Trapped In The Closet (Chapters 1 - 22) [2007]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Last week Keith and Adam's grandma were snowed in in Maine and Kay was having car trouble on top of that so there was no bad movie night. Hopefully the snow will slow down on Mondays so we can stop cancelling. But oh, have we tried to make up for it with this one: the legendary hip-hopera, R. Kelly's "Trapped In The Closet." We only watched up to chapter 22 because the whole thing is almost three hours and there's only so much you can take at once so we will be concluding it next week. The crop of chapters we watched were made from 2005-2007. The remaining chapters were released in 2012.

Quite simply, it must be seen to be believed. The story is a convoluted series of affairs, unnecessary gun wielding, and some minor crime that is best explained through a "who's boinking who" chart that I was going to make myself but found on Wikipedia anyway. After the first 12 the chart is a boinking chain consisting of eight people with one main character not included but by 22 it's a mess including four marriages, five affairs (one homosexual), one lesbian relationship, a bunch of friendships, and one stripper midget who poops his pants. The chart on the left doesn't even include business associates and Sylvester's parents.

As Adam pointed out after the first 12, the opera is very similar to "The Room" but with a lot more people. So how do the two relate?
* Both are essentially one possibly crazy man's vision.
* Both have lines that don't sound like things real people say delivered strangely.
* Both are about affairs and other "real world problems" like drugs and pimping.
* Both seem to be played really serious but have some people insisting they're intentionally funny.
* Both have a poor grasp of how film techniques are used ("The Room's" reestablishing shots vs. "Trapped's" curtain wipes and fading R. Kelly hologram).
* Both are kind of repetitive.
* Both have character's wielding guns and getting disproportionally angry about stuff.
These chapters ended on a cliffhanger about some sort of package that Rufus, the preacher, apparently got. We think it might be code for AIDS. I wish I was kidding.

So with such a masterfully convoluted plot, how about the music? R. Kelly sings all the parts, changing his voice sometimes for certain characters like Southern-accented Bridget, and follows the same song pattern that rhymes for the first few parts before it descends into just singing what people are saying with the same plopping noise and "Ooo"s in the background throughout. The best thing about the way it's structured is the fact that each part has a tendency to end on some big reveal that then echoes ominously. Examples include, "I pulled back the cover. Oh my god, a rubber! Rubber! Rubber!" and "But the man's a midget! Midget! midget!" It is top-tier comedy. Also, while R. Kelly refers to himself as "I" in the first few parts, he soon turns into two people "Sylvester" and "The Disappearing Narrator" and is often represented as both people, sometimes without even changing his clothes. Not to mention he also plays a bunch of the "comedic" minor characters which is pretty painful to watch.

Condoms my friend Alex received at a "Trapped In The Closet" showing and gave to me.

Aside from the wonder that is "Trapped In The Closet (Chapters 23 - 34)" which only comes out to about 45 minutes we found something else to watch next week from this conversation:
Adam: "Which other artists would you like to see make something like this?"
Kay: "I don't know."
Adam: "How about Kanye West?"
Kay: "Oh, that'd be so pretentious!"
Adam: "Yeah!"
Kay: ". . . Now that I think about it, he did make a short film called 'Runaway'."
Adam: "Get out of my house."

Quote: Too many to list and they're all 1000x funnier sung.

Bad Movie Night Crew Review: "Destroy all closets."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "Confusing. It must be funny though because you were all laughing."