Juice (Ernest R. Dickerson, 1992)
Crap. I forgot I watched Juice. I never saw it when it first came out even though I was really into hip hop at the time (it was the golden era after all). I wasn't a huge fan of the Tupac however. Too much R&B singing. And the jerks at my highschool all liked Tupac but none of them knew Black Moon or EPMD so I figured Tupac is for posers and this movie must be crap! Seeing it now, the movie doesn't make a lot of sense. The setup was pretty hokey and the action pretty stock. Tupac's character's descent into violent madness is just random and unexplained. Basically he's like, 'look everyone pushes us around so let's get a gun and start wylin' out!' But it wasn't like the heartfelt, impotent rage that Cuba Gooding Jr's character has in Boyz N the Hood (1991). It's more comicbook like. And you care about it less.
Redeeming qualities include some great images of New York AND hip hop celeb cameos to boot including: Erick Sermon and Parish Smith of the aforementioned EPMD, Fab Five Freddy, and, uh, there were others, oh! Queen Latifia (sp?), who was still a rapper then, I think.
Redeeming qualities include some great images of New York AND hip hop celeb cameos to boot including: Erick Sermon and Parish Smith of the aforementioned EPMD, Fab Five Freddy, and, uh, there were others, oh! Queen Latifia (sp?), who was still a rapper then, I think.