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Oz (1997)
Best Show ever created on TV
HBO created this show for purposes of making us see the most realistic view of prison possible and they did a hell of a job. Oz was created by the creators of Homicide who wanted to show a raw version of prison. This show is what launched the idea of every other HBO Original Program such as The Sopranos, Sex and the City, The Wire, Arliss, Deadwood, and Six Feet Under amongst others. Oz is the nickname for the Oswald State Penetentiary, a fictional prison in some US state which is never stated (Though with the accents, crime scenes, and racial distribution NY is assumed). The main prison unit looked at on the show is Emerald City, a seemingly ideal prison unit with more privlages than others thought out by a liberal unit manager named Tim McManus. Overall this show shows us what it is really like if one wishes to survive in prison.
There are about 10 gangs shown on Oz. First we have the Muslims, a group of blacks who wish to destroy the injustices of the criminal justice system and help improve living conditions for blacks everywhere. They are led by Kareem Said a black militant minister who wishes to destroy everything racist about the judicial system. As a group they are not so much anti-white but rather anti-injustice. Our second group of blacks is the Homeboys who are essentially the street blacks who wish to keep all the bad ghetto behaviors up and run the drug trade. Their leadership varies mainly because they are always losing members due to violence. In this group, one character who is acted terrifically is Simon Adebisi. Adebisi is an African inmate who is essentially the most frighteningly evil character alive. This gang as a whole gets side help from the Irish at times and is always in conflict with the Latinos and Sicilians for drug distribution purposes. Being that Oz is mostly black, the Homeboys have the most soldiers of any gang inside.
The Latinos and Sicilians, like the Homeboys have varying leadership due to violent deaths that occur throughout the show. The Sicilians pretty much have the most substantial say in how any illegal activity gets conducted in Oz. The Latinos make their presence known so that they can at least be coasting well if they are not in control. Unlike the Homeboys however, these gangs do not have as much internal battle for power and are usually more stable when it comes to drug usage. The Irish who are mentioned above are a smaller gang led by a manipulative and snakelike Ryan O'Reily. O'Reily always manages to stay in good graces with all the drug powers and manages to manipulate things in his way whenever he wants. They are in no illegal control but they are at least on good terms with all those who are.
Amongst the whiter inmates, we have the Bikers and Aryans. The Bikers are merely a bunch of tattooed drug users who help the Aryans out most of the time. The Aryans are the most hated and hateful gang to most any viewer of Oz. They are led by Vern Schillinger who is amongst the most racist, sickest, and sadistic characters one will ever see. Both gangs control nothing illegal, they just merely let the darker skinned inmates see that they are a substantial threat to anyone who thinks all white inmates are soft. We also have the Others. The Others is a gang of outsider prisoners who are not necessarily a problem to any other inmate. In this group we see Tobias Beecher, a lawyer who accidentally killed a young girl whose life is forever altered by prison. We also see Augustus Hill, a black man bound to a wheelchair for killing a police officer who narrates the show and introduces the audience to every inmate. The character's crimes are shown as they are introduced and Augustus lets us know how long they will be in prison. Finally amongst gangs, there are the Christians and Gays. The Christians merely stay religious to keep from going mental and the Gays are a bunch of cross-dressers who are often raped by other inmates.
This show gets in depth on a lot of issues dealing with the criminal justice system and is more explicit than any movie about prison. Since language is unedited, we here more racial epithets and cuss words than we would on any other TV show. Augustus Hill's commentary provides a good way for us to truly understand each and every issue involved with Oz. This show as good as it is is not at all for the light to medium hearted. It explicitly shows drug use and distribution by any means possible, prison rape, murders, fatal stabbings, and general gore than anything anyone else has seen. In my opinion it is the most influential and greatest show ever created but I can see at the same time why other people would be disturbed by this show. If you are at all interested by shows and movies about prison, Oz is a must see.
