L.A. Rio Spectacular
2005 A Crazy Politically Incorrect Satire


 

This was the official website for thew 2005 film, L.A. Rio Spectacular, crazy politically incorrect satire about the 1992 LA riot.
Content is from the site's archived pages as well as from other outside sources.

Director:Marc Klasfeld
MPAA Rating:R (for pervasive language, violence, some sexual content and brief drug use)
Screenwriter:Marc Klasfeld
Starring:Snoop Dogg, T.K. Carter, Charles S. Dutton, Emilio Estevez, George Hamilton, Charles Durning, Christopher McDonald, Jonathan Lipnicki, Ted Levine, William Forsythe, Ronny Cox, Jude Ciccolella, Ron Jeremy, Tabitha Stevens, Shay Roundtree
Release date:August 4, 2006  (LA)
Studio:Rockhard Films

 



The L.A. Riot Spectacular - Trailer
THE L.A. RIOT SPECTACULAR, narrated by Snoop Dogg, is an outrageous all-star satire starring T.K. Carter, Charles Durning, Emilio Estevez, Christopher McDonald, Charles S. Dutton, Ronny Cox and George Hamilton plus appearances by adult stars Ron Jeremy and Tabitha Stevens. The film bravely tackles Los Angeles' devastating riots that erupted after the Rodney King beating. As funny as it is thought-provoking, this gloriously politically incorrect comedy reenacts the videotaped beating and continues through the police officers' trial and the destructive aftermath. The film riffs on the city's explosive ethnic and social tensions, skewers the media's hunger for higher ratings and digs into the hypocrisy of the Los Angeles Police Department.

After the explosive, destructive Los Angeles riots of April 1992, the controversial figure in the eye of the storm, Rodney King, meekly queried the charred, smoldering city with one of the most memorable catchphrases of the 90s: "Can't we all just get along?" Well, apparently more than a decade later, we have-so much so that we're able to laugh at our predicament. The urban offspring of Spinal Tap and the Naked Gun series, L.A. Riot Spectacular wittily satirizes the Rodney King verdict and its riotous aftermath, spoofing the LAPD, the media, and the stereotypes that continue to haunt African American, Jewish, Mexican, and Korean citizens today.

Rapper/actor Snoop Dogg serves as a hip-hop Greek chorus and joins a cast that includes George Hamilton, Charles Dutton, Emilio Estevez, TK Carter, Charles Durning, and Ron Jeremy. In director Marc Klasfeld's consistently amusing version of this West Coast legend, Rodney King and Reginald Denney get to walk a paparazzi-lined red carpet, a hospitalized King gets hooked up to a 40-ounce I.V., and the police officers responsible for his beating become tour bus-riding rock star-like heroes. Intercut with actual news footage from the King beating, riots, and looting, this send-up takes a critical look at the volatile class issues of our multicultural society, always remembering never to take itself seriously.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Marc Klasfeld is one of the top music video directors in the world. His award-winning and breakthrough videos for such diverse artists as Jay-Z, Foo Fighters, Nelly, Sum 41, Beyonce, Eminem, Enrique Iglesias, Bon Jovi, N'Sync, and Jewel have dominated MTV playlists and established Klasfeld as a director with a very unique voice. Klasfeld grew up in New Jersey and graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and founded his own production company, Rockhard Films. He has also directed many commercials for such clients as Nike, Subway, Gateway, Reebok and ESPN.

 

REVIEWS

 

 

IMDb User Review

An odd, cheap and far too simplistic movie.

4/10 27 November 2011 | by Boba_Fett1138

It always seemed like a weird thing to me; a comedy about the 1992 L.A. riots. But that was exactly the reason why I also really wanted to see this movie. It sounded crazy! Also due to the involvement of Snoop Dogg. And it was crazy alright, just not in a very funny or good way.

