Hey folks, Harry here... As one of the festival judges at this year's CINEVEGAS FILM FESTIVAL, this was the film that I most threw my weight behind. I really loved 'G'. This could be boiled down to a HipHop GREAT GATSBY, but that would be doing a film about parallels and extremes a great deal of disservice. From the music, to production design, to the characters and what they do with their lives, this is a movie about contrasts. Hip Hop and the Hamptons. Gangsta and Respectability. Street Smarts and Smart Smarts. I was really taken by this film like no other in the judging category. Quint does a great job of reviewing it below...
Ahoy there, squirts! 'Tis I, everybody's favorite gambling and always crusty ol' seaman, Quint, here with a post CineVegas movie review. I would have had this out to you folks sooner, but 10 days in Vegas can poop you out. I've done very little besides sleep, watch Spaghetti Westerns and pay a couple oh so enjoyable visits to the dentist. But you don't give a damn about that, so I'll get into the movie review.
G... G won the critic's award for best film in competition at CineVegas and of all the competition flicks I saw, I have to agree with the critics on this one. G is ultimately a story about hip-hop invading the Hamptons, but on the structure set up in The Great Gatsby.
I know. I know. I read that description on the CineVegas website and wrote the movie off, too. But then I heard raves from Harry. Raves from people working at the fest. Raves from attendees. So, I checked it out.
G is a smart, honest look at true love and the ups and downs of fame and wealth. It's also fresh. It's a smart take on the Gatsby story, using the audience's knowledge of the heavily used structure to its advantage, pulling fast ones on us watching the flick. Kinda like the way Tom Savini used the audience's knowledge of the original Night of the Living Dead film to his advantage in the 1990 remake... You expected the old guy that Barbara's brother is making fun of at the beginning to turn out to be a zombie... but he isn't. The real zombie in the scene pops up when you have your eye on the other one... I know it's a bit of a stretch comparing the two films, but they both smartly use audience's expectations of what's to come for a surprise or two.
So, you have Summer G (played with great restraint and tenderness by Richard T. Jones) who is a successful rapper and music producer. He is upsetting the residents of his new home, the Hamptons, with his loud parties, hip cars and... well... his unabashed black lifestyle. It isn't straight up racism... They can handle blacks in the community... as long as they all talk and act like they do.
One of his neighbors is the Hightower couple, Sky and Chip (played by Chenoa Maxwell and Blair Underwood, respectively). They are also black, but play by the white "rules." We come to find out Sky and Summer G have a troubled history together and their rediscovery of each other throws both their lives into turmoil.
You know the story, old love lost long ago is rediscovered... This causes jealousy, hate and ultimately murder. This movie is incredibly engaging, even for me... A blue-eyed whitey devil honkey. Well, brown eyed... but whitey and devil honkey nonetheless.
I love old school hip-hop. I'm talkin' about stuff like Sir Mix-A-Lot and Run DMC. Remember when hip-hop used to be about having fun? I haven't been able to get into the rap of today. I was really worried about the overuse of hip-hop or gansta rap in this film and I found out fairly quickly my fears had been misplaced.
The movie is loaded with hip-hop, that's for sure, but like Cameron Crowe's use of classic rock in Almost Famous, each song has a relation to the scene at hand or to one of the characters or to the situation. A real reason for being there, not just 'cause it has a funky beat. Director Christopher Scott Cherot smartly hired brilliant composer Bill Conti (Rocky, The Right Stuff... ahem... Masters of the Universe -Yay!-)to score the picture. Cherot knew when to switch from the hip-hop to the score and back again for maximum effect. Conti's score in this film haunting. Lots of piano work. Amazing score.
The movie is incredibly balanced and can be enjoyed by movie lovers of all ages, races and design. It's a tragic love story, but made smartly with three dimensional characters and lots of gray area. By gray area I mean the film isn't painted in black and white. The "villains" have very real and justifiable (from their point of view) reasons for their actions. The "heroes" are also tainted. They're REAL PEOPLE! You come to care for all of them by the time the movie's finished.
Unfortunately, I don't know when and if you'll have the option of getting to know Summer G or Sky as this film has yet to find distribution. That's pretty stupid, in my eyes. A film like this is easily marketed if you put your mind to it. Hell, even if you were lazy and just sold it on the black cast and the soundtrack alone it'd make some good money.
But that would kind of cheapen the film a bit. This is a film about real people, not black people, not white people, REAL people. If some smaller studio like Lions Gate or Miramax got their hands on this film and sold it right, you'd be able to get white, black, hispanic, whoever's asses into the seats.
Will someone step up to the plate? I don't know, but I'll keep my ear to the tracks for you folks. I'll be back with some interviews and a few more reviews (Including the fucking hilarious Mr. Show flick, Run Ronnie Run) to wrap up my CineVegas coverage. 'Til that day, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
email: aicnquint@aol.com
