Trippin' (film)

Last updated

Trippin'
Trippin film poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byDavid Raynr
Written byGary Hardwick
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyJohn B. Aronson
Edited byEarl Watson
Music by Michel Colombier
Production
company
Distributed by Rogue Pictures
October Films [1] [2]
Release date
  • May 12, 1999 (1999-05-12)
Running time
94 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$3 million[ citation needed ]
Box office$9,017,070 [1]

Trippin' is a 1999 American comedy film directed by David Raynr and starring Deon Richmond, Maia Campbell, Donald Faison, and Guy Torry. The film provided one of Anthony Anderson's earliest film roles.

Contents

Plot

Greg (Deon Richmond) is nearing the end of his high school days as graduation slowly approaches. He is also anxiously awaiting prom and has the hopes of going with Cinny (Maia Campbell), the school's local beauty. As he tries to ask his parents for help paying for prom, they begin nagging him after finding out he hasn’t filled out one college application, telling him they won’t give a dime until he fills one out. Along with these wants, Greg is also an avid daydreamer and is always daydreaming ("trippin'") over everything.

Cast

Production notes

Trippin' was filmed on location in California in the city of Los Angeles in 1998. Narbonne High School in Harbor City was used for most of the film's school shots. Harbor City in Los Angeles was also a location used for filming as some of the film's scenes take place on the RMS Queen Mary. The working title of the film while it was in production was G's Trippin, but this was later shortened to its before release.[ citation needed ]

Reception

Trippin' was poorly received by critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 18% of 28 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.4/10.The website's consensus reads: "Trippin' struggles to balance its raunchy teen comedy elements against an unfortunate tendency towards preachy moralizing." [3]

Robert Dominguez of the New York Daily News wrote: "Picture Walter Mitty as a black high school senior and you get the essence of 'Trippin'', a disjointed, lowbrow comedy about a teen coping with his uncertain future through daydreams. Unlike Danny Kaye's milquetoast Mitty character, however, Greg Reed's (Deon Richmond) flights of fancy are often raunchy, R-rated affairs complete with a rap music score and scantily clad video vixens which should appeal mightily to the film's urban-teen target market." He added that the film "trips up on its own scattershot plot and stereotypes, losing steam early once the novelty of Greg's fantasies wears off." [4] Lawrence Van Gelder of The New York Times wrote:

Wrapped like candy in a sure-fire come-on of bouncing bosoms and firm young female bodies, "Trippin'' is a sermon aimed primarily at teen-age black male high school students.

The message: Get real. Get a diploma. Try to go to college.

And the payoff for this effort?

Why, you get to have all the sex you want with the prom queen.

"Trippin"' is a juvenile comedy with its heart in the right place and its airy head incapable of applying logic to its script. [5]

Gene Seymour of the Los Angeles Times called the film "serviceable as an undemanding date movie. It’s not too dissimilar from the teen movies that have proliferated this season; Trippin' looks a lot like an Afterschool Special goosed with dirty words and R-rated sex. With its energetic young cast and flashes of insolence, you wish for more coherence and less meandering in the script. You also wish it would goof on its own didactic impulses. That way, even if it didn’t make sense, you wouldn’t care." [6] Steve Murray of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that the film "keeps trippin’ up on its own mixed message" by "pandering to the basic instincts of its target teen audience. One dream scene features a recruited from a college called 'Morehoward', known as 'Mo Ho' for short. And we get the spectacle of June turning a naked woman into a banana split via whipped cream and chocolate sauce. When June calls a woman a 'bitch', the movie lets her punch him out. He also gets his comeuppance from the many girls he’s lied to. Still, it doesn’t compensate for the ways 'Trippin'' presents most of its women as playthings. Even Cinny never gets to be more than an idealized dream girl One of the film’s subplots has June getting pressed into service by the neighborhood drug dealer The plot seems to be an excuse to trot out a “Terminator”-style fantasy for G an ammo-heavy revenge scenario that’s difficult to enjoy so soon after the Littleton, Colo., slayings. Oh, and for the record, this is another of the countless recent teen flicks that climax at a prom. [7] Nick Carter of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said:

You think it’s crazy to make a movie running through the oldest and boldest caricatures and stereotypes of African-American culture?

Then you must be Trippin', as this crazed comedic and "afroeccentric” vision from a teenage boy’s mind will have just about all who watch it both cracking up and dropping their jaws in their laps.