I really don't understand what the movie is trying to achieve with its comedy. You would think that it's perhaps a sort of social satire and commentary on the whole situation but the movie however is making fun of everyone and everything. It's making fun of and it's criticizing the role of the media. It's making fun of the police, making fun of the protesters, victims, lawyers and the whole court-system and whatever more. Even the beating up of Rodney King is portrayed as something funny.

But thing with its comedy as well is that it isn't anything funny or greatly written. It's being quite childish and simplistic with all of its humor, maybe even borderline offensive. It's making fun, in quite a harsh way, of a ton of religions and ethnicities.

But just like its script and comedy, the whole movie is a real cheap one. It has an horrible, shot on video, type of look and the movie just looks as if they didn't even had a budget to work with.

It almost seems that this was a fun, vanity, project for Snoop Dogg and he blackmailed or forced some of his Hollywood friends to help him out with this project. It would explain why some well known and respected actors appear in this movie, that normally would stay miles away from a project such as this one.

Seriously, why are people such as Charles S. Dutton, Emilio Estevez, George Hamilton, Charles Durning, Ted Levine and Ronny Cox in this movie? And it's not like they are only doing cameos but they actually play the most 'important' roles of the movie. It's such an odd sight to witness them in such a cheap and just plain amateur like production, such as this one.

I really thought this movie would be fun but it turned out to be a bitter disappointment.

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Dogs eye view: No doubt about it, L.A. Riot Spectacular was a dud. But that's one of the reason I added it to the list of films, me and my buds lined up for our monthly get together to view the worst films made. We had started this little gathering when we were in film school at NYU and have continued it for about five years now. We haven't run out of films to view. My partner will sometimes watch our monthly choices with us, but rarely lasts for the entire film(s). She left rather early on with L.A. Riot Spectacular saying she was going to see if she could find a dog pillow bed for our new little pooch, Peaches. For some reason Peaches loved to curl up on pillows to take her nap. That included our pillows on the bed. So we decided the way to go was to buy a dog bed that looked like a pillow. While we watched L.A. Riot Spectacular, my partner found a great website called GoodnightDog that sold round dog beds that were perfect. In fact the bed looked so much like a regular floor pillow that friends who came to visit often mistook Peaches' dog bed for a floor pillow. Fortunately Peaches was willing to share her pillow bed with humans, unlike us who were not willing to share our bed pillows with our dog. Umm! Peaches also didn't have any opinions about L.A. Riot Spectacular either!

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TOMATOMETER CRITICS 29% | AUDIENCE 39%

 

Aug 10, 2006
John Anderson
Variety  Top Critic
[The] pic feels overlong because once it's established that this is going to be a tasteless, if occasionally hilarious, exercise in social criticism, the movie needs to constantly accelerate the level of hilarity, which is impossible to do.

~~~

Aug 10, 2006 | Rating: 1.5/5
Mark Olsen
Los Angeles Times
A veteran director of music videos, [Marc] Klasfeld has for his feature film debut churned out a lifeless series of sketch-comedy ideas that presumably would make even the Wayans brothers blanch at their broadness.

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Jul 15, 2006 | Rating: 2/5
Chris Barsanti
Filmcritic.com
A film that works overtime to offend each and every ethnic group and economic class that makes up the smoggy purgatory of Los Angeles while simultaneously patting itself on the back for being so putatively daring.

~~~

Aug 4, 2006 | Rating: F
Brian Orndorf
FilmJerk.com
Stunningly, the end of 'The L.A. Riot Spectacular' promises a sequel taking on the OJ Simpson trial. If I have to physically go to the west coast and prevent this from happening, I'm prepared to make that commitment.

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Aug 10, 2006
Steven Mikulan
L.A. Weekly
 Top Critic
The gags are mortally unfunny.

