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Weinsteins have picked up true-life tearjerker Fruitvale with Michael B Jordan-- how great would it be for an FNL alum to be positioned for some Oscar recognition?

Now titled Fruitvale Station, here's the trailer

This one seems to be picking up a lot of hype recently. It's slated to come out this Friday in a few cities and then slowly expand. I'm hoping I can get a chance to see it in NY soon.

Higly emotional but in a badly melodramatic manner. Crude, simplistic film. Definitely Oscar material.

Ah, so a Sundance hit.

JabbaTheSlut wrote:Higly emotional but in a badly melodramatic manner. Crude, simplistic film. Definitely Oscar material.

Sorry to hear that it might be too saccharine. Assuming that's true, I would have liked something more unconventional, challenging, complex, with regard to what became in my neighborhood a rather complex issue--among other things, we soon found local storekeepers hanging Oscar Grant posters in their windows like amulets in order to keep vandals during the Occupy and May Day demonstrations from wrecking their businesses. The Occupy encampment in Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland was renamed Oscar Grant Plaza, which amounted to a mostly white crowd appropriating the emblematic name for political purposes that rarely involved black neighborhoods and other underserved communities throughout Oakland. I'm curious whether the film ever invokes some of this political aftermath in the wake of Grant's death.

More than saccharine, it is manipulative. It doesn't have complexity in its portrayal of the society, or the characters. The writing is pretty straightforward stuff: an innocent, good guy gets injustly killed. And then: tears. That's it. There is good energy in the directing, but the writing is simplistic in its view of the world and the shameless manipulation force feeds every single emotion. The film felt naive.

That's too bad; it is a potentially fascinating, moving story from all angles. Scott Tobias seems to concur with you, btw.

Any comments on Michael B. Jordan's performance? He's the only reason I plan on seeing this.

What you wrote about the aftermath of the killing; the strange incident with the posters; for example, seems something that added in the movie, would make the film resonate in a much more dramatic level.

And Jordan is OK. He's a good actor.

It was okay. I think I'd rather see a documentary giving more explicit details about the actual incident, fallout and legal proceedings, as opposed to the emotional dramatizations of everything leading up to it, which is what most of what the film is about, and it isn't bad but it's sorta by-the-numbers and underwhelming. Good performances in that Good Performances mode I guess. I could watch Melonie Diaz for eons.

I thought it was pretty well made and hit all the right emotional beats even if it was a bit manipulative. With all the reviews, I was actually surprised the movie kept going and didn't end right after the event. It was the impression I received but I thought it was as long as it needed to be. I will concur it was sort of underwhelming. I was hoping for some really terrific acting but it was only above average. It really didn't resonate with me as much as I hoped.

wigwam wrote:I think I'd rather see a documentary giving more explicit details about the actual incident, fallout and legal proceedings, as opposed to the emotional dramatizations of everything leading up to it

I would've preferred that for my own learning experience, but I'm glad this exists as a purely emotional product. The way the film was structured, focusing only in on Grant's labored journey towards personal betterment within the context of a very closely-knit and supportive family, made the response to the ending a shared experience with those characters...if the narrative would've drifted into the fallout, covered the trial, increased in scope, it would've lost the immediate emotional trajectory of the film. I agree the film isn't perfect, certainly there are the unsubtle ironies, and you're led by the hand in quite a few sequences. But, sometimes well-meaning emotional manipulation isn't a bad thing. Plus, if the reaction of the audience I saw it with is any indication, the depoliticized humanization of the story has the power to provoke not just wrenching punched-gut emotions, but also passionate and thoughtful dialogue about race in our society because people so intimately and easily can place themselves in Grant's mother, his girlfriend, in Grant himself.

I just wish that more mainstream dramas about young African-American men navigating the world would be made without loss of life and political furor to precipitate them.


Oh, and Michael B. Jordan is excellent. Really, everyone is excellent, which is another reason why I feel this film succeeded to the extent that it did.

Was very disappointed in this and that's despite feeling that Coogler did a good job imparting that Grant, his family and friends are regular people, dare I even say 'average Americans'. My problem with it was that the film was far too fictionally dramatic when if he had just stuck with the reality of what happened it had all the drama one could possibly need. The other thing about the film that distracted me to the point of driving me crazy was why on earth did Coogler opt for constantly using the shake and tremble cam? Far too many scenes that were depicting regular American life had this ridiculous camera shaking going on that did nothing but distract.