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Mixed or average reviews - based on 6 Critics What's this?

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  • Summary: 70-year-old Clarence Reid could be your cranky grandfather--until he puts on his gold-spangled superhero costume and starts singing some of the raunchiest tunes you've ever heard in your life (and we're big rap fans, so this is saying something). Reid begins his career as a lynchpin of the esteemed Miami soul scene, where he wrote Top-10 songs for Betty Wright, Gwen McCrae, and KC & The Sunshine Band. But his insanely profane recording as "Blowfly" have shocked audiences for over forty-five years, and include what may well be the world's first rap song, recorded in 1965. You may not know Blowfy just yet - but this loving, yet unflinching, film will fix that quick snap. (Variance Films)
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 6
  2. Negative: 0 out of 6
  1. Reviewed by: Nathan Rabin
    Sep 14, 2011
    75
    The Weird World Of Blowfly at times recalls "The Wrestler," only instead of schlepping his aging body from city to city to don outrageous costumes and wrestle, 69-year-old soul-music legend Clarence Reid schleps his hunched-over frame to gigs where he performs X-rated parodies and scatological ditties as incorrigible proto-hip-hopper Blowfly.
  2. Reviewed by: Dennis Harvey
    Sep 12, 2011
    50
    Hanging out with a 1970s cult figure of raunchy R&B "party records" is less fun than one would expect in The Weird World of Blowfly.
  3. Reviewed by: Paul Brunick
    Sep 15, 2011
    50
    Somehow Mr. Reid has an ability to push so far into the depths of stupidity that he breaks out the other side, making you laugh in spite of yourself.
  4. Reviewed by: Eric Hynes
    Sep 13, 2011
    50
    Although its subject is never less than captivating, Jonathan Furmanski's film is frustratingly unfocused, a scattershot collection of candid footage and biographical information. Thankfully, Blowfly's world is weird as promised.

See all 6 Critic Reviews