Comedic Genius on Display

Chris Rock gets personal in Top Five for best film of his career

Great serious comedies — an oxymoronic term, perhaps — are in short supply. Most comedies either try to appeal to the lowest common denominator or aim high and fall short of their goals.

Prior to Top Five, the idea that Chris Rock could deliver a great serious comedy would have been laughable. His two previous directorial efforts, 2003’s Head of State and 2007’s I Think I Love My Wife, weren’t well-received, and other than his stints in the Madagascar movies, he hadn’t exactly been lighting it up as an actor, either.

But as is often the case, when he finally decided to get personal, his best work emerged. Rock, who wrote and directed the film, plays the Rock-esque Andre Allen, a comedian/movie star who’s trying to be taken seriously as an actor after years of playing the ultra-popular Hammy the Bear.

There are parts of the film where the laughs are so big that it’s hard to breathe, and there are parts where Rock has you thinking more than you thought he ever could.

He’s got a new movie about a Jamaican slave rebellion, a pending marriage to a reality star and a big chip on his shoulder. New York Times reporter Chelsea Brown (Rosario Dawson) is tasked with doing an in-depth interview about him, and the bulk of the film follows the two of them as Allen does interviews and visits friends and family around New York City.

Rock enlisted a ton of his comedy friends, both famous and not, to play supporting roles, and that abundance of funny keeps the movie rolling throughout. What’s great, though, is that save for a few notable cameos, Rock uses most of the people in actual roles, letting them cut loose with characters without being shackled to their real-life personas.

But Rock has much more than comedy on his mind with Top Five. Through Allen, he ruminates on the trappings of celebrity, alcoholism, the often-wide divide between artists and critics, and more. None of it ever plays out like a full-on drama, mind you, but Rock eschews going for easy laughs most of the time, which makes the funny parts all the more uproarious.

Allen is not that comparable to Rock, mostly because Rock has never achieved the kind of all-encompassing superstardom that Allen does. But enough similarities exist to lend a whole lot of truth to Rock’s perspective on the life of a celebrity, and that lived-in aspect to the role easily makes it Rock’s best performance to date.

There are parts of Top Five where the laughs are so big that it’s hard to breathe, and there are parts where Rock has you thinking more than you thought he ever could. If this is what Rock is capable of, I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Rosario Dawson and Chris Rock in Top Five.

Rosario Dawson and Chris Rock in Top Five

Photo by Ali Paige Goldstein

Rosario Dawson and Chris Rock in Top Five.

Vinyl Record News

Dallas record store chain Josey Records spins new location in Garland

Josey Records

Josey Records

Vinyl at Josey Records

Dallas music maker Josey Records has extended its reach east: The record store chain, whose empire includes one of the largest single independent record stores in the U.S., has opened a location in Garland, at 1005 Northwest Hwy., at the intersection of Centerville Road, where it's selling its trademark assortment of vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, turntables, music posters, new releases, and music accessories.

This is the sixth location and the third in the Dallas area, joining the original in Farmers Branch which owners Waric Cameron and Luke Sardello opened in November 2014. They've since opened locations in Plano, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Vidalia, Missouri.

The original location is a giant place with 16,000 square feet devoted to vinyl, 45s, CDs, turntables, and T-shirts. They do a good job showcasing new releases and collector vinyl — they made CultureMap's list of 5 best places in Dallas to buy vinyl records — and are known to host album release and listening parties such as a recent blockbuster celebrating Linkin Park.

They made headlines in June 2020 when they acquired the vast musical inventory of Bill’s Records following the death of owner Bill Wisener; Cameron and Sardello both worked at Bill’s, and knew the sprawling collection first-hand.

"It has taken us years to even start going through it, but in last two years, we've made some headway," Cameron says. "Bill's has its own audience, so we created a specific Instagram account, just for Bill's Records merchandise called @billsrecordsvault."

They chose Garland because they saw it as an area that was under-served.

"There are very few record stores in that area of northeast Dallas, Casa View, Garland, Rockwall, Mesquite," Cameron says. "We have customers who live over there, so it seemed like a good place for a store."

The storefront they're in was most recently The Music Store, which sold and rented musical instruments and accessories; but coincidentally, it's next to an address that was once RPM Records, a hip record store from the '90s.

The Garland store follows the same model as their others: selling new and used records and merchandise, and buying used goods, as well.

"One thing that's cool is that each location takes on its own identity," he says. "We buy used CDs, vinyl records, cassettes — we're a used resale business — and what we buy from our customers dictates what that store becomes. For example, our Plano store has a lot of classic rock. So we're looking forward to seeing what Garland gravitates to."

Garland does have one thing that the other locations do not.

"Right now, Garland has this incredible collection of jazz," Cameron says. "We bought a great collection of jazz records — someone called and wanted to sell it. We get that a lot, we buy major collections from all over the U.S., we even make house calls. So we saved it for the Garland store."

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