Fruitvale Station- Michelle Negron

I watched the movie on Netflix, and I quickly thought this movie is pointless. I have never heard of this movie, but it started off dark (literally with a nondiegetic exchange between its main character and his girlfriend; SPOILER ALERT!!! It then briefly shifts to archival footage shot by an onlooker's phone before flashing back to its narrative beginning]. I was confused watching it at first, but then it got to the point. It showed a footage of it happening in real life, then it got to the movie [Yes!]. I was intrigued from then on. 

Fruitvale Station shows many perspectives that police brutality and the struggle to a good life is hard. He [Oscar Grant] had a daughter and that's all he said when he got shot.  Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan) was a young man trying to hold up his daughter and baby mamma. I wouldn't want to spoil the movie for anyone, but this movie really touches many issues young adolescents and adults go through. His baby mom, Sophina (Melonie Diaz) just wanted her boyfriend to stay out of trouble and stay in his daughter's life. So many people recorded what happened to Oscar Grant. 

I've never experienced anything involving the cops, but it hit home for me. As a daughter of two parents, I can't begin to imagine the void Oscar's daughter has in her heart knowing that the cops shot her father for no reason. I recommend this movie to everyone even if you don't relate to it. 

Chicago

Chicago, directed by Rob Marshall, in an on-screen adaptation of the popular Broadway musical Chicago. Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) dreams of being a star in 1920's Chicago. When she meets a man who promises to make her famous she'll do anything to please him, which includes sleeping with him. Eventually Roxie realizes he's been lying to her, she kills him. This lands Roxie in jail alongside multiple women who murdered their significant other when they realized they were cheating. One of these women being Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who was also a big star until she caught her sister sleeping with her husband and killed them both.

Chicago did a great job of showing how much America idolizes criminals. Roxie realized this and used that fame to boost her life once she got out of jail. To do so, she had her husband hire Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), a lawyer who'd never lost a case. Flynn then changed Roxie's story, making it something the media couldn't resist, bringing her to the front headlines of every newspaper. This caused competition between Roxie and Velma, who was previously Flynn's client. When Roxie believes she's losing the attention of the press, she lies and says she's pregnant which gets her plenty of new attention. Even after Velma and Roxie are released from jail they're still idolized. The two were able to become famous with a two woman show telling about their crimes and trials. America still idolizes criminals. For example George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, sold the gun he used that day for $250,000.

This movie also shows how the law isn't always fair. As mentioned before, when Roxie first enters the jail, she meets six women who sing "Cell Block Tango" and tell Roxie about the crimes that landed them in jail. All but one of these women admit to committing the crime. That same woman, Hunyak (Ekaterina Chtchelkanova), was ruled guilty and became the first woman to be hanged in Illinois. This ruling may have been due to her inability to speak English but shows that the justice system doesn't only punish the guilty.

Fruitvale Station

Fruitvale Station is a biographical drama based on the final hours leading up to Oscar Grant's death. Oscar Grant, played by Michael B. Jordan, was a man trying to turn his life around. After losing his job, he's tempted to go back to selling drugs. He then thinks back to his days in jail and has to make a difficult choice, sell drugs again and risk going back to jail, or stop selling and try to find a way to get by anyways. Oscar chose to stop selling. In my opinion, it takes a strong person to give up an old habit. Especially if that habit will help your family financially [Insert Oprah quote?].

Their time at the eponymous train station kept me in suspense. While I didn't know what would happen, the title of the movie told me that something important would happen when they reached Fruitvale Station.  Due to the movie's portrayal of Oscar as a family man down on his luck, I was really rooting for him to survive even though I was almost positive he would not. During their time waiting for news about Oscar in the hospital, my thoughts went to T (Ariana Neal), his 4 year old daughter waiting for him at home and the promise he made her before he left that night [Chucky Cheese?].

At the end of the movie when Oscar's mother went to the morgue she asked the nurse if she would hug him. This brought me back to when Oscar was in jail and his mother told him she wouldn't be coming to visit him anymore. He kept asking her over and over again for a hug. I felt that these moments were connected. This scene really pulled at my heartstrings when his mother (Octavia Spencer) said, "He didn't like to be alone."

Malcolm X

Malcolm X was a very informative biopic about Malcolm X, a civil rights leader who was killed while advocating for racial equality at a rally. This biopic not only caught my attention but kept it. While watching this movie, I made connections between it and a documentary I'd just seen called I Am Not Your Negro. In this documentary, I was able to hear about James Baldwin's accounts of his friendship with Malcolm X and other civil rights leaders. Through this I was able to better understand Malcolm X and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole.

Many people viewed him as an extremist, but through this movie and I Am Not Your Negro I saw that, though he started out that way, towards the end of his life he changed his views. In fact, he even started his own church after taking a trip to Mecca. While there, he learned that Muslims weren't just Arabs, Africans and Middle Eastern people, but could be of any race. I was also taught by history books and other movies that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King didn't get along due to their opposing views on how to create change. However, James Baldwin's accounts in I Am Not Your Negro taught me that towards the ends of their lives, around the time Malcolm X changed his views, he and Martin Luther King had become friends. Baldwin even went on to write that Malcolm X was one of the people Martin Luther King saw on the mountain top.

This movie opened my eyes to how skewed American history is. All my life I was taught that Malcolm X was violent. While yes, he encouraged making change "By any means necessary", he wasn't inherently violent. Also, while I knew Malcolm X wasn't born Muslim, I didn't know anything about his life before being a Civil Rights leader. I didn't know he had siblings or that his father was a pastor, I knew nothing about the criminal history that put him in jail for him to change the course of his life. Malcolm X was a man who saw injustice in his world and set out to change it. In the words of James Baldwin, "Some people are born to lead, to be on the front lines, and to give their lives for the cause. Malcolm, Martin, and Medgar were those people. Others were born to live on and tell the story. I will tell the story." Now the question is, will you give your life to the cause or tell the story?

