Hustle & Flow (2005) - Brewer's Memphis rapper breakthrough

♥♥♥♥

 

+ Best Tennessee Movie of the Year

 

A carefully balanced poster that showcases the bling and contrasts of Craig Brewer's Hustle & Flow

DJay is a pimp in Memphis, Tennessee, who aspires to a life as a hiphop recording artist by conning his way close to local star Skinny Black. - He winds up incarcerated, - but with a radio hit.

 

Hustle & Flow is written and directed by Virginian master filmmaker Craig Brewer (The Poor & Hungry (2000)), whose 2nd film it is.

It is a fairly realistic and quite entertaining music crime-drama, despite the protagonist's path being too far away from many viewers' life to fully ignite identification. The film has good one-liners and performances, but also weary, expletive-filled lingo and male delusion. It is mainly a movie about dreams.

 

Related reviews:

Craig Brewer: 2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  

Black Snake Moan (2006) or, The Mississippi Blues 

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]  

 

 

Watch a 3-minute clip from the film here

 

Cost: 2.8 mil. $

Box office: 23.5 mil. $

= Mega-hit (returned 8.39 times its cost)

[Hustle & Flow premiered in January (Sundance Film Festival) and runs 116 minutes. Shooting took place in Memphis, Tennessee from July - August 2004. The film opened #7 to a 8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it decreased from there but enjoyed a long theatrical run, grossing 22.2 mil. $ (94.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Germany with 416k $ (1.8 %) and Australia with 339k $ (1.4 %). The film was nominated for 2 Oscars, winning for Best Song (It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp by Three 6 Mafia). It lost Best Actor (Terrence Howard (Fighting (2009))) to Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote. It was also nominated for an Independent Spirit award, a Golden Globe, won 2 National Board of Review awards, and 2 awards at Sundance, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Brewer returned with Black Snake Moan (2006). Howard returned in Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005, TV movie) and theatrically with Four Brothers (2005). Hustle & Flow is certified fresh at 82 % with a 7.30/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Hustle & Flow? 

Barbershop (2002) - Story's tiring, overrated chatterbox hit

♥♥

+ Most Undeserved Hit of the Year 

A collection of endeared stars align curbside on this poster for Tim Story's Barbershop

Calvin is a dreamer, but his dreams cost money, and therefore the barbershop that he has inherited from his father is nearly bankrupt. Now he decides to sell it, - but is that the right decision?

Barbershop is written by Mark Brown (The Salon (2005)), Don D. Scott (House Party: Tonight's the Night (2013, video)) and Marshall Todd (Woke (2020, TV-series)) and directed by Tim Story (One of Us Tripped (1997)).
Ice Cube (Ride Along (2014)) is pretty good as Calvin, and Anthony Anderson ('Til Death (2006-07)) has comedic chops, - but unfortunately he is mostly tasked with yelling in Barbershop. The same type of problem goes for Eve (Flashbacks of a Fool (2008)), who doesn't seem to be doing anything at her job besides hollering aloud about apple juice and other matters.
Cedric the Entertainer (Dance Fu (2011))'s character is a tiring know-it-all who talks incessantly; and similarly to the film's languid story, he moves around in grounds that are very close to self-parody while often dripping more or less truthful 'wisdom' into the mortar.
The major problem for the plot in Barbershop is that Calvin is dead tired of his shop, - SPOILER but then changes his mind about it anyway. Where the new-found realization comes from on this apparently normal day in the small chatterbox that we look in on is a mystery. The staff soon becomes extremely tiring for the audience as well (as they are for Calvin), and it is involuntarily funny how very few customers the barbers have, and how exceedingly rarely they seem to actually get paid in proper money. - What kind of a business is this? ...

 

Related post:

 

2002 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch a 2-minute clip from the film here

Cost: 12 mil. $
Box office: 77 mil. $
= Huge hit (returned 6.41 times its cost)
[Barbershop premiered 7 August (USA) and runs 102 minutes. Shooting took place in Chicago, Illinois from ? - January 2002. The film opened #1 to a 20.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it was #1 for a second weekend and then spent another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#3-#5), grossing 75.7 mil. $ (98.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 230k $ (0.3 %) and New Zealand with 51k $ (0.07 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to 2 notches higher than this one. The film spun a franchise; the first sequel was Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004), and after that came a spin-off, a TV-series and in 2014 a second sequel. Story returned with Taxi (2004). Cube returned in The Bernie Mack Show (2002, TV-series) and theatrically in Friday After Next (2002). Barbershop is certified fresh at 83 % with a 6.59/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Barbershop?