Yes, I saw the movie.

I’m still kind of digesting having seen Straight Outta Compton. Let’s start with the basics – it’s one hell of a movie. Well-acted, directed with confidence, a solid script, and pulling no punches about the language, misogynistic tendencies towards women (The “Bye Felicia” incident – while funny was also pretty damned mean), and both the good and bad about the 5 men in NWA and their manager Jerry Heller. It holds no punches that Heller obviously favored Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) but he still delivered what he said he could, Ice Cube’s (O’Shea Jackson Jr. – Ice Cube’s own son) growing unease at how he and Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) and MC Ren (Aldis Hodge) were being left behind financially. It shows the fun the guys had in the studio and the arguments. It shows Easy-E coming into his own as a performer. It shows how terrible it can be to just be black in a high crime neighborhood - and how much worse in a neighborhood not your own. I found it interesting that one of the more brutal cases of racial profiling in the movie came at the hands of a black cop.

Oh, and the live shows! The performance of “Fuck Tha Police” in Detroit is about as perfect as concert filming gets. Who cares if you like the song or not in a performance that electric? You’re going to get into it if you have any soul at all. Watching Ice Cube lose his cool for a second and start to laugh right before launching into the song was great. Seeing MC Ren land his move in the background just at Ice Cube lets out that first roar on the title words was just amazing. Jerry Heller’s (Paul Giamatti) unease but support of the band during the show.

And then watching everything fall apart. Ice Cube leaving, MC Ren stepping up (and doing so very well – although I wanted more of him in the movie), the feud between Ice Cube and the rest, and then Dr. Dre partnering up with Suge Knight (R. Marcos Taylor) to and his strong-arm tactics and the emergence of Dre’s producing skills, the discovery of Snoop Dogg (and later Tupac), and everything falling apart. The attempt to set things right and Eazy-E’s brutal and painful discovery of just how sick he is was gut-wrenching.

But the most important thing? It’s a good movie. Hell, it’s a great movie – one I’d watch again. One worthy of notice when awards season comes around.

Cheap Shots (feel free to include any swearing from above):

By the way, the actress who portrays the infamous “Felicia” in the scene referenced above, who goes from giving a blow-job to being left naked in a hotel hallway is Asia’h Epperson from the first season of American Idol. You’ve come a long way baby.

There is a man on trial in New York right now for building a death ray to kill the President. I shit you not.

9.99

Yet another police shooting, but with high-fives all around.

Okay, this shit is just getting weird now.

Fantastic. You’re not intimidated, although you don’t quite seem to understand what the word means. Were you listening?

The glasses were supposed to make him seem smarter. Nope. Still a fucking idiot.

Somebody’s a gonna die.

Wow. 10 years of making these videos.

Perseids, head on! Hat tip to Bad Astronomer for that one.

Birtherism comes back to bite the GOP in the ass.

A movie is not evidence. Take a look at why.

“The Fox News/GOP version of Christianity has already betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, and would do so again, just to get the matching set of spinning rims.”

Awwwwwwww.

The fuck?

And now a moment of Zen: