UrbanRhetoric

UrbanRhetoric

Showing posts with label DOPE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DOPE. Show all posts

4.30.2016

KEANU



MICROWAVE REVIEW

I'm not exactly sure how I felt about sitting in a Williamsburg, Brooklyn theatre full of white millennials laughing hysterically at the comedic use of the N-word by Key and Peele.  It was a little disconcerting.  And full disclosure - I don't like cats... more specifically, I don't like house cats.  That said, Keanu was a little cute in an "I still don't want one in my apartment" kind of way.  But, once I put those things aside, I was able to laugh a sufficient amount to consider this a legit flick and worth seeing.  I wouldn't recommend making plans around seeing it.  It's not as good as some of the more recent comedies like Let's Be Cops, Dope, Trainwreck, Deadpool, or 50 Shades of Grey. It is, however, funny enough to see in the theatre or to pay and rent when it hits Amazon Instant or On-Demand in a couple of months.


VITALS
Jordan Peele & Alex Rubens  - Writers
Directed by Peter Atencio  
Keegan-Michael Key - Clarence
Jordan Peele - Rell Williams
Tiffany Haddish - Hi-C
Method Man - Cheddar
Luis Guzman - Bacon
Will Forte - Hulka


IF YOU MUST KNOW

Rell Williams (Peele) has just been dumped and loses the only thing he has going for him - Keanu, his kitten. His cousin and best friend, Clarence (Key) decides to join him in his quest to find and reclaim Keanu.  They end up posing as drug dealer/assassins, which cause them to get in just a little bit of trouble with real drug dealers/killers known as the Blips (folks who've been kicked out of the Bloods and the Crips - funny).  There's a little bit of character growth for both Rell and Clarence in this comedy that gives a slightly different twist to the "fish out of water" theme.  

There were some amusing George Michael bits that ran throughout the film.  Peele is still the funnier of the comedy pair in my book (Obama translator aside).  Good amount of laughs, lots of N-Words - but all within a context that made sense from a black improv comedic point of view, and the character arcs that take Rell and Clarence from somewhat pathetic man-boys (in different ways) to full grown men.  

It's worth a look, but not if you're expecting hilarity.  It's a slow Saturday afternoon or date night flick that is sufficient for sh#s and giggles as they say (probably a better laugh if you get lit first,  but I won't make fun of you for spending your bread on it anyway.  

IMTHATDUDE gives Keanu: 3

RATING SYSTEM:
5 = You should be about halfway to the theatre by now… Well… GET!
4 = Definitely worth the bread. Niiice.
3 = I won’t cuss anybody out and demand my paper back.
2 = Somewhere SOUTH of under-whelmed./I know it has a pulse, but…
1 = Not a good look. They played me AND I played myself.

4.23.2016

Miles Ahead


Don Cheadle's big screen directorial debut... Miles Ahead. Truth is, I love Miles Davis's music but I know precious little about the man himself.  I own copies of Kind of Blue, Birth of Cool, You're Under Arrest, and Bitches Brew.  I don't have the album they refer to most in this movie, so I'm going to have to cop Sketches of Spain.

VITALS
Steven Baigelman (Get on Up) - Co-Writer
Don Cheadle (Talk to Me, Avengers, Devil in a Blue Dress) - Miles Davis
***Cheadle also Co-Writes, Directs, and Produces Miles Ahead

Emayatzi Cornealdi (Addicted, Middle of Nowhere, The Invitation) - Frances Taylor
Ewan MacGregor (Moulin Rouge, Big Fish, Mortdecai) - Dave Brill
Keith Stanfield (Dope, Straight Outta Compton) - 
Michael Stuhlbarg (Steve Jobs, Blue Jasmine) - Harper Hamilton


IF YOU MUST KNOW


This was a movie about Miles Davis, but seems to have avoided being a biopic.  It was more like watching Don Cheadle brilliantly portray someone who has largely been a famous but mysterious musical legend.  Miles Ahead is a snapshot of a glance of the music icon's life.  The good news is that you want to learn more about Miles after watching this movie, but the bad news is you almost need to do it.  You don't get much more than what we already know.  He was as talented as he was brilliant and he was brilliantly flawed.  He walked that fine line between genius and insanity and may have crossed back and forth a few times.  He loved a woman (and then some more of them).  

Cheadle does an incredible job of portraying the enigmatic jazz virtuoso/iconoclast, but as a writer and director, he tells us next to nothing.  In fact, the movie was a little weird.  There were multiple fights, a gun fight or two, and even a car chase with a gun fight - none of which were things that I heard about Miles when my Pops forced me to listen to Jazz 88's Rhythm Revue way back when I was travelling back and forth to the barbershop or during those Saturday early mornings or late evenings for Prep for Prep - I was forced to listen to the Rhythm Revue and eventually developed a love for "old-timey" music.  The drugs, I knew about, but nobody ever mentioned him in a reckless car chase through the city.  I feel like I would have remembered that.  

