Three cheer for the interobang!?! Oh wait what? Yeah, Is That Black Enough for You?!? is a pretty good documentary about the rise of black film (blaxploitation, even) from 1968-1978… and black actors, directors, and writers throughout cinema history in general. It’s about two and a quarter hours long and gets lost in the early 70s for a very long time.

We get a lot of interviews with actors and directors from that era as well as younger recognizable names who were influenced by them as kids. We get a cavalcade of cinematic examples explained to us by narrator/director Elvis Mitchel. There are descriptions and arguments made as part of this long history text that might just make you add a few films to your watchlist.

Unfortunately, there are some problems with the writing. Often it just feels like reading off a title of a film without really diving deep enough into why it’s important. The film also relies too heavily on assuming the audience knows the importance of a particular movie, director, actor, or composer. Fair enough if you know film history… but if you don’t, it’ll probably leave a question mark over your head.

Plus the narration jumps between topics in a seemingly random way. For example, at one point bouncing all the way back to 1939 after having already gone through the early history of Hollywood an hour earlier. The movie needed title cards or chapter breaks to let us know we’ve ended one particular point and moved onto another. That’s especially true since the script makes a lot of broad, blanket statements and moves on rapidly to another topic without providing context, details, or arguments.

I had a lot of problems with this docs structure and narrative details… but I still watched the whole thing in one sitting, engrossed and informed. So it ultimately works out quite well regardless of my issues. Worth a watch for the deep dives into history, that’s for sure.

Score: 84