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agwilliams-79590
Reviews
Rap Trap: Hip Hop on Trial (2023)
Falls apart immediately
The opening scene is someone playing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody from their phone. The song lyrics are 'mama I just killed a man. Put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger now he's dead'. Then the guy says 'he just committed a murder in the song.' So the premise is that black music, rap, gets taken too seriously and lyrics about murder can be used against them whereas white music, rock, isn't treated the same. No one believes Freddie Mercury actually killed a man that he sings about in Bohemian Rhapsody. I get where their coming from, but there's also a big glaring difference between these genres. Rap is largely associated with gangs and gang culture. The majority of rap songs talk about murder, violence, and drugs. Rock music isn't mostly about these things.
Luckiest Girl Alive (2022)
Graphic sexual violence
I was browsing Netflix. Saw a movie with Mila Kunis. Decided to watch it.
I'm usually all about reading reviews before committing to watching anything, but I decided to go into this one blind. I wish I'd checked out what other people had to say about it. It's a good movie and it makes quite a statement. Mila Kunis is amazing, of course, and a joy to watch. I guess that's all the praise I can muster for it.
So the gist is basically Ani (Kunis) was this 'chubby' poor girl who'd gotten a scholarship to a rich kid school. (The actress playing younger Ani is nowhere near chubby, but Ani claims she was a 'fatass' and her overbearing mother made some comments referencing her weight. That whole schtick just felt contrived and cliche. I can't count how many troubled mother/daughter relationships we see in movies where the mother is single, drunk, and highly critical of the daughter. Daughter resents her for it but by the end of the movie we learn the mom had skeletons in her closet that explains her behavior towards her daughter and it turns out she was only doing what she felt was best and her intentions were always good. Yeah, been there seen that a million times.) Stuff happens. Ani is gang raped by some of the boys in her class. Then there's a shooting.
Throughout the movie Ani is obviously still trying to cope with what happened. She's angry, cynical, bitter, resentful, snarky, defensive, etc. All understandable qualities considering. That's the part I related to the most. Her every waking moment is spent faking having it all together and she's obsessed with checking off certain achievements to redeem herself and to give credibility to her version of the events. I felt that too.
The gangrape and subsequent shooting is shown in flashbacks. It was graphic and just.. super hard to watch. I felt sick for a long time afterwards. If you have an issue with sexual violence, and considering what we know about violence against women and particularly sexual violence that's probably most of the women I know, I'd avoid this one. Maybe just check out the book.
Untold (2021)
Great story.
This was such a good story! I'm not at all a sports fan, but I've seen every episode of Untold and have loved them all. This one was no exception. Considering I'm not really into sports, I didn't remember much about this story as it was unfolding in 2013.
I think the producers of this doc wanted to tell an unbiased story without taking sides and I think they succeeded in that. It's important to remember that these are real people, with real lives before they're our content for entertainment. Every one involved, including Manti and Naya, come across as regular human beings complete with flaws, insecurities, hopes, dreams, aspirations, etc.
I didn't care for the suggestion that Manti was in on the hoax. Personally, I don't believe he was. I think he's probably genuinely a good dude and was in an extremely vulnerable situation at the time. I can totally see what he got out of the relationship and why he chose to ignore certain red flags. I probably would've done the same. As far as Naya, I don't believe she set out to hurt Manti or anyone else. I don't believe she was chasing clout. It just so happens that she and Manti were a lot alike and she too was in an extremely vulnerable and confusing period of her life which unfortunately led to such a huge lie that indeed end up hurting people. But I think she's just a person. Just a human being with human flaws and human habits. I think she's probably a genuinely good person too, granted she did make a pretty big mistake that most of us couldn't see ourselves making in the same situation but we're human beings and humans will go to extremes in order to cope with life. Still, this doc made me feel for both of them. Definitely recommend. I hope they're both in a much better place mentally.
Exhibit A (2019)
I'm a Girl Scout, goddamn it!
Idk why it took me so long to watch this on Netflix. I suppose I'd gotten a bit burnt out on exploiting true crime as entertainment and figured this was just another show describing somebody's gory tragedy for no other reason than to allow the rest of us the satisfaction of saying 'that could never happen to me'. Yes, it can.
However, I found this show to be different. There's alot of eye opening information about forensic science and evidence that the majority of the public aren't aware of but should know as we're the ones convicting people. Those convictions are life altering, and could be for numerous people. Our justice system is crooked and has been crooked. We've known that and I don't see that changing, so maybe it's just left up to us to stop convicting people on junk science made up 'evidence'. They're banking on us being ignorant. Let's do better. Saying you're an expert doesn't make you an expert.
The lady in episode 3 really got me right in the heart. She lost her daughter but was dropping lines like 'they can't take me to court and paint me as a bad, bad person. I bake!' Or 'I'm a Girl Scout, goddamn it!'. She was great and I could really feel and relate to the anger she feels bc of the injustices that came after so tragically losing her little girl. Think of suffering the worst possible tragedy you can imagine and then either you or someone you love who you know is innocent goes down for it. She's angry and probably will be forever. I deeply empathize with her. I'm angry for her too.