Recently Watched Films

I have some mixed feelings about this one. 

As a movie I thought it was very good. Entertaining, well shot, I could really feel the neighbourhood coming to life through it's characters. 

As a movie that supposedly has a strong message against racism and the killing of black people by cops in the US (which is even more poignant in 2020 due to George Floyd), I found it to have some big problems though. Such as the long and the short of it (sorry, spoilers but can't be helped) being that everything that happens is because one black man walks into an Italian-American's pizzeria and takes umbrage over the Italian-American wall of fame and can't let it go and another one took umbrage over being told to switch Public Enemy off while on the premises. I found that character really arrogant over the assumption that he could just walk in and show such disrespect to the owner while still expecting to get served actually. 

If those two characters had just shown some respect the events that led to the riot wouldn't have happened. No, the death of one of those men at the hands of cops wasn't right and the movie raises awareness that George Floyd's death proved is still much needed over 30 years later, but I felt that the movie would have been more effective if those same people hadn't been the direct cause of events. For me that weakened the message. Some manners cost nothing and if Buggin Out really had a problem with the wall of fame he could have gone about trying to change Sal's mind in much better ways instead of demands and threats of getting the community to boycott the place. One thing I felt the movie got right was that most of the black community didn't have issue with Sal's wall - it wasn't racist, but got made about race unnecessarily. I think a lot of things today get made about race when they don't need to be too. So that resonated for me. Especially as if you reversed the roles of Buggin Out and Sal taking umbrage with a black wall of fame would be seen as racist, especially if it happened in 2020 and it's SJW climate. You don't end racism by reversing it. So I'm going to say it and be damned for it if I have to be: Buggin Out and Radio Raheem were the villains of this movie. 

I find Kubrick hit and miss. More hit now The Shining has won me over but unless 2001 manages to one day do the same I'm still going to say that's a really boring and overrated movie. There's a few key Kubrick's I've never seen though, including A Clockwork Orange. 

Love this movie! Need to give it a rewatch.

Also just watched this the other day. I gotta say I was highly impressed with the standard of the special effects. It's a very visually stimulating movie.