Straight Outta Compton - the movie

[Julius Seeker]

Twenty years to this day was the last day Eazy E spent alive. One of the greatest rappers of all time.

This movie actually seems like it's going to be good. NWA was one of the very best bands of the late 1980's; they revolutionized rap, opening the eyes of the world to the reflection of the reality of the places where they lived.

These guys were the loudest voices at the time when the plight of South Central LA was hitting its boiling point. At this time, the news networks were all over the IRA situation in Ireland and the UK... where dozens of people were killed. Meanwhile South Central was a footnote, but the volume of murders and crime dwarfed everything that was going on in the combined UK and Ireland at the time; Los Angeles murders per year ranged from 800 per year in the mid 80's and peaking at at 2600 murders just in 1992. For comparisons sake, total IRA related deaths amounted to 1823... from 1913 to 2001.



On a side note, Suge Knight's bail has been set to $25 million on charges of assault and murder involving two people related to the production of this movie. The fight began on the set, and ended at a fast food joint later that day where Suge appeared to purposely run them down with his vehicle.

[Replay]

Finally caught the trailer and I want to see this.

[Replay]

Releases the Friday after next (the 14th). I'm excited.

[Replay]

(Also, your "side note" apparently isn't. Suge was fighting with someone over the movie when he went to get his truck or whatever to run them over with.)

[ManaMan]

Alternatively you could say that they exploited suffering and offered white America a pornographic, violent, & misogynistic caricature of black culture for their own profit.

[Julius Seeker]

Saw the movie. It was excellent! The best biopic of a band I have ever seen.

Rambling review in the spoiler

Spoiler: show

There's tons of music, and it's enjoyable all the through, it had a fantastic beginning and a really great ending. Although the portion leading up to the ending felt a little rushed and choppy, as though they cut several scenes out; although this barely bothered me because I knew the story, but some might not be able to fill in the blanks as well (I'll get to a big example). I am hoping there's an extended cut which has the whole story... The movie was running long at about 2.5 hours, but that flies right by!

The story was mostly focused around Eazy E, Jerry Heller, Dre, and Ice Cube - Paul Giamatti (villain from Shoot Em Up, manager from Cinderella Man) did a fantastic job as Heller. Suge Knight was the villain; coincidentally considering the real incidents.

There are some really great little Easter eggs in the films, references and quotes slipped in from Friday's. The movie does have some very clever humour in it.

There's a few gripes I have, mostly with direction... Keep in mind the actors and characters all did their parts excellently, but it did suffer a little of the same as The Runaways and Notorious in which certain characters got to look a lot better than their reality; they made Dre and Cube come off as the intelligence of the group, where Eazy E was made to seem a little foolish over some aspects. The film also gave less credit to Eazy E and Heller than the reality.

Speaking of those two, they also skipped or rewrote some of Jerry Heller and Eazy E's history. missing was how Dre Day - a diss song against Eazy - actually earned Eazy E royalties. Also missing was Eazy E's response with Real Mothaphukkin Gs, which demolished Dre and Death Row, one of the greatest diss songs of all time.

While they were missing key pro-Eazy E moments, they also had some added stuff that didn't happen: They had Tupac signed to Death Row Records long before he actually did sign; Eazy died in March 95, Tupac signed in October 95, he had been in jail before that. They also showed Tupac recording recording Hail Mary which was one of his last recordings under the pseudonym Makaveli.

Lastly, right before the end, they manufactured Eazy E turning on Jerry Heller and teasing a reunion for NWA just before Eazy E died. Jerry and Eazy were pretty much like father and son. Although, the reunion tease for NWA was actually a nice little bit of good before the climactic ending, which had most of the theatre sniffling/wiping tears.

I just have to add, the way they executed the epilogue in the credits was great. As I mentioned above, I hope there's an extended cut, there's a good 20-40 more minutes of story that should be told, particularly in the last 45 minutes of the theatrical cut.

Here's a bit of an overview of part of the history they skimped on:



Now my criticisms are mostly big because I am very invested fan and consider Eazy E as one of my all time favourite rappers. Like Lord of the Rings, it may not be 100% accurate, or have all of the parts of the story that fans find important, but they did a phenomenal job doing it - and fitting it into 2.5 hours.

It is also a GREAT movie for the current cultural spectrum of protest against the current climate dealing with police injustice towards blacks and black communities. Even if you don't like rap, this is a great film.

