JUICE is an early ’90s “hood movie” about four young friends in New York who fall into some stupid shit. Tired of getting picked on by the Puerto Rican kids and the cops and not having money, they decide to get a gun (just one between them) and rob a little mini-mart where the guy is an asshole and yells at them sometimes. It’s not exactly The Thomas Crown Affair they’re trying to pull off, but they’re amateurs so they fuck up this small time crime and have to deal with the aftermath. (read the rest of this shit…)
Posts Tagged ‘hip hop’
Juice
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
House Party 3
Friday, December 17th, 2010
Okay, I’m not saying it’s very good, but I gotta admit, HOUSE PARTY 3 wasn’t as bad as I expected. Actually I was kinda impressed that each installment covers a different part of Kid’s life. Part 1 he’s (improbably) in high school maintaining friendships, bonding with his dad, starting his first serious relationship. Part 2 he’s going to college, learning about his heritage, facing challenges in keeping his girlfriend, dealing with loss. Now, for part 3, he says goodbye to childish things. He’s lost the fade and is thinking about cutting his hair altogether. He must decide how much he believes in his future as a rapper, accept that his parts 1-2 girlfriend Sidney wasn’t who he was meant to be with, and trust that his woman Veda (Angela Means) loves him even when she’s around naked dudes. All this because he’s about to get married. In HOUSE PARTY 3, Kid becomes Man.
Who’s the Man?
Friday, December 17th, 2010
You know how nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got somethin to say, but nothin comes out when they move their lips, just a bunch of gibberish, and motherfuckers act like they forgot about Dre? And this despite the widespread recognition of Dre Day, and everybody’s celebratin? Well, that must be tough for Dre, but it’s even worse for Dré.
Dr. Dre – title abbreviated, name spelled with an ‘e’, not an ‘é’ – is the famous producer/rapper, the genius behind NWA, discoverer of Snoop and Eminem, headphone consultant, Dr. Pepper advocate. He still produces, is still highly respected despite unleashing 50 Cent, appears on commercials all the time but somehow still has a mystique about him. He recently released a song from the album he’s been working on for ten years, so he’s on the cover of magazines and people are really believing it’ll come out in February. And plan to buy it. Most rap careers don’t last as long as just the time people have been anticipating this one album by Dre.
Meanwhile Doctor Dré – title spelled out in full, name spelled with a little wavy thing above the ‘e’ – you could definitely make a strong argument that motherfuckers weren’t acting, they sincerely had forgotten about that particular Dré. (read the rest of this shit…)
Bebe’s Kids (plus two documentaries about Robin Harris)
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010
The best thing about HOUSE PARTY was missing from HOUSE PARTY 2, that was Robin Harris. Of course they probly would’ve worked him in somehow if he was available, but he died of a heart attack in his sleep shortly after the release of the first one.
Harris seemed like he was on the verge of much bigger fame, at least according to two DVDs about him: ROBIN HARRIS LIVE FROM THE COMEDY ACT THEATER and WE DON’T DIE, WE MULTIPLY: THE ROBIN HARRIS STORY.
(read the rest of this shit…)
House Party 2
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
HOUSE PARTY 2 has that typical sequel problem: holy shit, the first time we were just doing what we wanted to do, now we gotta live up to people’s expectations. So in the beginning they kinda redo the beginning of the first one. It’s another fog machined dream of people dancing, but this time they got recent Academy Award winner Whoopi Goldberg to do a cameo as an evil professor. And there’s lightning and stuff. Spooky.
They also had a less typical sequel problem: holy shit, the best part of part 1 died right after it came out. So they dedicate the movie to Robin Harris, have Kid say a little prayer to Pop, have photos of him around that sometimes come to life in brief clips from part 1. At the very beginning of the movie Kid says, “About that party – you were right to whoop my ass,” referring to the beating he was about to get as the credits rolled. Weird that that’s what his mind jumps to when he remembers his dad. Only way I can explain it is either Kid knows he’s in a movie about that house party, or Pop died while administering that beating.
(read the rest of this shit…)
House Party
Monday, December 13th, 2010
It goes without saying that this year of 2010 is the 20th anniversary of the release of the movie HOUSE PARTY starring the late ’80s/early ’90s pop rap duo Kid ‘n Play. The actual release was in March, of course, but we’re celebrating all year long. Please join me this week as we revisit all of Kid ‘n Play’s cinematic works and try to understand what the fuck we, as a nation, were trying to pull in the ’90s.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
I never heard of this 2007 documentary about Public Enemy until I saw it in the new releases this week. Looks like it was made 3 years ago to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their first album. I guess on DVD it must be celebrating the anniversary of their third album. But that’s Fear of a Black Planet, that’s a great album.
This is not the definitive hyper-detailed PE documentary I’d have dreamed about if it had ever occurred to me there could be a documentary about them. I’m sorry guys, I would’ve dreamed about it, but I was too distracted waiting for that Hank Shocklee Making of It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back book that never came out. This doesn’t quench my thirst for that one, but it’s not one of these amateurish hip hop documentaries they got either. It’s an enjoyable retrospective with alot of good moments, good photography and editing. Maybe the fonts could be improved, but for the most part it seems professional. (read the rest of this shit…)
Disorderlies
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
A couple weeks ago the United States Congress finally squeaked through the Baby-Steps To Health Care Reform legislation, a bill that does several good things such as not allowing insurance companies to refuse coverage to people because of a pre-existing condition, giving tax credits to small businesses that provide health insurance for their employees, and letting kids in their twenties stay on their parents’ insurance a couple more years than before. Unfortunately, too many Democrats are in the pocket of the insurance companies and they were too insistent on bending over backwards to find every possible compromise that could conceivably tickle the fancy of a Republican (a year long torture session that netted them a grand total of zero Republican votes) so the reforms aren’t as strong as most people would like. (read the rest of this shit…)
R.I.P. Roc Raida
Sunday, September 20th, 2009
I just read something shocking and sad – Busta Rhymes has announced that the great DJ Roc Raida has died at just 37 years old. Now, I know when that DJ AM guy died recently I had no idea who that was except that he dated Lionel Richie’s daughter, and most of you probly know even less about Roc Raida. He didn’t date anybody related to anyone famous as far as I know and was not very well known outside of serious hip hop fans, so I’m gonna give you a little impromptu history lesson here.
If you just know hip hop from modern TV and radio you don’t really see alot of DJs. Scratching is not usually really a component of popular rap music these days and some of the big ones don’t even have a DJ as part of their stage show anymore. This is exactly what was happening in the early ’90s as well. (read the rest of this shit…)
1. Patreon
Toss me a couple bucks a month, support the good shit, also get access to a bunch of exclusive writing. This is my primary source of writing money that has allowed me to cut down to part time at the day job. Thank you!
2. Buy my books from your local bookseller or somebody
click here for my Amazon author page (NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)
EXTRA CREDIT: Review them on Amazon! That would really help me out. Unless you didn't like them, in which case forget I said anything.
4. My exciting line of fashion and leisure products
(I get a couple bucks per item, you get a cool t-shirt, mug or lifestyle item)
-