The French Connection (1971)
One Of The Greatest Drug Movies Ever Made
The French Connection is simply the best movie made in the 1970s. It is a film about two policemen who simply stop at nothing to bust a drug shipment. The main detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle who is played by Gene Hackman is one of the most obsessive, alcoholic, meanest, bigoted policemen out there but is great at bringing down drug shipments. Popeye's partner is Buddy "Cloudy" Russo played by Roy Schieder is a nicer but equally as dedicated detective. The whole process of tracking down the drug deals in this movie is worth watching, we see some unorthodox, somewhat illegal tracking methods which end up paying off in the end. The car chase scene in this movie is one of the rawest, best chases I've ever seen in a film even with today's technology. To me, this is simply Gene Hackman's greatest performance and it is too bad there are not as many cops today out there like Popeye Doyle.
Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975)
Sad Story about Black America
This movie seemed to show what really goes on in inner-city America between black people and the police in general, even if the police like in this movie are black too. This movie is set in 1974 Watts, fast back cars, number running pimps, soul music, Afro haircuts, everything 70's. What happens in this film is two cops, one of whom is black mistake a black basketball player for a rapist and shoot him to death accidentally. This basketball player Nathaniel "Cornbread" Hamilton is a well liked, talented, nice kid who is headed off to play D-1 ball. He has never committed a crime in his life and has done well resisting ghetto temptations that lead to bad things but unfortunately for him, he is mistaken by the police and is shot to death on the spot before he can do anything else. When his parents hire a black lawyer to charge the police for wrongful death, we see some really Uncle Tom type police officers who will stop at nothing to keep the truth from being revealed. The black officer who pulled the trigger calls all the blacks in the neighborhood "savages" and the black precinct captain threatens to take away a woman's welfare check for having her son testify against the police. Of course there are racist white cops too but that is expected in any Blaxploitation. I feel this movie was pretty real based on things I've heard about the 70s and I think anyone who wants to see how bad it is between the black community and police departments anywhere and why it will remain bad in years to come.
Friday Night Lights (2004)
Disappointing.....
This movie was very disappointing in that several elements of the book were wrongly done. The main story is the same but there are several flaws that hurt the movie.
1) Boobie Miles gets injured in the beginning of the story in a preseason game at Texas Tech. This means he won't get anything done during the season at all and Chris Comer comes up sooner on the team.
2) The game against Marshall was lost at Marshall. The team depicted as Marshall was actually Midland High one of Permian's main rivals and here is the proof- Marshall High is the Mavericks colored Scarlet and Silver, Midland High is the Bulldogs colored Purple and Gold. Look at the jerseys and you will see who it is. Also the real Marshall High's football roster is overwhelmingly Black, the team shown was racially mixed like Midland High.
3) Permian only loses to Midland Lee by one point in district play. Midland Lee loses to Midland High and Midland High loses to Permian. These are the teams that set up the coin toss as such.
4) Boobie comes back on the team as a reserve to Chris Comer and after not getting any playing time in the Midland Lee game, he quits the team completely at half time and never stands on the sideline or goes to any games again.
5) Brian Chavez was a Tight End and Defensive End who wore #85 not a Tight End and Strong Safety. In addition, Boobie wore #35 and Ivory Christian wore #62.
6) The coaches end up liking Chris Comer as a player more than Boobie because he has a better lifting ethic and runs more straight up plays the way the staff prefers him too, this is in part why Boobie quits the team.
7) Dallas Carter is played in Austin at Darrell K. Royal Memorial stadium where UT plays in the state semi-finals not the state finals. Carter wins the state title but is forced to forfeit due to an ineligible player.
The acting is done pretty well but if you read the book, you will see these flaws are pretty true. I am also tired of hearing all the PC hypocrites out there complain about the depiction of Dallas Carter's football team. The team according to the book is as large, monstrous, talented, and black as the movie shows. People say it is a racist depiction but reading the book, you see a true depiction of the team. The story is very altered giving this movie a score of 3.5/10.
Clockers (1995)
Good Acting, Mediocre Directing
I usually like Spike Lee films, but with Scorsese, one of the greatest movie directors of all time working beside him, the directing could have been much better. I liked this film mainly because I liked the book. The acting is very good, especially Harvey Keitel, Mekhi Phifer, Delroy Lindo, and Keith David but several details from the book were missing.