Bonnie and Clyde, William Oliver

William Oliver
Bonnie and Clyde

   

     Bonnie and Clyde is a 1967 movie directed by Arthur Penn, starring Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker and Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow.  The biographical film tells the tale of Bonnie and Clyde.  They take the phrase, "A couple of gangsters" to a new level.  The film takes place in the middle of the Great Depressions, which was the worst economic recession in United States History.  Clyde meets Bonnie when he tries to steal Bonnie's mothers car.  Bonnie immediately becomes infatuated with Clyde, and he convinces her to be his partner in crime, as they begin to do small heists around the country.  Along the way, they meet a gas station attendant by the name C.W Moss. He soon becomes their getaway driver for the crew, and along with Clyde's brother and sister-in-law, they up the ante on their robberies.  They go from small heists, to full on bank robbers.  They constantly are on the run from law enforcement, specifically from Texas Rangers.  They continue their crime spree, until they are raided and Buck is killed, and his wife captured.  Bonnie, Clyde, and C.W manage to get away and take refuge in C.W's fathers house.  Meanwhile, Blanche, Buck's wife, who is now blind from her injuries sustained at the raid, is tricked by a ranger into giving up their whereabouts.  The film ends with Bonnie and Clyde being set up by the Texas Ranger into walking right into a firing squad.  Bonnie and Clyde were shot numerous times in a bloody scene that is very shocking in gory.

    Going along with Chicago, with movies that glorify crime, Bonnie and Clyde are depicted as Robin Hood-esque anti-heroes.  They are seen as rebels and have been a part of pop culture lore as the definition of a "ride or die" couple.  The film was the first appearance for Gene Wilder and helped take off the careers of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  Bonnie and Clyde was a good film that I'd give 3.5/5 stars to.

Bonnie & Clyde Alvin Weekes

Is it love or is it lust. is he doing it to actually better their future or is he doing it for the money? I knew this movie would be old fashioned but what I didn't know it was based on a true stories and events, that was a foolish act of me. You can tell its old school from the scenery the guns the way they dressed etc. When Clyde approached Bonnie it was different than I expected. Two different types of personalities coming together as one, but who wouldn't love the story of  two young people in love running away together which shocked me because of the facts that he shot and killed her father. I love this movie because it actually has a plot that made sense they weren't doing illegal this actions for no reason. Their mentality was not on killing people they were focused on the money. The way the movie was made was in color very vibrant and reflect on their wild lifestyle. The towns they would go to were plain suburban with people that are punks. This movie not only focused on the main characters (Bonnie & Clyde) but on people who helped them long the way such as C.W., Buck and Blanch. I didn't like the people that was helping because I feel like it went down hill from there also for every robbery they had to split the money more and more and that messed up the money income for Bonnie and Clyde to get what they actually wanted. Overall I liked the movie a lot watching the  movie had my eyes glued to the screen.

Gaylord fruitvale station

                This drama [director Ryan Coogler's tour de force and first feature length] film is filled with very significant scenes has its viewers attention from the beginning. Being that it is based off of a true story it makes the viewers feel more connected to the film. Starring Michael B. Jordan who played Oscar Grant did a wonderful job; he played the role of the caring father and somewhat of what many would call "Gangster."

                There were many dramatic scenes such as when his mother, played by Octavia Spencer, visited Oscar in jail and talked about his daughter missing him. If the viewer is unfamiliar with the story, the ending is still no secret because it is revealed at the beginning of the film after an interesting dialogue between Oscar and his girlfriend Sophina. Seeing that throughout the film Oscar is trying to change himself around seems somewhat of a New Year's resolution. He wants to give up selling weed and proceed the life of getting his money more legitimately. As a viewer seeing these slight changes in  Oscar attacks my heart to see him die before really getting to change himself and show his loved ones the "new" him. The one most affected by this sad event to me would be his daughter Tatiana, but the director seems to leave that part out and lets the viewer try to assume how her emotions were as they go to a black screen before the mother tells the daughter that her father died/was murdered.
             
                Throughout the film I almost felt as if I was growing with Oscar because there were scenes that seemed like they were eye-opening, and he was somewhat learning or realizing new things. The filming style felt like a point of view to me, I almost forgot I was watching a movie and felt like I was there, especially in scenes like when Oscar was on the phone with his mother on the way to the store to pick up the crab legs. I did not pay attention to any music. What I do know though, is in this scene [SPOILER ALERT!!! the scene where Oscar befriends a stray pit bull before it is struck and killed by a car?], the sounds were strictly diegetic, which made it seem more realistic and that made me feel closer to the film.

                To me  the film seemed like it was throwing hidden signs that meant something deeper than what was perceived, leading up to Oscar's death. Oscar is perceived as very caring and many would agree just after seeing the scene with the dog that was hit by an car. when the dog was was hit it suddenly made Oscar seemed vulnerable, the small time he had with the dog before he was hit made them seem as if they had a connection [good].

                 I personally give this film a thumbs up and rate it for my top two films my class has watched this year. What really drew my attention was when he was on the train, and I knew what scene was coming up. The film was based off of a historic event so being that the ending was no surprise there was still was sense a suspense. I personally was revealed to something new about that specific event after watching the film. I thought that Oscar was killed instantly after the gunshot, the film though showed me otherwise and I found out that he had passed away in the hospital.