😆
Soul Man is, above all, a criticism of the ridiculous racial quotas for university entrance in the second half of the 1980s, which today have been generalized to all areas of society and of a person's life. But this movie lacks enough humor and sarcasm to make that claim, and it turns out to be a disaster and the movie is even more ridiculous than the racial quotas themselves.
The United States of America is the land of the free and the home of the braves, and no one should be discriminated in any way, positively or negatively, because of race, sex, religion, physical appearance, or economic status.
The thing is I totally get what they were going for, and it’s not like I don’t think a movie like this could NEVER be made. But you’re right, the movie lacks the necessary sense to make their point.
@@mattammarofficial it should never be made ever.
toothless take
Yep, this movie has aged like a fine diarrhea. Sad to say 7 year old me thought it was hilarious, and found the makeup convincing. . . but that kid also thought Gymkata was the apex of action cinema. I couldn't help but notice you had Krippendorf's Tribe on the TV. Are you going down a college fraud rabbit hole?
Haha at the tail end of me editing this video, my friend informed me of Krippendorf‘s Tribe’s existence, so I’d have to see it first! 😆
Matt: "Inappropriate and racist."
Just like the entire movie in a nutshell.
It's such a baffling watch.
Dude, I should be sleeping but I just discovered your channel 🤣🤣🤣
Haha welcome to the channel! And get some sleep soon! My channel will still be here when you’re awake! 😊
When you wear the beanie in this video, you end up looking like a bootleg Tim Pool. It works.
I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing... 😅
@@mattammarofficial because the beanie man is the racist joke person, it is a good thing.
I'm here because of Botch triggering a childhood memory of this travesty.
I can understand why your childhood self would want to repress this. 🤣
@@mattammarofficial I'm from the UK and I remember watching this on network TV with my parents in what must have been around 1990-1991? (films used to take years to appear on TV here in the UK following cinematic release).
Then about 5 years ago I got super into the legendary mathcore/metalcore band Botch who have an amazing song titled 'C. Thomas Howell As the "Soul Man"' and that triggered the long buried memory of this film.
A friend and I watched it as it was available on fucking Amazon Prime around this time last year and it was not a comfortable watch!
This was definitely worth the month wait
Thank you so much! I’ll try not to make it that long again haha
Obviously not to be confused with the sitcom which is also called Soul Man, and no...not the Cendric the Entertainer one, the one with Dan Aykroyd as a priest.
Haha I originally had a segment in the video about Dan Aykroyd’s Soul Man tv show, and the Blues Brothers! I cut it for pacing, but it’s fir sure better than the movie! 🤣
The Cannibal Holocaust theme playing at the end with clips from Soul Man seems oddly fitting!!!!
I have a feeling you can add it to pretty much any heartfelt speech, and it would strangely work. 😂
I feel something when I saw the infamous face. I am Black. I don't know whether I should feel disgusted, angry, or shock. Maybe all at once? I can handle off-color humor, but this is...Not good.
That dinner scene. Yikes-
Everything in this movie is a huge ass yikes.
I agree, this is a massive yikes of a movie! I also agree about the off color humor. When it's got a point, and it's funny, then it can be used as a great tool for learning.
😅 I say that all the time about Julia Louise Dreyfus. Actually look older when she was on Seinfeld
She’s a very pretty lady. Still is!
I have family buried in Forest Lawn
It's a beautiful place.
This movie review is hilarious. You should also check out Livin Large.
I haven't heard of Livin Large! Maybe I'll give it a go!
What makes a racist joke even worse?
The fact that it doesn't even make sense.
A vasectomy doesn't cause impotence,
it just stops the flow of sperm to the seminal fluid.
.....but yeah, a completely tone deaf
and inappropriate movie.
Haha this comment is one of my favorites I've gotten in a while. I didn't even think about that until I read this. 🤣
I forgot how bad this movie was. 😬
20:31 that was a reference to Prince. He did gestures like that
Oh, I know. But that kid was definitely looking at him in an uncomfortable way.
You know, that license plate joke would actually if they got accepted into UCLA. Come on, that joke was pratically handed to the writers on a silver platter by the comedy gods!!!!!
Haha I know! Then again, it IS Seth’s car. Maybe he went to UCLA? I don’t know, I really don’t want to give this movie the benefit of the doubt. 🤣
7:11 BFDI MOUTH ASSETS?!?!?
Haha to be fair, I think I just googled pngs, and used what I thought was funniest. 😅
I remember hearing Soul Man years ago from one of Watchmojo’s videos about controversial movies and I definitely see why this awful film is on the list. Yeah I seen it years ago as well and it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.
It's awful. I feel dirty watching it more than once for the review...
Yeah my 8 year old self didn't understand the plot if the movie, but 21 year old me understand it now....sheesh.
Plus I found a copy at a goodwill for 50 cents, I shut you not. And I'm now a new subscriber to your channel.
