"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Posts Tagged ‘DMX’

R.I.P. DMX

Friday, April 9th, 2021


Man do I hate starting out sentences this way, but rest in peace to DMX, rap icon who wielded the most unwieldy mix of bravado, raw intensity, heart-on-his-sleeve vulnerability and demonic horror in some great and idiosyncratic music. He seemed to appear to us already on top, shocking the world with a completely new sound and cadence. The growls, the chants, the gothic organs, the kids chanting about DMX like he’s Freddy, the catchy anthems that still get our hearts pumping today. But underneath it a sense of sincere anguish and struggle.

In his almost 25 years of music and public life he seemed to always be running from demons, on the brink of possible disaster, yet it feels impossible that they finally caught up with him. From the beginning he talked about pain and fear, he covered himself in blood on an album cover, talked about Hell, gave literal voice to his darkest thoughts, prayed to (and conversed with) God, read sad poems. But he was also known for having fun – praising his friends, driving around on four-wheelers doing wheelies and donuts (a trademark!), boasting, being funny.

And of course he had an action movie period! He just happened to be on the top at the right time to intersect with Joel Silver’s action-star-with-rappers-and-R&B-singers period. So he co-starred with Jet Li and Steven Seagal in roles where he just seemed like DMX, even if his character was, like, a hacktivist. I love that kinda shit – his screen presence was more exciting to me than good acting would’ve been – but he showed much more potential in BELLY, the one movie directed by music video legend Hype Williams. Not everything about the movie works, but it looks absolutely incredible, makes numerous interesting artistic choices and really does harness that raw DMX charisma in a powerful way.

I was so hyped for NEVER DIE ALONE, where he was the lead and stretching himself more, adapting a book by Donald Goins. It didn’t turn out to be what I hoped for at the time, and everyone else seemed to ignore it (though I have since seen it discovered and enjoyed by a few people). Like for most movie star type performers there was kind of a decline in quality, and he was content to just show up in random DTV movies on occasion, more cashing in on his name and face than finding good roles. And that’s fine. I can respect that. His heart was on the mic. Why not also play “Davie” in FAST AND FIERCE: DEATH RACE? I’m sure it was fun.

It was long known that he struggled with addiction and mental health issues that got him into reckless and inexplicable misadventures, but in recent years he appeared to have settled down a little. It seemed like the guy who on his first album said, “And I fear that what I’m saying, won’t be heard until I’m gone / But it’s all good, ’cause I really didn’t expect to live long” was aging into an old legend. Last year I watched him on that Verzuz with Snoop Dogg and it was electric to see the two of them celebrating each others’ life’s work, gushing over each other, dancing around like total dorks.

It made me so happy to watch them like that I actually tried to take some live screengrabs to capture the vibe:

DMX had a belly like a retiree and seemed so humble and flattered, being self-deprecating, almost bashful about the compliments. I hope he was able to enjoy it and really understand how much the world loved him.

Here are my old reviews of some of his movies. They’re not my best or most respectful work. I’ve been thinking about revisiting the Jet Li American period, so maybe I’ll do them more justice next time.

ROMEO MUST DIE
BELLY
NEVER DIE ALONE
CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE
LORDS OF THE STREET

Lords of the Street

Friday, September 19th, 2008

Take a look at that cover there. If you know me then you know I had to watch that movie.

I’m not stupid. I knew it would be, uh… problematic. “Probaly unwatchable” is I believe how I pre-described it to friends. But I figured as long as it stars the team of DMX and Kris Kristofferson I’m gonna get something out of it.

True, DMX has failed to deliver on the promise I thought I saw in him when I first saw BELLY. He seems to have pretty much lost his mind (up in here, up in here) and is not above making cameos in unwatchable DTV garbage in order to pay the legal bills for his poor driving, impersonating of federal officers and lack of dog feeding. So DMX alone is not a selling point. (read the rest of this shit…)

Cradle 2 the Grave

Friday, July 23rd, 2004

From the same director, producer and cast as Romeo Must Die and Exit Wounds comes another exciting pile of disparate elements squooshed together into the same basic shape as an action movie. It’s really more of a booger sculpture than a movie, but for a booger sculpture, it’s not that bad, I guess.