 

 

The L.A. Riot Spectacular

"The L.A. Riot Spectacular" is a comedy that's vulgar, disturbing, distasteful and violent, but so is injustice and civil unrest. T.K. Carter plays Rodney King with a hustler brio in a film so eager to be an equal-opportunity offender it will put off even adventurous distributors. But cable outlets should leap at it

By JOHN ANDERSON MAY 10, 2005 | https://variety.com/

“The L.A. Riot Spectacular” is a comedy that’s vulgar, disturbing, distasteful and violent, but so is injustice and civil unrest. T.K. Carter plays Rodney King with a hustler brio in a film so eager to be an equal-opportunity offender it will put off even adventurous distributors. But cable outlets should leap at it.

It was in March of 1991 that King was beaten by police, whose actions were caught on videotape. The cops were subsequently tried and exonerated, setting off violence that left 55 dead, 2,000 injured and more than $1 billion in property damage. Whether auds — especially in Los Angeles — will find the movie funny, hateful or just a little tardy, may depend whether they think anything has changed since the early ’90s.

The cops, including officers Powell and Koon (Emilio Estevez and Christopher McDonald) are betting on whether the driver of the car they’re pursing will be black, Mexican or Asian (“Always bet on black,” says Powell). “Let the beating commence,” says King, his life story failing to sway the sentiments of the baton-wielding officers.

“A textbook example of policing,” says Chief Gates (Ronny Cox) of the King arrest, even as he prepares to scapegoat Powell and Koon and keep the media off his tail.

“The L.A. Riot Spectacular,” like a live-action “South Park,” doesn’t care how far it goes, but always seems to have a grain of truth behind its humor. It’s calculatedly harsh that a besieged Asian business would be called “Mr. Kim’s Riquor” or a black church “Cracker Hatin’ Ministries,” but the names reflect the real biases and resentment that fueled the 1992 riots. Members of the Crips and Bloods, lining up over an open grave and falling in, two by two after they shoot each other, may be a burlesque, but the sense of pointless waste isn’t irrelevant.

Portrayal of a sort of parasite class may be the most painful (if often one of the funnier) part of the film: Anne-Marie Johnson and David Rasche play a pair of “Entertainment Tonight”-type correspondents who urge rioters into more camera-friendly mayhem, ignore any injustice that isn’t on tape and generally — as many observers then noted of the media — throw gas on the fire. Similarly, Charles Durning’s turn as lawyer Steve Lerman also won’t be doing much for the image of the legal profession.

Still, pic feels overlong because once it’s established that this is going to be a tasteless, if occasionally hilarious, exercise in social criticism, the movie needs to constantly accelerate the level of hilarity, which is impossible to do.

Acting is deliberately over the top, and tech aspects purposely approximate the non-pro look of such guerrilla video as the King beating itself.

The L.A. Riot Spectacular

PRODUCTION: A Rockhard Films/Visionbox Pictures production in association with Entitled Entertainment, El Camino Pictures, Cherry Road Films, Richman-Katz Entertainment. Produced by John Bard Manulis, Marc Klasfeld. Executive producers, James Burke, Scott Disharoon, Bob Yari, Bo Hyde, Kendall Morgan, Keith Richman, Charles Katz. Co-producers, Barry Opper, Chris Miller, Lulu Zezza. Directed, written by Marc Klasfeld.

CREW: Camera (color, DV), Barry Norwood; editor, Richard Alarcon; music, Nicholas Pike; music supervisor, Frankie Pine; production designer, Alan E. Muraoka; set decorator, Kris Fuller; costume designer, Gitte Meldgaard; sound (Dolby SR), Daniel D. Monahan; special-effects coordinator, Josh Hakian; visual-effects supervisor, Morris Paulson; visual effects, Base 2 Studios; stunt coordinator, Mike Smith; choreographer, Tony Gonzalez; associate producers, Alison R. Foster, Khene Tan, Randy Weiss, Amanda Fox, Robin Frank, Jalina Stewart; assistant director, Joseph E. Lotito; casting, Heidi Levitt, Mia Levinson Wheeler. Reviewed at Tribeca Film Festival (Wide Angle), April 27, 2005. Running time: 80 MIN.

