Fruitvale Station

[Mik]

I'm tipping this one to figure big in the awards season. Likely to get Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor nods for the Wire's very own Wallace.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmRQV7406Ig

[LOCONUT]

Really want to see this. Looks epic.

[Mik]

Agreed. I'm looking forward to it.

[Simon]

Did anyone see this in the end? Really wanted to see it but it didn't get a showing anywhere in Brighton AFAIK. DVD release is in January so hopefully it will leak soon.

[Clive Plasma]

Digital release is 31st December so hopefully it could even leak out before then.

[Alf]

I've seen it and it is bloody ruddy excellent.

It's completely naturalistic and doesn't try to lead you one way or the other. It just tells the story straight down the line.

It's very well performed.

[Simon]

I don't know if I can cope with seeing Wallace unjustly killed again.

[Alf]

"String - where's Wallace at?"

cries

[Mik]

Where's the boy at string?

[MikeHunt]

Did anyone see this in the end? Really wanted to see it but it didn't get a showing anywhere in Brighton AFAIK. DVD release is in January so hopefully it will leak soon.

I never saw it in glasgow either, limited screenings at the gft. Annoying. I'll be downloading.

[Mik]

It was pretty much nowhere in the North East.

Fucking South!

[MikeHunt]

We had it I just missed it.

im more north mate. Your cinemas are shit. Just move to fucking london

[Mik]

You're not more Northern England mate, you're a different country.

[MikeHunt]

I'm more north than you geographically and your cinemas are still shit and you should still move to fucking London.

[Clive Plasma]

Leaked

[Canuck]

Yeah, I'm not sure what the hype was about. It's about a 30 second interesting conversation dragged out into 90 minutes. The back story behind him isn't interesting enough for that long of a movie. I think it would have been better off showing what happens after rather than the 70 minutes of walking around. I know it was meant to make the audience attached to the character, but it really didn't do that great of a job with that. It basically just made him look like a hood banger who wasn't contributing to society.

[Alf]

I don't think he was painted like that at all. he came across as a kid trying to make the best of a situation and never quite getting it right. Perhaps it's a good thing that you saw him as a gangbanger and so didn't have that emotional attachment to him. It's put you in a position where you don't care as much about the situation, and don't you find that interesting in itself? I think the movie is asking those difficult questions of you. Ok, so he's not much of a contributor, so how do you feel about him eventually being shot? Does that make it less of a tragedy?

It's kind of voyeuristic in that you're just watching his life unfold, as little and as undramatic as it is. And that's what makes it such an emotional punch at the end. He's just a normal dude. Wrong place. Wrong time. Slightly wrong actions. He has NO influence on the events he finds himself swept up in. It's like it was always going to happen, no matter what.

This isn't a typical hollywood story. It's not about the procedural after the event. It's not about a long hard struggle against adversity to get JUSTICE and a big speech at the end that tugs at the old heart-strings (and I'm not for a minute saying that's what you want or expected). It's about taking a tragic event, letting it speak for itself.

Personally I think everything that happens after the event is pretty wank. But I loved the build up and the just watching the smallness of his life unfold.

I'm rambling.

[Canuck]

I knew very little about the situation prior to this film, so I don't actually know what happened post incident apart from the text at the end of the film. It seems a bit wish wash and from the information given, makes it look like a complete injustice to the situation.

As for the impact of what transpired, it's neither here nor there for me whether I feel an attachment to the character in this situation. The fact that this actually happened is enough to make me mourn for Oscar. I've lived a life of "Do onto others as you would have them do to you", so I see so much wrong with this. I don't think I would feel any different if I had not watched the film and someone had given me the low down of the story in 5 minutes. I'm in no way saying that he deserved it for not being a valuable member of society, or the fact that he wasn't makes it any less tragic. I just think it's a bit of a dry story apart from the actual incident.

[VHS]

Easily one of my top 5 favorite films of the year. Loved that it was shot on Super 16mm as well.... That's my kind of film look. :yes:

And coming from somebody that was physically there and actually witnessed the shooting, it was very eerie seeing BART trains shown so prominently throughout the movie. If you live in the Bay Area, you know the distinctive sounds they make. How the loudspeaker sounds. "Four San Francisco Daly City train now approaching platform one"... God hearing that in an actual movie is like AJ Lee saying my name.

Oakland and SF have been my home since I was born, and it was really interesting seeing it all shot so well.

[MikeHunt]

Absolutely loved it. I can see hurlers point but don't agree personally. Fantastic lead performace and deserves an oscar nod IMO.

[Clive Plasma]

Just watched this. Thought it was brilliant. It was very subtle in what it was doing and let the main event of the film just... happen. It came out of nowhere, much like in real life. Very powerful viewing.

[son_of_foley]

Saw this last night. Powerful is the word Clive.

Cried like a big woman

[Gibby]

Saw this a few weeks ago, went in not even knowing what I was watching (gf chose, I said I'd seen the trailer) and I really enjoyed it. Mrs. Gibby was in tears.

Many US-based professional critics have rounded on some of the overdetermined ways that show Oscar as a nice guy (the dog, the phone in the supermarket, ditching the weed, asking the dude to let the girls into the shop for a pee) when in fact he wasn't such a reformed character, that the film is emotionally manipulative (guys do you know what art is?) and therefore shallow. I say pish-posh to all of that really. It's a critical and socially-conscious film, kind of like an American Ken Loach. How short and senseless life can be. How systems push you down even when you're trying to reform. How race still plays a significant part, even when you're in an integrated area. The film reminded me more of the California I saw than any number of LA-based glossy serials. It was hot and real and strips of grey hung under brilliant blue, a sense of imminent danger at the edge of really pleasant and fun moments.

It wasn't perfect, with a couple of clumsy moments and I agree with Alf to a certain extent when he says post-shooting, the film tails off. I sort of justified it by saying 'well, the family kept suffering once Oscar was dead so why shouldn't we?' but I think the power of the film would remain with fading to black after the gurney goes into the ambulance.

[son_of_foley]

I think any sugar coating of the character or spoon feeding of the viewer was probably needed to counteract all the negative connotations must of us have forced upon us of young black men.