Haha thank you! Did you find it at Goodwill recently? I’m surprised you found it in the wild!
@@mattammarofficial I found it last year, and it just sitting right there, next to Porky's.
2:46-2:50 the perks of being a celebrity, I mean look at people like Green Day's lead singer billie Joe Armstrong that guy is almost 50 and he looks like he's in the same age group as his sons (who in their 20's)
True, I just thought it was worth pointing out.
5:29 yeah that's pretty much my reaction too
Haha yeah, it was hilarious compiling all the reactions. None of us could believe a film like this could exist in the 80’s!
Who green lit this! its a shocking movie .....best thing in it, is otis redding singing I've been loving you to long .
Great, now I'm listening to the song! 😂
Definitely the movie that people leave off their résumés.
Haha 100%, I'd love to ask some of the actors about it one day as a follow up. Can you imagine? 🤣
9:04 Ngl, that alternate title is pretty SUS
You think so? 😂
Soul Man confuses the actual hell out of me.
like how in the hell did they get away with that
I had someone try to tell me people liked it when it came out, and younger people not liking it is a generational thing... Critics at the time would definitely disagree with that.
Because it was the 80's and white media didn't care what black people thought, LoL. I'm saying this as a 44 year old black man who grew up in the 80's until now and the only representation we were allowed to have were the musicians/dancers, the sports icons, or the token black person in the white group.
@@Sum_Yousah did you just try to defend the 1980s blackface comedy film
@@Sum_Yousah dude, did you write Soul Man
Why are you so defensive over it
At least "Tropic of Thunder" and "Silver Streak" (1976) knew how to pull out jokes on blackface that were genuinely funny.
It’s finally arrived.. ❤️
matt...mattaniel...this movie Hurts Me. like i knew the plot, but the clips and your review....i am physically recoiling...
THAT SAID your video (eeeeeeeeech of the source material aside...) is excellent tho! it's been great watching you become more comfortable in front of the camera and continue to even further improve your quality and writing just in the past year or so. you were already super solid and polished for just starting out, and it's great to see you hitting your stride -- while still knowing it's still early on! most people don't have the luxury of starting at a baseline level of really good, you know, lucky duck.
it's like getting in on a really cool indie game that's still in beta - even if you restrain yourself from being a smug hipster about your good taste out loud once the thing becomes popular, you're still like...lbr. internally, the feeling is there. you just get to be smug on the inside instead
anyway, i'm gonna go hit that bell like Right Now, bc ofc yt didn't notify me that you had a new video out until two weeks later. figures! glad to have found this anyway, ofc, made my night.
despite....eeeeeeuuuuuugh......
Haha thank you so much! It was a hard watch, especially having to edit and rewatch it many, many times! It's neat being compared to a beta indie game, it's still surreal to me that the channel is growing like it has been! Be as hipster about it as you want, it's safe for all here. 😊
And I'm glad you still found the video, despite RUclips not telling you of it's release. 😆
oh god not blackface
Haha that is the PROPER response! 🤣
I realize I'm like super late but when I first read the title of the video I honestly thought it was going to be about a christian super hero, it was worse.
Haha imagine Bible Man meet Soul Man! 🤣
would also love to see your take on another comedy with racism, blazing sadles
I haven’t seen it in so long, but I remember loving it! Brilliant satire! 😊
If this is the worst 80s film you've seen, go check out Howard the Duck, Ishtar, Hard Rock Zombies, and Leonard Part 6.
If you don't survive, I apologise in advance.
Haha I haven’t seen Hard Rock Zombies or Leonard Part 6, but Howard the Duck and Ishtar are superb! 🤣
@@mattammarofficial Hard Rock Zombies is the worst film I ever saw before I discovered Wakaliwood and Dingo Pictures. It's so bad it's almost good.
Baron Von Gott Dude dingo pictures is my favorite “animation” studio
@@gwenofair628 There's a RUclips channel called "Dingo Pictures Plus" that has all the films in multiple languages and in pretty high quality. I love to see bad movies sometimes, and the best of the worst are Dingo and Wakaliwood.
I actually really like Howard the duck
Great review of probably one of the most atrocious films ever made. Bad all around! That’s Ron Reagan Jr playing one of the basketball coaches. I’m sure he regrets that now. I grew up in the 80s and it was a weird time.
Thank you so much! They actually had a White House screening of the movie if I remember correctly! 😂
Bro why all the Friday the 13th hate? Jason just needed a little love
Haha I have a little love coming his way this week! 😉
let's hope the all go rhythm favors this, comment comment, keyword, etc
Here’s hoping! 🤞 haha
RIP James Earl Jones
1931-2024 🌹
He is now with Leslie Nielsen in the afterlife.
Will you evermake a Top 10 favorite RUclipsr list? Like examples for your childhood motivation figures?