Joel Silver originally announced this as Untitled DMX Project, supposedly a remake of Fritz Lang’s M. If that was the case, then I guess Tom Arnold (our generation’s Peter Lorre) would’ve been playing a perverted child killer whose killing spree had caused the police to clamp down so hard that organized crime would be pretty much put out of business. So the leaders of rival gangs (DMX, Jet Li, Mark Dacascos) would pool their resources to catch Tom Arnold so everything could go back to normal. (read the rest of this shit…)

Never Die Alone

Friday, March 26th, 2004

Well for a while now I have been saying that this young man DMX is gonna do some good movies. He started out in a flawed but very artful crime picture called BELLY, before buddying up with Jet Li and my man Seagal and then riding around on those go-carts and doing wheelies and shit. (I guess I better rent that one.) He is still not a very convincing actor but he just has such a presence and charisma that I have faith in the dude for some reason. Too bad it’s not panning out so far.

See, I really thought this was gonna be his breakthrough. It’s the first movie where he does not have a co-star of equal or greater “star power.” He is the main attraction. And at the same time it is not some Hollywood action vehicle that the Rock or somebody turned down, it is an independent crime movie based on a novel by the legendary black crime writer Donald Goines. Also it’s directed by the sometimes decent director Ernest Dickerson, who has some credibility because he used to be Spike Lee’s cinematographer. Also because I kind of liked BONES. (read the rest of this shit…)

Belly

Tuesday, January 1st, 2002

I can’t remember who recommended this picture to me. It’s sort of a different take on the “hood movie.” You know, the old “two friends, one more crazy than the other, get mixed up in urban crime but then they try to go straight but at least one of them dies at the end” movies like BOYZ N THE HOOD and MENACE 2: SOCIETY.

I gotta warn you, it’s meandering and slow, sometimes amateurish, sometimes pretentious, and mostly humorless. But I still thought it was pretty fuckin good and I’ll explain why. (that’s what I do in these writings.) (read the rest of this shit…)

Romeo Must Die

Wednesday, March 22nd, 2000

This is the latest Jet Li picture, his last in the US was 1999 Outlaw Award Winner for Best Picture – Karate Black Mask. That was weird type of comic book story where there is karate, masks, lasers and all that sort of garbage, which is why it is good. Jet Li is an amazing type of action star as far as the kicks, the punches and etc. Legend has it that he is so fast they have to ask him to slow down so the camera can pick him up properly. In fact this guy is faster than Superman in my opinion, and he can also fly although only with the help of cables that are removed using high tech electronic computers that they have today. But the real thing about Jet Li is that he is a very charismistic and good looking dude, maybe a little feminine but in a “I’m gonna kick your ass and the girls will still think I’m sensitive, sucker” type of way.

What’s historic about this one is that it’s the first picture ever made in English with Jet Li as the star. The only English language picture he’s done in the past is I believe Beverly Hills Cop 4 or one of those type of movies, where he played the bad guy in a couple scenes and then the good guys make fun of him for being chinese. But he was so much more popular in that movie than the movie itself that now he is being groomed to join the pantheon with Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Rudy Ray Moore and other martial arts superstars who have made it big in the states. And what better to story give this motherfucker than one by the bard of writing, Mr. William Shakespeare himself, the genius behind Titus and other hits.

Well, that’s what they WANTED us to think. I’ve been reading about this piece for a long time and every single time they call it an update of Romeo and Juliet. I knew they wouldn’t talk like Shakespeare, and obviously there is gonna be some liberties as well as possibly some karate. But I thought it was gonna be a serious, modern karate type of picture which coincidentally happens to be about the warring capulets and whatsits and how Romeo and Juliet meet and fall passionately in love and then the shit hits the fan if you know what I mean, as far as a bunch of karate scenes happen and what not. Of course that would be totally ludicrous. I think it would be very enjoyable. (read the rest of this shit…)