Straight Outta Compton - The Motion Picture

Standard biopic stuff given urgency by contemporary politics, but if anything I loved the music even more this time around. NWA and Cube've always been blind spots, but every musical cue had me dancing in my seat.

O'Shea Jackson, Jr.'s a better Cube than Cube himself.

Ppl I work with are v uptight abt NWA & their effing off the police ("i dont approve of their message" blah blah coded racism etc)

They just laugh when I try to tell them how much I love it. Dre had mad beats, you can dance to all of it! You would not believe the side-eye i got for saying you can dance to Fuck Tha Police lol

xpost cube was better looking

do any other rappers show up? do they watch an mc hammer video and go "smh...rap is over" or anything

yeah they all go to a Snow concert together

Luke shows up and they have a slap fight

Tim Dog's video comes on and they all watch it, then Ren says, "Wait a minute, is he saying he doesn't care for Compton?!"

hahaha

"what up Snoop"
'man I'm tryin to write those lyrics you asked me for, y'know, to take it to those mark ass bitches Eazy, Tim Dog, and Luke....but i'm stuck'
"well tell me what you got"
'your bark was loud and your bite wasn't vicious, but those rhymes you were kickin were just....I can't find a good rhyme there. it's the only line I can't finish'

(someone from outside Death Row soundbooth screams "damn, dogg, yo breath smells quite bootylicious..."

Dre and Snoop high five

"but what we gonna call the song, dog?"

(secretary runs in)

'the fuck is this, Dre Day? I'm sick and tired of taking down messages for you - tell your bitches not to call during business hours'

Dre and Snoop high five

someone should tell that screenwriter the song isn't named "Dre day"

the radio edit was!

that's why I was so confused when years later when I bought the Chronic..."wtf is 'Fuck with Dre Day (and everybody's celebrating)'"?

cube and dre in a studio

"you know who i love? that juliette lewis"

"she is a delight! we should name a song after one of her movies"

"but which one? husbands and wives?"

"nah...christmas vacation?"

"that's a possibility...kalifornia?"

*cut to phantom planet lurking in the hallway*

"california eh?"

/custos

unless he changed his screen name it's been about 9 years since that dude posted on ilx. i wonder if post-'06 folks even know what "custos" means

either they don't know, don't show, or don't care about what went on on greenspun.com

Lol

On the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart dated Sept. 5, N.W.A notches its first top 40 hit, as “Straight Outta Compton” debuts at No. 38 (the survey's highest debut of the week). It’s not only the first top 40 hit for the act, but its first Hot 100 entry ever. Although first released in 1988, “Compton” is allowed to enter this week's Hot 100, as older songs are eligible to chart if ranking in the top 50 and showing notable gains in sales, streaming and/or airplay.

The bow is spurred by publicity generated by the hit film of the same name, which bowed in theaters on Aug. 14 and has earned $111.1 million at the U.S. and Canada box office through Aug. 23. The song sold 35,000 downloads in the week ending Aug. 20 (up 127 percent compared to the previous week) and tallied 5.7 million domestic streams (up 123 percent), according to Nielsen Music.

The track also debuts at No. 7 on Rap Streaming Songs, No. 9 on Hot Rap Songs, No. 11 on R&B/Hip-Hop Streaming Songs, No. 13 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and No. 20 on the overall Streaming Songs chart.

On Hot Rap Songs and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, N.W.A also collects a debut with “F**k Tha Police” (also released in 1988), which bows at Nos. 20 and 25 on the lists, respectively.

N.W.A member Eazy-E also scores his third Hot 100 hit, as “Boyz-N-The-Hood” (from 1987) debuts at No. 50. It also launches at No. 14 on Hot Rap Songs and No. 18 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. It immediately becomes Eazy’s highest-charting single on the latter tally, surpassing the No. 30 peak of “Just Tah Let U Know” in 1995.