Like many male driven movies, the highlight is often the female lead.  Sometimes what is supposed to be window dressing can really save a movie (see my comments about Wonder Woman in the Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice).  So, she may have appeared in one of my previous posts... then again, maybe not.  In any event, she would have been my choice for the Nina Simone movie they did with my ex, Zoe Saldana.  


As much as Cornealdi (Taylor) is talented and incredibly beautiful (I would totally karaoke Prince's "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" to her if she were in the vacinity - hell, I'd do it a cappella), she doesn't elevate this movie in the way Gadot/Wonder Woman elevated Dawn of Justice.  She is, obviously easy on the eyes and remarkably talented - every bit Cheadles acting match, but she didn't have a hell of a lot to work with here.  



Nevertheless, this is still a fairly good directorial debut.  The odd matching cuts that Cheadle has throughout the film give it a certain feel - I think he was going for something jazz-y - forced.  I thought it was a pretty good film, but not a good biopic.  There are many facets to Miles that clearly were not explored, but the overall movie came off as a bit of a short story that left you wondering why they picked this particular period in his life rather than do something that was more encompassing and generally more engrossing.  It's Miles FREAKING Davis.  An audience interested enough to see a movie that no one expects to have car chases could totally have sat through a 150-180 minutes of his life story.  

This movie was just not aggressive enough in its breadth or depth for me to recommend going out to see it.  It is worth watching, just not something you need to spend 12-15 bucks on. 

Should be on Amazon or Netflix pretty soon, so feel free to save your dough.  Or, if you're a real Miles aficionado... save your bread.  You'll get nothing out of this flick.  Movie lovers can enjoy the acting talents of Cornealdi and Cheadle (they should totally team up again... they have an interesting on-screen chemistry that should be explored further), but do not expect to feel enlightened or fulfilled on any level when the end credits roll.

IMTHATDUDE gives Miles Ahead: 3, by a hair

RATING SYSTEM:
5 = You should be about halfway to the theatre by now… Well… GET!

4 = Definitely worth the bread. Niiice.
3 = I won’t cuss anybody out and demand my paper back.
2 = Somewhere SOUTH of under-whelmed./I know it has a pulse, but…
1 = Not a good look. They played me AND I played myself.

12.13.2015

CHI-RAQ


Damn.  I really had to think about this one. (Truth, I'm still thinking.)  Whenever you base a movie on a satirical play by Aristophenes - as I'm sure you were all planning to do - and that movie comments on real issues that hit close to home with a great many people in our culture, you are bound to get some harsh critiques.  In fact, you would be wise to expect more than a little outrage.  (POINT OF INFORMATION: You may recall, I'm not a critic, IMjustTHATDUDE.)  I understand that Chi-Town rappers - Chance the Rapper (who will likely make a scene on SNL tonight), Twista, and Rhymefest (who co-wrote Jesus Walks, but didn't make half the bread off that song that Yeezy did - then again, he doesn't have to be married to a Kardashian, so... let's call that a push) - have criticized this movie with particular vigor.


No peace, no "piece." Given the times, this may well be the most serious satire I have ever seen (or read, and I was a philosophy major - forced to read some of this Aristophenes type stuff) on so many levels. 

VITALS
Spike Lee - Director & Co-writer
Kevin Willmott - Co-writer
Angela Bassett (Black Nativity, Olympus Has Fallen) - Miss Helen
Teyonah Parris (TV's Mad Men, Dear White People) - Lysistrata
Nick Cannon (Drumline, Day of the Dead) - Chi-Raq
Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls, Black Nativity) - Irene
Steve Harris (Takers, Minority Report) - Old Duke
Samuel L. Jackson (approx. 28% of all movies since 1963) - Dolemides (a.k.a. Dolemite)
John Cusack (The Ice Harvest, Hot Tub Time Machine) - Father Mike Corridan
DB Sweeney (Taken 2, Miracle at St, Anna) - Mayor McCloud
Harry Lennix (Man of Steel, State of Play) - Commissioner Blades
Wesley Snipes (Brooklyn Finest, Expendables 3) - Cyclops
Dave Chappelle (Chappelle's Show Dave, but on that ill Creatine diet) - Morris