Think of Trippin'—the latest from Rogue Pictures—as a hip comedy with attitude pulled from the rich and deep wells of ghetto culture and folklore. [8]

Renee Graham of The Boston Globe gave the film only one star and wrote that it "manages to prove only that Hollywood finds black teens as inane, thick-headed, uninspired, and sex-mad as their white counterparts", adding:

The movie is stupidly written by Gary Hardwick, flatly directed by David Raynr, and poorly acted by all involved; the mind boggles to think that someone somewhere thought this mess would work as a movie. And I'm still trying to figure out the film's connection to LA Lakers star Shaquille O'Neal, whose TWISM (which stands for The World Is Mine) clothing line gets plenty of screen time. Still, its inclusion in a film this terrible isn't likely to send sales soaring. Trippin' " is one trip to be avoided at the movies. [9]

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle castigated the film, writing:

"Trippin'" is the movie equivalent of a bug not worth squishing. But I have my shoes on anyway, and there's no point in holding back. Bad movie! Bad movie! Bad! Bad!

It's not only bad. It's bad, and the climactic scene takes place at the high school prom. It's bad, and it has a romantic hero who tells the girl he likes that he wants to "hit" her rear-end "like a home run in the ninth inning." She likes him because he's sensitive.

The screenwriter of this mess, Gary Hardwick, claims to have written "Trippin'" in all of two weeks. It's hard to believe a writer could type that slowly. This is a formula script, pure and simple. It was either written cynically, by someone following a formula, or sincerely, by someone who can think only in formula. Hard to say which is worse.

[...]

The picture's lone distinguishing feature is that Greg does a lot of daydreaming—or "trippin'"—so the picture flows in and out of fantasy sequences. Greg is surrounded by beautiful women. Greg is a big shot at college. Then Greg wakes up.

Deon Richmond brings some good nature to the role of Greg, but he has no comic charm. It's a terrible burden for a young actor. If Richmond is not, on his own, worth watching, there's no movie. [10]

Roger Ebert's review was somewhat more favorable; in it, he wrote:

The movie is sweet, but predictable, and we get about three more daydreams than we really require. Richmond and Campbell both possess radiant smiles, which is important in a movie where a character's appearance supplies at least half of his character development. Whether Richmond and Campbell will someday be getting better roles is impossible to predict, but on the basis of their work here, it's not implausible. Did I like the movie? Not enough to recommend it, except to someone who really wants to see another senior prom cliffhanger. Still, there are so many grim and gritty urban violence movies that it's good to see nice African-American kids in a comedy, even if it's so lacking in imagination that it finds it necessary to hang them upside down. [11]

Terry Lawson of the Detroit Free Press wrote that "it's not difficult to figure out where "Trippin' " is headed, but compared to most movies aimed at young African-Americans, it takes the high road." [12] Jeff Strickler of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote that "the characters are likable—so much so that you feel sorry for them for getting stuck in this umpteenth story about a guy who lies to impress a woman and then gets caught in his lies." [13] In Canada, Norman Wilner wrote in The Toronto Star that the film "takes a perfectly good coming-of-age story and wrecks it by piling on a lot of dopey trimmings." [14]

The film made $2,527,909 its opening weekend and grossed a total of $9,017,070 during its theatrical run. [1]

Release

Trippin' was released during the start of the summer movie season of 1999. It was released in a limited number of theaters compared to the summer blockbusters released around the same time. The film did well enough to crack the top ten in gross receipts during its first few weeks of release.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tyler Hoechlin</span> American actor

Tyler Lee Hoechlin is an American actor. Initially earning recognition for starring as Michael Sullivan Jr. in the 2002 film Road to Perdition. In television, Hoechlin went on to star as Martin Brewer on 7th Heaven between 2003 and 2007, and also became known for portraying Derek Hale on Teen Wolf and Superman in The CW's Supergirl (2016–2019) and Superman & Lois (2021–present).

<i>10 Things I Hate About You</i> 1999 American film by Gil Junger

10 Things I Hate About You is a 1999 American teen romantic comedy film directed by Gil Junger in his film directorial debut and starring Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Larisa Oleynik. The screenplay by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith is a modernization of William Shakespeare's comedy The Taming of the Shrew, retold in a late-1990s American high school setting. The film follows new student Cameron James (Gordon-Levitt) who is smitten with Bianca Stratford (Oleynik) and attempts to get bad boy Patrick Verona (Ledger) to date her antisocial sister Kat (Stiles) in order to get around her father's strict rules on dating. Named after a poem Kat writes about her romance with Patrick, the film was mostly shot in the Seattle metropolitan area, with many scenes filmed at Stadium High School in Tacoma, Washington.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian Campbell</span> Canadian actor