Posted for giggles, and for the use of the word "ruffian"

http://www.wsj.com/articles/gangsta-raps-grim-legacy-for-comptons-everywhere-1440542382

Or the gawker summary, for those not wanting to visit the WSJ:

http://gawker.com/the-republican-view-of-straight-outta-compton-black-h-1726623097

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150826/rogers-park/did-police-arrest-juvenile-for-rapping-nwa-lyrics-at-them-video

"feel the groove, bust a move/this is somethin' 2 dance 2"
*cop starts breakdancing*

really thought that was going to be about Juvenile

fav moment was when Paul giamati spazzed out at ice cube saying Jew on the diss track

this got waaay too drawn out and boring by the end, the whole eazy-e trying to get the band back together part felt endless. but obvs some great scenes

Yeah, but it's not like there's exactly some neat bow to the NWA story that you could have tied this up with.

OTM to everyone who mentioned the hilarious on-the-nose namechecks of their successful songs and projects. My personal favorite was later in the film:

*Cube laughing hysterically at a computer screen*

Kim: How's Friday coming honey?

Cube: I'm at page 100, but I don't think I'm gonna go much further. Shit's hilarious!

Then again I did really enjoy the film, especially the first hour and a half or so, up until Cube busts up the record company guy's office. It got a bit draggy in the end.

I posted this upthread, but I loved the Friday thing because it really felt like a producer's note from Cube to let people know he wrote Friday.

I also like that the last 45 minutes of the movie for Cube is all cozy domesticity. I'm sure he was actually working really hard during that time to turn his acting career into something lasting, but in Straight Outta Compton his last few scenes are basically, "Then I settled into being famous forever..."

I disliked the Friday thing because it really felt like a producer's note from Cube to let people know he wrote Friday.

"... and after that, I never gave a shit about music again"

THE END

lol

What can I say? Once that type of thing hits a certain level of clunkiness, I start to find it endearing.

lol at shakey

OTM to everyone who mentioned the hilarious on-the-nose namechecks of their successful songs and projects.

and the "bye felicia" ref in the hotel

I think the grantland comment that the last hour of the movie became a Wikipedia article on screen kinda sums up why that part of the movie lost my interest. It just looked like a re-enactment of various well-known events and not much more, whereas the first 90 dug much deeper.

I was kinda hoping Dre woulda given some alternate reality bullshit answer to Suge's last question:

"What you gonna call that new bullshit label?"

'Dre Butter'

haha

hahaha

Armond: "the year's most mindless movie"

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422527/straight-outta-compton-review-armond-white

Armond white got Geto Boys praise into the national review (online, at least)

The way that article veers between modern-activist-baiting and big-upping non-west-coast rap really is something

The comment section is a poem.

Houston’s Geto Boys and New York’s Public Enemy were superior groups, but childish hip-hop fans and white-Negro rock critics failed to make the distinction. They preferred N.W.A.’s simplistic adolescent angst and hard rhythm to Geto Boy’s bluesy psychological depth and Public Enemy’s R&B and political sophistication.

^^This is total horseshit.

I first saw Armond's byline in the early '90s reviewing PE, and the guy knew what he was talking about (I won't look up and reread those reviews). I agree PE >>> N.W.A. But as usual with him you can turn his copy into Mad Libs: "They preferred N.W.A.’s simplistic adolescent angst and hard rhythm to Damn Yankee’s bluesy psychological depth and Paula Addul’s R&B and political sophistication."

Haha yeah that isnt accurate at all

Xp

yeah calling PE politically sophisticated is a larf

reading Chuck D's interviews in the 90s was enough to get disillusioned with him despite still loving the records

Geto Boy’s bluesy psychological depth
― Futuristic Bow Wow (thewufs), Sunday, August 30, 2015 1:45 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoiN7UueFGE

4th grade 1988 I was 'like strawberry, strawberry is the neighborhood hoe'. This movie is just no. no. aftermath...

Thing is, I basically agree with a lot of the points in White's review - their nihilism was in itself a form of protest, and in their one truly heroic gesture they made a stink about police brutality when no one else would, but presenting the group as just freedom fighters is just one of the ways the movie is fundamentally dishonest. Predictably, though, these points are swamped by OTT pessimism, bad faith and willfully perverse aesthetic misjudgments.

^^Should read "presenting the group as freedom fighters before all else"