The book and movie are very similar, you get a sense right away when reading the book that Harvey Keitel is Detective Klein. You get a feeling that Rodney can be played by Samuel L. Jackson, but Delroy Lindo who is known for playing a gangster performs very well. You also sense Mekhi Phifer as Strike. The main differences are that all of Strike's crew have different names and they deal more with some other gangs in town. There is a shootout against a Puerto Rican crew which is completely ignored in the movie. Also the whole concept of playing with Trains is something completely new. However I think Spike Lee did well in using the trains to portray Strike's humanity a little bit better. The book does a much better job describing Strike's frustrations and resentment over his life and his current position in life. Finally the book takes place in New Jersey while the movie takes place in Brooklyn. I feel this move was actually good it not only gave the audience a more familiar setting but because Scorsese and Lee both are much better adept to Brooklyn than many of directors.
On to what was done right. First and foremost Harvey Keitel pulled off a performance as Detective Rocco Klein that no other actor could have pulled off. You get a sense the whole time that it's an easy natural role for him. Pulp Fiction was an act for him, Clockers was not. He seemed to do very well throughout the film, especially the parts where he is pressing Strike for information. John Turtorro does a good job as Rocco's partner Mazilli. After seeing him in other Spike Lee movies, it is almost no surprise to me that he would fall into the role of Mazilli. One performance that I thought was done really well was Keith David's role as Andre The Giant. He played a community-oriented Black Police Officer who was one of the few cops out there that really cared for this particular Black Community. Spike Lee directs most of the White Cops as he does in all of his movies, for the most part not giving one damn either way about Black People. His portrayal of Andre was critical mainly because the audience needed a sense that Cops were actually interested in helping the community. Andre is the type of Cop every Black Community wants. He is caring, supportive, unabusive, protective, and tough on the real criminals. He is the only officer who can successfully date one of the kid's moms (Tyrone's mom) and not even have the drug dealers view her is traitor. In the book, Andre is much bigger so I thought at first someone like Ving Rhames or Michael Clarke Duncan would play Andre based on size, but Keith David was a much better actor to play this particular role. This movie was a perfect way for Mekhi Phifer to begin acting. This role defines him through many of his other movies and there was no better place for him to start out than in a ghetto drama such as this. Delroy Lindo gave the second best performance of the movie. Seeing Malcolm X; Blood In, Blood Out; and Romeo must die, I knew he'd be perfect for the role of Rodney. Like Keitel, he seems really natural at his role especially when he gives Strike the speech about what Crack Cocaine will do to someone. His whole attitude as Rodney is perfect being an uncaring, relentless, intelligent drug dealer who ran this particular set of projects. Isaiah Washington did well as Victor but I think he wasn't the only one who could have played Victor. He was believable as a working class citizen trying to leave the projects but he didn't stick out naturally like Keitel or Lindo. Michael Imperioli (Chris from The Sopranos) had a nice contribution to the movie too playing the crooked Detective JoJo. I couldn't stop laughing when he told the kids from Connecticut about "12 baboons in a cage calling you Mary all night long" for refusing to give up the drugs they came to buy. He was a little foul mouthed at times and insensitive like in his speech about Dinkins being out and Guiliani being in, but he contributed a nice minor performance. Overall the acting was very good and too natural for some of the people performing.
Overall, I liked the story because it is a true description over the crack dealing that goes on in inner city America. I think the movie could have easily been an hour longer but in the condensed time frame, it did what it could. I think it was good for Lee to display people who dealt drugs only to go somewhere better in life and to display the damage that crack does to people. Unlike Do The Right Thing and Jungle Fever, I think Lee did a better, more realistic display of the relationship between the Police and the Black Community during this day and age. In those two movies he shows two stereotypical White Italian Cops who actually play the same role in each movie (Rick Aiello and Miguel Sandoval as Officers Long and Ponte) who are quick to beat up and slow to control themselves against Alleged Black Criminals who get treatment worse than they deserved (Flipper Purify gets a gun to his head for friendly roughhousing and Radio Raheem gets purposefully strangled to death). In this movie, he shows a Black Cop who cares, some White Cops who are beat out by what goes on in violent neighborhoods and who start to care when someone they think is innocent is going to be sent to jail. I do think the added line by Mekhi Phifer about cops not caring over Black on Black violence was needed because it is the way that most of Black America really feels about Policing. Overall it was well acted but poorly directed for the quality of actors and directors in the film, 7/10.