Dogwatcher wrote:Watched Straight Outta Compton last night.
Loved it. I'm sure there's a large dose of embellishment but it was great to see so many icons of hip hop in one big-ass movie.
O'Shea Jackson Jnr was totally believable playing his father, Ice Cube, and has a big future ahead of him, while Jason Mitchell, as Eazy E, was excellent (who'da thought, at that time, that a rapper would die of AIDS? We had so much to learn).
It took me right back to a time when hip hop was becoming a serious playa and changing the way us 90s kids viewed the world - I imagine for some of us it was like when rock n roll broke for the after-war generations. Hip hop, in Australia had always been a novelty to most and NWA were at the forefront of moving it into the mainstream (for better, or for worse).
For me, it wasn't just the teenage rebellion, it was the message in the words (which for a kid from the north - not quite Compton with all its guns and drive-bys, but still a place where people did it tough and where they had to make serious decisions about their life's path - spoke of a reality). NWA and Public Enemy gave so much to me.
It was also a new way of hearing the beats that I was used to listening to on my parents' old soul and top-40 funk LPs - Dre's love of ol' school choons inspired several generations of DJs and hip hop artists and his impact reverberates today.
If a movie takes you back to how you felt when you first heard the music or the cultural trends of a time, then it's done a damn good job, Straight Outta Compton did this.
I might have to grow my skater fringe, wear my high tops and get my cassette player out again.
Good write up, DW.
I enjoyed it too. It provided a good history of the group's rise to fame and its key players, particularly useful if you're not really across their backstory (the wife, who had no real idea about NWA, found it quite interesting). And yes, Ice Cube's son does an great performance as his dad. I felt at times I was watching
the Ice Cube.
However, I think there was a fair bit of airbrushing. It's also quite long at about 2.5 hours (not that I really noticed that in the cinema), and despite this it didn't really delve into any of the characters in any real depth, which is a bit of a pity. I was thinking that it could've told the NWA story through the eyes of one member (I'm think perhaps Easy-E) as opposed to spreading the narrative across the group. I also thought it made Dr Dre out to be a kind of 'hero' of the story, which is a pity given his renowned violence towards women.
But, if nothing else, it offers a great soundtrack! I loved the scene where they play Cube's solo song "No Vaseline" (a cracking tune which tips the bucket on the other members of NWA), in which the visuals are cut between Cube recording it and the rest of NWA listening to it.
Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2016 10:23 am