IF YOU MUST KNOW

Lysistrata (Parris - who might actually be the sexiest actress alive - real talk, no joke) is with a gang-banger who goes by the name Chi-Raq (which also happens to be the nickname of Chicago).  As you may know, the murders and gun related violence that happens in Chicago is UNHEARD of anywhere else but in the war zones and conflict ridden areas in places significantly East of here.  So, after the accidental shooting of a little girl on the South Side of Chicago, Lysistrata - encouraged by Leymah Gbowee and the African movement that did the same - removes herself from Chi-Raq (not the city, her boo) by moving out and putting the 'snappy' on lock and enlists all the women directly and indirectly involved in that life to to do the same in order to stem or stop the violence occurring on the streets of Chicago. NOTE: Ladies, this is a terrible, horrible, no good idea.  Long story shortened... the movement becomes a worldwide phenomenon and begins to have positive repercussions (depending on who you ask).  

Yo, Spike... they ain't ready for this one.  I'm not even sure I'm for this one.  But when it is all said and done... this movie is Oscar worthy (most likely, it will not even be nominated), but it is soooo provocative and fresh that it makes all those Shakespeare in Love type flicks look hackneyed.  It's too bad Nick Cannon (acting and rapping) and Wesley Snipes make it mediocre. It's smart, but preachy. The dialogue is so true, but nobody wants to admit things like... men do most of what we do for money and sex (and usually, the money thing is related to the perception that having it puts you in a position to put someone else in a position, yah feel me? no pun intended).  Jennifer Hudson was great, Angela Bassett (black don't crack, for real) and she is never off, Harry Lennix is the man, John Cusack made you forget all the great comedies (Hot Tub Time Machine, Better of Dead, Grosse Pointe Blank), and Teyonah Parris... aside from being gorgeous, she should be the next IT girl (well, for chocolate women - I know Hollywood is only infatuated with lightskinneded women, but every so often there is an Angela Bassett, Lupita Nyongo, or Teyonah Parris).

Problems?  Sure.  1) The dude from the Wire (the cat that played the Clay Davis) was in it with his, now famous, one word line that starts with - Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii....  Well, he was in the movie for 2 minutes. 2) Nick Cannon was a humongous mis-cast.  Okay, so that should be the first problem, but right now I'm going stream of consciousness.  3) The ChiRaq sex scenes had no chemistry and should have just been implied rather than as explicit as they were - one of my friends actually commented that in a certain scene it looked like Nick Cannon did had never seen a "piece" from that angle before - I found that hilarious.  I'll let you all judge, but I agree.  4) Wesley Snipes was annoying; he was supposed to be a little bit, but... okay, that's a personal one.  I just can't stand that idiot.  5) Sam Jackson doesn't need to be in every Spike Lee movie.  Chappelle would have been better as the Narrator/Dolemides (based on Rudy Ray Moore's Dolemite).  SJ may sound like Rudy, but Chappelle is a comedian who would have made a much better Dolemides and made the movie feel less like a Spike Lee flick and more like the bold, experimental film that it was.  6) Back to Nick Cannon.  He can't rap.  Why, oh why!? Did they let him wrap for the entire intro to the movie.  Bad call, Spike.  I was tempted to bounce when the song wouldn't stop.  The opening was literally 4 minutes of reading and listening to the lyrics that I hear were written by Nick Cannon and performed by the same, which makes you feel a bit violent and violated at the same time.

I am looking forward to watching this movie again in a few months, and again in ten years.  Look, I hated She's Gotta Have It, and it still isn't a "good" movie, but there is a rawness to it that makes it stand out as good film-making and it stands alone.  This movie is ahead of its time.  Maybe a little too much ahead of its time, but it is worth seeing.  I do enjoy movies like this and I may be in the minority, but it is worth seeing even if you are a Chicago rapper or native.  Historically, meaningful satires always had difficult and serious present day issues as their subject; flawed as it may be, this is a meaning and poignant satire.  Chi-Raq Spike Lee's most brave endeavor since X (the movie that should have earned Denzel and Spike the Oscars they deserved), I would recommend seeing it. It's not Dope, but Chi-Raq made me believe in Spike Lee as a filmmaker again.  Oddly enough, some of the people I know who hated this would still buy a movie ticket for Tyler Perry poo-poo.  


IMTHATDUDE gives Chi-Raq: 3 

RATING SYSTEM:
5 = You should be about halfway to the theatre by now… Well… GET!
4 = Definitely worth the bread. Niiice.
3 = I won’t cuss anybody out and demand my paper back.
2 = Somewhere SOUTH of under-whelmed./I know it has a pulse, but…
1 = Not a good look. They played me AND I played myself.

6.21.2015

DOPE



The title says it all... DOPE.  I'm not even trying to be cute.  This was the best movie I've seen this year.

