Have you watched any good movies lately? I have an ever-growing back catalogue that I feel I'll never get through, for the reason that Tiny always seems to sidle up to me on the couch and want to watch. Er, toots, you're meant to be in bed. If you've ever seen Kids, it's by the same directory - Larry Clark.
Mr Larry likes to get down and dirty in his film-making. Wassup Rockers is certainly no different.
For the first twenty minutes I was all 'er do we have to watch this...?' Nonchalant and not committing to movie watching, instead lying next to Matt reading blogs. In those twenty minutes any females were portrayed as floozies, and it had some hardcore Latino punk. Not really my scene. It's well documented that I love period films. Give me an empire line dress (as opposed to the Empire striking back), a chilly English backdrop and a cup of tea and I'm there, enthralled.
But I jump ahead - Wassup Rockers looks at a group of Latino-American boys living in South Central Los Angeles. They skate. They dress like the Ramones. They buck the trend of their own gnarly hip-hop neighbourhood by wearing tight shirts and tight jeans. And they decide to ride the bus into Beverley Hills to go skating.
They don't drink. They don't smoke. They're living high on their youth. And skating.
Once they step off that bus, there starts a narrative featuring a day or two of adventure, prejudice (Jane Austen - hell0!), daily danger they face, and a great insight into life as a fringe dweller. A lot of the script is improvised and the boys play themselves which can sometimes make for slow viewing.
Straight after, I had the blues. This is not a film you're going to walk away from and say - wow that was ace and uplifting and yowsers, let's watch it over again. But two weeks later I guess I can appreciate it more.
It's been a long time between reviews.. I give Wassup Rockers - *** and a half stars.
If you liked Lords of Dogtown then you might like this.
3 comments:
Might give it a crack. Can't be any worse than the stinking Bounty Hunter we watched last night. x Bern
My movie recomendation is The Fountain if you havn't seen it. I reckon its brilliant. Oh also Inception, at cinemas, is meant to be fanflippintastic (no period costumes though)
I'm going to give it a go. I'm intrigued.
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