Christian Campbell is a Canadian actor. He is known for his roles as Gabriel in the film Trick, Greg Ivey in the television series Big Love and on stage as Jimmy Harper in the musical Reefer Madness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jason Bateman</span> American actor (born 1969)

Jason Kent Bateman is an American actor. He is known for his starring roles in numerous comedy films and for portraying Michael Bluth in the Fox / Netflix sitcom Arrested Development and Marty Byrde in the Netflix crime drama series Ozark (2017–2022). He has received several awards including a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2017, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

<i>Just One of the Guys</i> 1985 film by Lisa Gottlieb

Just One of the Guys is a 1985 American teen comedy film directed by Lisa Gottlieb and co-written by Dennis Feldman and Jeff Franklin, although according to Gottlieb, she also co-wrote the screenplay together with her writing partner Mitch Giannunzio but then was supposedly denied writing credit by the producers. Just One of the Guys is a loose adaptation of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Williamson (screenwriter)</span> American screenwriter, director, and producer (born 1965)

Kevin Meade Williamson is an American screenwriter, director, and producer. He is known for developing and writing the screenplay for the slasher film Scream (1996)—which launched the Scream franchise—along with those for Scream 2 (1997) and Scream 4 (2011). He is also known for creating the WB teen drama series Dawson's Creek (1998–2003), the CW supernatural drama series The Vampire Diaries (2009–2017), the Fox crime thriller series The Following (2013–2015) and the CBS All Access thriller series Tell Me a Story (2018–2020).

<i>Shes All That</i> 1999 film by Robert Iscove

She's All That is a 1999 American teen romantic comedy film directed by Robert Iscove. It stars Freddie Prinze Jr., Rachael Leigh Cook, Matthew Lillard, and Paul Walker. After being dumped by his girlfriend, Zack Siler boasts he could make any girl at his high school popular. It is a modern adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion and George Cukor's 1964 film My Fair Lady.

<i>Under the Tuscan Sun</i> (film) 2003 film by Audrey Wells

Under the Tuscan Sun is a 2003 American romantic comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by Audrey Wells and starring Diane Lane. Based on Frances Mayes' 1996 memoir of the same name, the film is about a recently divorced writer who buys a villa in Tuscany on a whim, hoping it will lead to a change in her life. The film was nominated for the Art Directors Guild Excellence in Production Design Award, and Lane received a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance.

<i>Not Another Teen Movie</i> 2001 film by Joel Gallen

Not Another Teen Movie is a 2001 American teen parody film directed by Joel Gallen and written by Mike Bender, Adam Jay Epstein, Andrew Jacobson, Phil Beauman, and Buddy Johnson. It features Chyler Leigh, Chris Evans, Jaime Pressly, Eric Christian Olsen, Eric Jungmann, Mia Kirshner, Deon Richmond, Cody McMains, Sam Huntington, Samm Levine, Cerina Vincent, Ron Lester, Randy Quaid, Lacey Chabert, Riley Smith and Samaire Armstrong.

<i>Sister, Sister</i> (TV series) American television sitcom (1994–1999)

Sister, Sister is an American television sitcom starring Tia and Tamera Mowry as identical twin sisters separated at birth who are reunited as teenagers. It premiered on April 1, 1994, on ABC as part of its TGIF comedy lineup, and finished its run on The WB on May 23, 1999, airing 119 episodes over six seasons. The cast consisted of the Mowry sisters with Jackée Harry and Tim Reid costarring as their respective adoptive parents, alongside Marques Houston as their annoying neighbor Roger. RonReaco Lee and Deon Richmond later joined the cast in the fifth season.

Deon Richmond is an American actor from New York City who is best known for his recurring roles as Rudy Huxtable's friend Kenny on the NBC sitcom The Cosby Show and Jordan Bennett on the ABC/The WB sitcom Sister, Sister. He has been nominated for two Young Artist Awards, winning one in 1989.

<i>American Pie</i> (film) 1999 American film

American Pie is a 1999 American coming-of-age teen sex comedy film directed and co-produced by Paul Weitz and written by Adam Herz. It is the first film in the American Pie theatrical series and stars an ensemble cast that includes Jason Biggs, Chris Klein, Alyson Hannigan, Natasha Lyonne, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Tara Reid, Mena Suvari, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Seann William Scott, Eugene Levy, Shannon Elizabeth, and Jennifer Coolidge. The film's story centers on a group of five classmates who attend the fictional East Great Falls High School. The youths make a pact to lose their virginity before their high school graduation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kat Dennings</span> American actress (born 1986)

Katherine Victoria Litwack, known professionally as Kat Dennings, is an American actress. She is known for her starring roles as Max Black in the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls (2011–2017) and as Darcy Lewis in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero films Thor (2011), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), and the Disney+ miniseries WandaVision (2021).