WITH: Officer Koon - Christopher McDonald Officer Powell - Emilio Estevez Rodney King - T.K. Carter Chief Gates - Ronny Cox Mayor Bradley - Charles Dutton Byung Lee - John Shin Soon-Il Lee - Satya Lee Harry - David Rasche Mary - Anne-Marie Johnson Steve Lerman - Charles Durning Narrator - Snoop Dogg The King of Beverly Hills - George Hamilton

 



The LA Riot Spectacular Trailer
Rodney King, PCP, police, fire, riots and rap. What else is there? This crazy politically incorrect satire about the 1992 LA riots stars Snoop Dogg, Emilio Estevez, George Hamilton, Charles Dutton, Ron Jeremy, Tabitha Stevens and Jonathan Lipnicki...sure to offend just about everyone. Variety said, "this sh**t is like a live-action South Park!...Hilarious!"

 

 

Movie Review: The L.A. Riot Spectacular

Sunday, September 27, 2015 | http://shamelesspile.blogspot.com/
The L.A. Riot Spectacular a.k.a The L.A. Riot Show
Rockhard Pictures, Visionbox Pictures, entitled entertainment, El Camino Pictures, Cherry Road Films, RichKatz Entertainment, USA, 2005.

This is a satire film about the 1991 Rodney King incident and the following Los Angeles riots. Snoop Dogg tells a classic American tale.

From the beginning it is clear that the movie takes a tongue in cheek approach. Rodney King's (T.K. Carter) pursuit is presented as a police car race. Then the cops place bets on what race the driver will be. George Holliday (William Forsythe) films the beating on videotape from his balcony. Later he starts to film adult films.

The videotape is auctioned for the highest bidder. KTLA-channel buys it and shows it over and over and over... again. Media interviews Rodney. Rodney wants to sue the cops so he could be filthy rich. Everyone wants to know what brand of clothes Rodney is wearing tonight.

Black politicians urges the black against the cops. The Mayor (Charles S. Dutton) is unable to calm people and actually makes the situation worse. The Police Chief (Ronny Cox) congratulate the cops on job well done. The he fires them. Officers Koon (Christopher McDonald) and Powell (Emilio Estevez) become the scapecoats so the rest of the police force can wash their hands.

The criminal gangs decide that it is futile to kill each other abd combine their forces. On retrial the cops are freed. The Nazis Tom Saltine (Ted Levine) and his son Tom Jr. (Jonathan Lipnicki) are happy. The shooting of black teen Latasha Harlins by Korean shop owner further raises the racial tensions. The beating of white truck driver Reginald Denny starts the riots. TV hosts Harry (David Rasche) and Mary (Anne-Marie Johnson) throw more fuel to the fire. The gangstas notice that "Oh no, we're burning our own hood to the ground." Nielsen ratings rise record high.

It is quite difficult film to watch without knowing the exact background of the riots. I found myself googling for names every time a new character was introduced. This is like "South Park" with radio stations from "Grand Theft Auto." Jokes are made about every ethnic and demographic group in Los Angeles. As well as about police, media, politicians, gangs, protesters, lawyers, celebrities and people chasing their 15 minutes of fame.

The movie looks like it was filmed with cheap 1990s video camera. It looks intentionally ugly and cheap in the style of amateur videos. Some jokes are hilarious and some are not and then there is also Ron Jeremy. It is outrageous with politically incorrect jokes that are sure to offend. However the stereotypes are aimed at everyone. There is similar gang culture parody as in "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood" with ever-present 40 oz malt present bottles and random acts of gang violence. However the jokes get repetitive which makes the social satire less effective. Not a movie for everyone but recommended for fans of "South Park" style controversial satire. By taking no sides it shows how pointless the riots were and how nothing hasn't changed. Can't we all just get along? asks narrator Snoop Dogg.

 


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