VITALS

Rick Famuyiwa (The Wood, Brown Sugar) - Writer/Director
Shameik Moore (Joyful Noise, and TV's House of Payne - but I will not hold that against him; just like I won't blame him for his parents misspelling that awesome name - ShaMIK, people; not -M E E K, not -M E I K, and damn sure not -M I Q U E) - Malcolm
Kiersey Clemons (TV's Extant and Eye Candy) - Diggy
Tony Revolori (The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Perfect Game) - Jib
Rakim "A$AP Rocky" Mayers (see, pretty much any ign'ant hip hop record) - Dom
Roger Guenvuer Smith (Do the Right Thing, American Gangster) - Austin Jacoby
Zoe Kravitz (Insurgent, Mad Max: Fury Road) - Nakia
Blake Anderson (Workaholics) - Will

Honorable Mention goes to Allen Maldanodo as the bouncer and to model turned actress, Chanel Iman as Lily.  Ah yes, Lily.

Interestingly, Forest Whittaker produced this film along with the likes of Diddy and Skateboard P; which begs the question, how did Jay-Z miss out on this?

IF YOU MUST KNOW:

This is the story of a kid straight out of Inglewood, Cali, who simply doesn't fit in.  He's a geek; not to be confused with a nerd (although he is) - see, a geek also has certain idiosyncracies that make him more of an outcast than other nerds.  Por ejemplo, Malcolm and his friends have a punk rock-type band, but they are also 90s-era hip-hop aficionados - obsessed with the music and gear to the point of wearing bad flattops and what appears to be some version of Cross-Colours.  Remember Cross Colours?  For kids born in the 90s to say that that was the "golden age" of hip hop smells like the west coast version of a Williamsburg/Fort Greene HIPSTER.


Malcolm (Moore), Jib (Revolori) and Dig (Clemons) are oddballs who have to manage their way around a school full of jocks, hoodlums,

Of course, the plot is ridiculous, but it isn't entirely beyond the suspension of disbelief.  Malcolm, in the midst of trying to finish his application for Harvard University,  gets unintentionally pulled into the dope-dealing world by Dom (A$AP Rocky) - leave it to a Harlem cat to drag a brother into an unnecessary sitch.  So, Dom makes Malcolm and his two band-mate friends into reluctant MDMA dealers.  (For my square readers, MDMA is methylenedioxy-methamphetamin; also known as Ecstasy or Molly.) Well, at least it aint heroine and weed would have weakened the plot to be more in the nature of Friday  (I mean the movie, not the other day).  The Oreos (that's the name of their band, and not my attempt at using a lame derogatory term for these geeks) get busy dealing Molly in the hopes of saving their own lives as they have to dodge sneaker stealing school bullies, fake thugs, real thugs, drug sniffing dogs, OG's, Molly-popping models, and Harvard grads (the debate is open for who on that list is most dangerous - I'll let you call it).

So, what was so special about this movie?  Aside from the AWESOME soundtrack, it was funny. Not even the cackling, chatty hipsters sitting in my aisle in stereotypical-fashion talking throughout the film could ruin the fact that the dialogue was clever and the situations were surprisingly intriguing.  It was a smart film that made some predictable turns and then unpredictably made them subtly realistic.  It toyed with your emotions. And, most importantly, it was sufficiently believable.  The arguments, the jokes, and the quiet moments these cats shared when they were in danger were legit friend type conversations.  On top of all that... I can imagine all three of these lead characters, the Awreeohs (pronounced like the cookies), becoming far more visible in Hollywood after this movie.  Even Zoe Kravitz, who really made me flashback to my crush on her mama when she was on A Different World (holla!).  You know you're getting old when the daughter(Zoe Kravitz, 26) of a woman (Lisa Bonet, 47) you were crushing on is old enough to be considered kinda hot.  Disturbing.


Anyway, the movie was so good that I didn't bother taking points from any of the usual areas, like rappers trying to act, which is usually as bad as models - no matter how hip-hop cute - trying to act (Chanel Iman) or contrived characters - and there were a few.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was even better than Dear White People and Top Five (both of which were understated, but very good movies).

Hurry up and see this movie before the next round of summer garbage (like Jurassic Park or Mad Max) pushes it out of the theater.

IMTHATDUDE gives Dope: 5

RATING SYSTEM:

5 = You should be about halfway to the theatre by now… Well… GET!
4 = Definitely worth the bread. Niiice.
3 = I won’t cuss anybody out and demand my paper back.
2 = Somewhere SOUTH of under-whelmed./I know it has a pulse, but…
1 = Not a good look. They played me AND I played myself.