Overall, I put this one way above Notorious (Documentary about Biggie), and I liked Notorious a lot, and think it is definitely worth watching. WAY above the semi-biographical Eminem pic 8-mile. It also has an 8.4 on imdb, which almost puts it into the top 50 movies of all time.

[Julius Seeker]

Here's a great Jerry Heller interview.



It's fairly long, so I'll will sum it up:

THE BLACK COMMUNITY
* Thinks that things aren't perfect, but much better now.
* Felt that NWA was the spearhead of informing the world of exactly what was happening in South Central.
* Says NWA did more for race relations than anyone since Bobby Kennedy and Dr. King.
* Is extremely positive about current technology because so many horrible things used to happen that no one would know or care about, but that nowadays things are finally getting exposed - everyone has cameras.

He's emotionally invested in getting the word out about injustices; very against censorship.


EAZY E
* Wrote a book to clear up misconceptions about Eazy E; Eazy E can't really defend himself at this point.
* The day the two met, they went into business, he had a huge amount of faith with Eazy (who he often refers to as Eric in the interview).
* He and Eazy E were accused of cooking books and stealing, explains that it wasn't possible with all the eyes on the money -- Is surprised that people believe the myth.
* Says Eazy E was like his flesh and blood son.
* Is very proud and nostalgic about the two of them building the fastest growing music Empire in the history of music outside of DGC.
* Eazy was cautious about Suge, but was never afraid of him.
* Eazy E was fearless, even after Suge's guys got him.
* Says if Eazy would have wanted an NWA reunion, and the other two would have done it on the condition that Heller wouldn't have been involved, Heller says he would have stepped away no questions. NWA is bigger than the he and the business around it.
* He left Ruthless Records as Eazy E was dying, Eazy was his guy. Ruthless passed on to Eazy E's wife, Tomika, who became the sole owner.
* Says that Eazy E was a great visionary, was a street guy, and was very invested in his vision; creating social change.

He genuinely seems to have cared about Eazy E like a close family member.


ICE CUBE
* He knew Ice Cube before Eazy E.
* Feels the primary reason of Ice Cube's dislike for him was because Cube was a lot younger.
* Ice Cube would later take credit for the songs during his feud with the rest of the band, Heller says that by far the biggest song writer was actually Dr. Dre.
* That said, he was still a poet lauriette of the group.
* Ice Cube wasn't a street guy, lived at home with his parents because of his younger age, says his mother is a very lovely woman.
* Ice Cube left because Brian Turner at Priority persuaded him.
* Says the whole thing about money stealing is bullshit, that with all the lawyers involved it was impossible. Talks about how successful the label was.
* He was jealous of the others, and overemphasized the amount of his contribution to the music (it was mostly Dre)... but it was because of his age.
* No Vaseline (Ice Cube diss song) genuinely upset Heller, what seemed to hurt him most was the accusation that the rest of NWA was owned by a white guy, who happens to be him; a very dishonest portrayal.

He seems to have very mixed emotions on Ice Cube.


SUGE KNIGHT
* Says Suge Knight was poison when he was brought into Ruthless Records. The fun ended when Suge Knight got involved.
* Gang members with uzis were all over the place thanks to Suge.
* Suge beat up and threatened Eazy E; intimidated Eazy by showing pictures of his mom's house, implied to Eazy that he (Suge) was going to do terrible things to Heller (who Suge claimed to have in a van down the street) etc... All this in order to sign over Dre's rights.
* Eazy E was going to kill Suge Knight, but was talked out of it through logical discourse.
* They managed to get their cut of Death Row, a small victory.
* Said Suge Knight was not going to scare him (Jerry Heller) away from Ruthless; he felt Ruthless was the most important record label in the world. Implies that it was a labor of love after Suge Knight got involved, and that it was the most important thing that he'd ever be a part of.

He seems to genuinely hate Suge Knight.


DR. DRE
* Dre is the greatest music producer of all time. Goes on a litany of all of Dre's successes.
* Says that he has nothing to gain by promoting Dre, they're not buddies, all the praise he gives to Dre is the honest truth.
* Says Dre was the only producer on the label, because he had a tremendous amount of
* Eazy was really upset about Dre Day felt betrayed.
* Heller is still friends with Dre's mother, they live in the same neighbourhood and see each other on a daily basis.
* Dre didn't do drugs.

He seems like Dre's biggest fan.