Hood films have never been known for their subtlety. Even the best ones often hammer their points
home. They have always fallen squarely
on the nurture side of the nature vs. nurture argument. Most explanations for criminality are often
spelled out in the most overt and expository manner possible. It’s as if the filmmakers don’t trust the audience
to come to the appropriate conclusions on their own. Still, somewhat vague and ambiguous characterizations
sometimes slipped through the cracks. The
randomness of street crime dictates that not every murder has a clear or
logical motive. Any otherwise “realistic”
movie about the streets would be somewhat dishonest if it ignored such a
fact. In the midst of the hood movie
onslaught of the early 1990’s, a future Hip-Hop legend would be cast as one of hood cinema's definitive sociopaths.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Cool Characters: Roland Bishop
Labels:
Cool Characters,
Crime/Gangster,
Hip-Hop,
Rap
Short Film Review: Rosa
Cyberpunk has been around since the early to mid-1980’s, and
has long since become just another pop culture well that genre filmmakers
return to time and again. As such, it
would seem to have run dry by now, seeing as how cyberpunk imagery has become
an integral part of the dystopian sci-fi filmmaking language. Video games have also made extensive use of
such stories and settings. However, like
so many other fantasy genres, cyberpunk has much more to offer than what has
previously been shown, even if just in a superficial or visual sense. In fact, the imagery is probably best suited
by no dialogue at all in some cases. Jesús
Orellana’s animated short film Rosa
likely would have thrived in the silent film era, since it functions mostly as
a beautifully rendered dream.
Labels:
Action Film,
Animation,
Science Fiction,
Short Film Review
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