<i>Whatever It Takes</i> (2000 film) 2000 American film

Whatever It Takes is a 2000 American teen comedy film directed by David Raynr and starring Shane West, Marla Sokoloff, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, and James Franco. It was released in the United States on March 24, 2000. The film's story is a modern update of the 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand.

<i>Bart Got a Room</i> 2008 American film

Bart Got a Room is a 2008 comedy film written and directed by Brian Hecker, and stars Steven Kaplan, Alia Shawkat, William H. Macy, and Cheryl Hines. Also appearing in the film are Ashley Benson, Brandon Hardesty, Kate Micucci, Jennifer Tilly, Dinah Manoff and Chad Jamian Williams as Bart. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 25, 2008. It had a limited US release in select theaters on April 3, 2009, and was released on DVD on July 28, 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cameron Diaz filmography</span>

Cameron Diaz is an American actress who has appeared in over 40 films throughout the course of her career, which spans over two decades. Originally a model, Diaz made her film debut in the comedy The Mask (1994). Followed by supporting roles in several independent films and comedies, such as My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), she has the starring role of Mary in the hit comedy There's Something About Mary (1998), which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy or Musical. She was subsequently cast in Spike Jonze's surrealist fantasy film Being John Malkovich (1999), which earned her a second Golden Globe nomination, and in Oliver Stone's sports drama Any Given Sunday (1999).

Stonewall W. "Stoney" Jackson is an American actor. Jackson was born in Richmond, Virginia.

<i>F the Prom</i> 2017 American film

F the Prom is a 2017 American teen comedy film directed and produced by Benny Fine and written by him, Rafi Fine, and Molly Prather. In the film, two estranged best friends reunite due to unfortunate circumstances and conspire to destroy the senior prom. The film stars Danielle Campbell, Joel Courtney, Madelaine Petsch, and Cameron Palatas, with Meg DeLacy, Nicholle Tom, Richard Karn, Jill Cimorelli, Luke Bilyk, Brendan Calton, Michael Chey, Adan Allende, Diamond White, Cheri Oteri, and Ian Ziering in supporting roles. It was released online and on-demand on December 5, 2017.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Trippin at Box Office Mojo
  2. ↑ "Trippin' (1999) - Financial Information". The Numbers . Retrieved March 21, 2021.
  3. ↑ "Trippin'". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango Media . Retrieved November 25, 2022.
  4. ↑ Dominguez, Robert (May 12, 1999). "'TRIPPIN' FALLS FLAT; DAYDREAM-BELIEVER TALE'S STUCK IN FAMILIAR FANTASYLAND". Daily News . New York City, New York, United States. Archived from the original on November 27, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2024.
  5. ↑ Van Gelder, Lawrence (May 12, 1999). "Prom Queens, Evidently, Go for the Scholarly Type". The New York Times . Retrieved March 28, 2024.
  6. ↑ Seymour, Gene (May 12, 1999). "Teen Comedy 'Trippin'' Can't Quite Keep Things Real". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved March 28, 2024.
  7. ↑ Murray, Steve (May 12, 1999). "'Trippin'' stumbles over mixed message". The Atlanta Journal . Retrieved March 28, 2024.
  8. ↑ Carter, Nick (May 15, 1999). "'Trippin'' is fantasy gone 'afroeccentric'". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via The Commercial Appeal . Retrieved March 28, 2024.
  9. ↑ Graham, Renee (May 12, 1999). "Annoying 'Trippin'': Hip-hop teen film falls flat". The Boston Globe . Retrieved March 28, 2024.
  10. ↑ LaSalle, Mick (May 12, 1999). "'Trippin'' Stumbles and Can't Get Up; Star lacks comic charm to carry formulaic plot". San Francisco Examiner . Retrieved March 28, 2024.
  11. ↑ Ebert, Roger (May 12, 1999). "TRIPPIN'". Chicago Sun-Times . Archived from the original on August 25, 1999. Retrieved March 28, 2024.
  12. ↑ Lawson, Terry (May 12, 1999). "'Trippin' steps lightly around its plot". Detroit Free Press . Retrieved March 28, 2024.
  13. ↑ Strickler, Jeff (May 12, 1999). "'Trippin'' takes on trite and true tact". Star Tribune . Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Retrieved March 28, 2024.
  14. ↑ Wilner, Norman (September 10, 1999). "Coming-of-age story doesn't grow up". The Toronto Star . Retrieved March 28, 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.