I think that would be difficult for me, since they keep fluctuating. Though, Red Letter Media been my favorite consistently since 2015.
What does fluctuating meet?
Like, my favorite RUclips list always changes. I like a lot of creatives, and the ranking changes almost daily.
Oh, okay, Thanks,
Why is this film even a comedy? This should have been a more serious film.
I think it's entirely possible to go either way with this kind of subject matter, just with tact and a point, which this movie fails at both.
Wait wasn’t Thomas Howell pressured into taking the role?
I saw it in the theater. Everyone was laughing….There was a movie called True Identity (1991)..About a black man who disguised himself as a white guy to hide from the mob..That was a funny movie too,.
Dude couldn't even get a decent Afro wig. Or were those not around in the 1980s?
Haha would that have made it better tho? 🤣
Jerry Curl was the thing for the Eighties. Afros went out with the 70's, and came back in the late 90's early 2K's.
This is a horrible movie with terrible implications but atleast he's not doing a blaccent yet. I'm not at the end yet so who knows
Update: THEY DID IT BOYS!
Can you do a video talking about movies you find overrated?
I’ve been thinking about doing a video about the films I have in my collection, a lot of which are underrated! But maybe I’ll do a video just recommending underrated media? Thanks for the suggestion! 😊
That sounds cool
I would like to see you review "Nukie".
Haha I don’t know if I’m up for the task! 🤣
I'm not sure which is more uncomfortable, this movie or White Chicks.
tenor.com/Wkic.gif
@@mattammarofficial Yeah, good suggestion. I actually remember when my family rented "White Chicks" one time and I left at some point early on because it was just so stupid and it even made me feel unclean. I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like for you watching "Soul Man".
New video?
Hell yeah!
It’s happening!
Matt Ammar seriously, though. Love the content. You deserve a massive amount of subs.
@@gengle8565 Thank you so much! I'm trying to figure out how to get my work out there. But I'm very grateful for the positive response I've been getting all around! 😊
Matt Ammar keep it up! It’s nice to see such a fresh point of view. I’m doing what I can to spread the word.
@@gengle8565 Thank you for that! And will do! I'm already starting my next video!
eughhhhh this movie is grossssss
Haha isn’t it the worst?
28:48 rewarded for unethical behavior, welcome to American politics
lol that song
Haha which one?
@@mattammarofficial The skin color one. I just started cracking up when they played. Great video as usual.
Thank you! Also, I can’t believe they had the gall to play that! 😆
Just know rae dawn chong from commando
This is probably blasphemous, but I STILL haven't seen Commando! I know, I suck at film... 😅
Soul man was funny as hell
Hi
Hello!
Matt Ammar how was your day
Pretty good, and yours?
Matt Ammar pretty good thanks
Soul man one of the under rated comedy movies ever🤣🤣🤣🤣
Worst comedy of the 80s?
I guess you've never seen Revenge Of The Nerds II?
Can't say that I have.
@@mattammarofficial Some movies only sound good on paper.
Honestly, I've seen made for TV/Direct to DVD releases that were better.
Uh excuse me Garbage Pail Kids is a MASTERPIECE, sir! 😤
I'm actually giving it a watch with my friends at some point this month! I'll report back! 🤣
@@mattammarofficial How did it go?!
Im so late this review but the fact that Steve Tisch co-owner of my favorite NFL team. Im gut punched
switch to synchrinized swimming, loser.
And Risky Business is now coming to 4k. Where's Soul Man on 4k?
He kinda looks Indian though.
He looks sticky. Like he's covered in makeup. 😅
Hope they cast Shane Dawson for the remake 🤞🤞🦐
With cameos from Jeremy Jahns and Justin Trudeau! 🤣
Hell no!! This movie should be burned.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣💀💀💀
Also this movie's theme song is the white cover of Soul Man by the Blues Brothers and not the Sam and Dave original, fun fact in a movie about blackface, FYI not calling the Blues Brothers itself racist just saying this movie never stops even in the background 😂
It's actually right down the middle. It's a cover of Soul Man performed for the film by Sam Moore and Lou Reed. So it was one black and one white guy. Maybe they did that on purpose? If so, what a weird take.
Sounds like a funny movie, a lot of people now just got they're fists clenched and prepared to go to war over every damn thing that is offensive in the slightest.
It should always be remembered by all the f-ing butt-hurts out there... "sticks and stones may break my bones but NAMES WILL NEVER HURT ME."
Sorry Matt, I totally disagree with you on everything. I liked Soul Man. Is it a top comedy? Well no, but it wasn't that bad either. It was a comedy version of Black Like Me. I was not offended by it, and I am Black.
Hey, I respect your opinion! 😊
movie is a classic! "Fetch me my heroin and hypodermic needle"..."whatchoo lookin' at". Those are classic lines that will live on forever.
I REALLY hope this is a bit… 😑