Well there will be a few to choose from. Me and Kev will go back and forth whether we want to stick to recent movies (I’m seeing Hellboy 2 tonight, and the Dark Night this following Weekend, and you all can suck it, I’m doing a review for the Dark Knight) or older movies ( I had one for Chappelle’s Block Party)

but just to clarify, no one’s ‘hating’ on it. the concern was that this is a hip hop site, not a lifestyle site. so it’s inevitable that you’re gonna have people askin, ‘where’s the relevance?’. but if that’s what was intended, more of a lifestyle aim than hip hop, then by all means, more power to you. i’d be happy to save a buck thanks to a review.

and for the suggestion of trying to keep the movies relevant, it can’t just be a rapper being (or attempting to be) an actor, it’s gotta be more than that. or just cause hov sampled annie’s track. no, i’m talking past the obvious, deeper than the soundtrack. and ofcourse, i understand your concern for it becoming corny and stale, but i guess that’d be more of the challenge on your end to make sure it doesn’t. but again, if hip-hop relevance wasn’t intended, then nevermind it.

as for Belly, in no way am I backing it as an amazing & ground-breaking movie. but as far as the cinematography goes, it was the hotness. visually, it was a BEAST. when Traffic came out, everyone was sweatin the yellow and blue color filters, even though Hype Wiliams did it in Belly before that, and possibly a few before him. from stories i’ve heard, people that paid to see Belly knew EXACTLY what they were paying to watch – a 90 minute hip hop video, visuals courtesy of Hype Williams. and it being the 90′s, it was Hype Williams at his peak. for some ‘hip hop music video director’ to create somewhat of a movie (moreover music video) and throw it into the film circuit was big, so to dismiss Belly is just a little unfortunate to me. plus, ike love was my favorite name & character for the longest time.

anyways, by no means do i even want a Belly review, just had to throw in my 2 cents. no hate deez!

I’m loving the love (or hate) for the review and movie reviews.

By the way, to the question Kevin asked,I kinda like the idea of reviewing movies.

I thought this movie was terrible. Save for the first 35 minutes, it was brutal. It got messy in the 2nd hour especially, and I made mention of that 15 minute hospital scene that attempted to wrap things up, but still left me so dazed and confused. I didn’t even care about the history between Hancock and Mary, but that was certainly a flaw. But the way things are going, they probably cut out a 10 minute conversation between the 2.

Essentially, it was just a messy movie with not much going for it. It has a strong lead character storyline, they just didn’t take full potential on it

Is there really much to review in Belly? I mean, you’ve all seen my album reviews, I would torch that movie. Considering its stupid character development, tacky music video scenes, and terrible acting of DMX who some how gets out-acted by Nas. Thats your second career X, do something about that. Hype Williams was great back then I guess, but he’s kind of dry now.

But as I said in my last response Krome, if we focused on movies that rappers got their influence from, I could be straying all over the place. As I mentioned, Annie and Oliver Twist were used by Jay-z for samples, would you guys really like me to review those?

Personally, and I’ll say this one last time, I want to review movies for the benefit of the audience so that they could a) Save their hard working money or spend it for a good cause and b) Give the readers insight.

You mentioned the hip hop connections, but I mean, that would get stale over time. Who’s to say that Phonte can’t be a Tyler Durden but Andre 3000 can. That’s too broad. I’m very specific and look in depth, and I would love to give you guys an inside look on those things.

I think movies are drastically important to us today, but I don’t think people are seeing the right movies. Little Miss Sunshine is a great movie, but was beat by a very mediocre Departed due to the star power in that movie. Or a movie like Juno or Garden State.

I want to do a few more of my own movie reviews, I believe we’ll be doing 1 every Friday. So if you feel like going out, or renting a movie or watching it online, go for it, I hope my reviews help.

i like this new feature with the movie reviews! i do agree about going back and doing older movies, like Belly, which was basically a long ass hip hop video (back when they were still good). or maybe movies that get referenced heavily by artists? dead presidents, new jack city, godfather, scarface, etc. even ones that don’t get referenced, and just are relevant to particular lifestyles, like City of God? and maybe relevant documentaries too? possibly style wars or cocaine cowboys and such?

these reviews could really become an asset, but limiting them to soley ‘hip-hop’ themed movies like paid in full and such would be a waste. relevant films would broaden the options. everything from mind boggling brain teasing murder mysteries, to gutter gritty nitty type stuff.

and if you REALLY wanna merge hip hop into the review, then make comparisons to hip hop artists. for example, the movie casino. i can totally see jay-z as ace, and nicky as dame. or in Dead Presidents, Nas would’ve been a shoe in Anthony Curtis, or even an Andy Dufresne from Shawshank Redemption. an attempt to make the connection (sans corny) between the movies’ characters with actual hip hop artists would be in itself, ill.

But don’t worry, the site is not changing. We’re just trying out new things and keeping it dope at the same time.

I could focus on particular movies. But if I recall, Will Smith was once a rapper.. was he not? Also interesting to note that the first song of the ending credits is Here I Come by the Roots

Guys, movies are hip hop. Do you know how Sean Price gets his inspiration? By watching plenty of movies. Ideally, I want to have my choice and pick films that A) Might be huge blockbusters and maybe encourage you to go or not go and spend your money and
B) Interest the readers and can provide a solid sense of what the movie is and such.

I’m willing to take suggestions for sure, I want to try out a few more of these, I believe Wanted is coming up soon