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Mr. Happy ain't a Pharrell banger! This "misguided search for true happiness" is a Vice short film from 2015 starring Chance the Rapper and Marie Oldenbourg.
Topics discussed:
3️⃣ Chance the Rapper crackles in a powerful film debut
💐 Flowers for the director Colin Tilley
📃 A connection to a seemingly unrelated hip hop classic
on this episode, we're gonna talk about the 2015 short film called Mr.
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Happy starring Chance the Rapper.
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I'm DynoWright, filmmaker, designer, longtime hip hop fan.
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I'm JB, 80s and 90s nostalgia junkie, longtime hip hop fan.
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I'm Boogie, a DJ, longtime hip hop fan.
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Coming up on Hip Hop Movie Club,
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Chance the Rapper crackles in a powerful film debut,
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we give flowers to the director Colin Tilley,
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and we make a connection to a seemingly unrelated hip hop classic.
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Chance the Rapper plays a young man named Victor who unfortunately is suicidal.
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He's severely depressed and he resorts to going online to hire a hitman to do the deed for
him after a few fruitless attempts on his own life.
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His mind is warped, has odd visions, he's in a dead end job.
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This movie was very suspenseful.
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Takes a liking to a girl...he wants to cancel this.
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But strange things occurring along the way.
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Even though it's so short, you actually become really vested in him really quickly.
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You see him unraveling in real time.
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Chance the Rapper does a great job playing that role.
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You really empathize with him.
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And Marie Oldenbourg, who's the other star of this short film, plays like the flirtatious
free spirit.
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And she's known for a role on The Young and the Restless.
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they had a good chemistry on camera here,
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Chance called this “a misguided search for true happiness.”
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I think that was really apt.
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This was his acting debut for this kind of feature.
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And he said in an interview that it was very difficult for him because he's not normally
that kind of guy.
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He's not depressed or suicidal.
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He's very happy.
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So to play against his own type and to do it as well as he did was really, really great.
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You could feel his
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tension, he’s unraveling.
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You can really see it and the way they shoot it is also very supportive of it.
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So it all worked really well for me.
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It was shot pretty well where you can actually feel like you were in his head as he unraveled.
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They do those cut scenes, do some voice distortions as well, some like silhouette type shots where you don't really know what's happening or who the character is.
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So yeah, from that perspective, they use a lot of powerful film techniques.
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This is Colin Tilley.
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He's done a lot of music videos.
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He's done a lot of TV commercials.
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He did "Alright" by Kendrick Lamar.
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Fantastic video.
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This is not a feature length film, this was a really good evolution from what he's done in video and commercials.
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I also read that Colin Tilley, he had a friend of his paint the portrait that you
see in the movie poster.
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And it was done before the movie was even shot.
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So it came from that.
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It's very, very cool work.
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Yeah.
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that's cool.
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Reminds me of like the drawing of like on TI's album cover, the famous, yeah, it's the
same style.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, Paper Trail, yep.
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We all had the same thought.
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Yeah, that's funny.
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I just thought of it now.
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I'm like, wait, I've seen that type of image before.
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Almost like mosaic.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, that's my favorite T.I.
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album.
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I listen to that album a lot.
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Yeah, the art for this movie was Kevin Spring.
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The T.I.
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album was Ian Wright.
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And at least from an article I read with Colin Tilley, he has it hanging in his living
room.
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I think we know where this is heading, but BooGie for Mr.
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Happy, would you bring this funky flick back or leave it in the vault.
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Not only would I bring this funky flick back, I will highly recommend it on top of that.
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There you go.
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Dyno Wright, Mr.
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Happy, bring this funky flick back or leave it in the vault.
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Definitely bring this funky flick back.
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I also will say bring this funky flick back.
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I think it needs some more exposure.
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A lot of people should go and find this film and watch it.
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It's a small time investment for a great film.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, he's very good at this.
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He wants to do more acting and I think he's got the skills to pay these bills.
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You
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Agreed.
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Thank you for tuning in to Hip Hop Movie Club, the show for serious hip hop fans who want
to deepen their cultural knowledge.
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I'm Dyno Wright, filmmaker, designer, longtime hip hop fan, and I enjoy Chance the
Rapper's:
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fill-in sports reporter on Saturday Night Live and elsewhere.
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Let's do that hockey.
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I'm JB, 80s and 90s nostalgia junkie, long time hip hop fan.
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And I'm a devotee of stripped down boom bap.
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The simpler, the better.
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Give me something like Special Ed’s “I Got It Made”.
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And I think that just trumps a lot of other more elaborate raps.
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Yeah, agreed.
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And I'm Boogie, a DJ, long time hip hop fan.
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And on this date of this recording, February 17th, back in 1988, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the
Fresh Prince released the classic single Parents Just Don't Understand.
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I still don't think they do.
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I know I don't.
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And I'm a parent.
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I couldn't stop watching that video when it came out.
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It was great with the mom running around, chase him around.
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was insane.
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So good.
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You knew right then and there that Will Smith had a acting career in the works.
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He did.
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Yeah.
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On the next episode of Hip Hop Movie Club, we will review Rappin' from 1985, finally.
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And remember, don't hate, investigate.
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Mm-hmm.
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Get on that.
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And if you're in need of help related to a mental health crisis or suicide, please dial
