{"id":4561,"date":"2014-03-12T00:00:50","date_gmt":"2014-03-12T04:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/?p=4561"},"modified":"2014-03-12T16:55:14","modified_gmt":"2014-03-12T20:55:14","slug":"fruitvale-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/fruitvale-station\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuck You, Fruitvale Station"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fruitvale2\"
\n

\nFruitvale Station<\/a> (2013)
\n<\/b>Written and Directed by Ryan Coogler
\n85 min.<\/p>\n

Extremely minor spoilers.<\/i><\/p>\n

Basing a movie on a true story is a lot of responsibility. At least, in theory<\/i> it is. In practice, facts are often handled willy-nilly\u2014take for instance the movie Any Day Now<\/a>, a film which, despite baring the \u2018based on a true story\u2019 badge, is near entirely made up. Fruitvale Station<\/a> plays fast and loose with the facts too, but nowhere near as offensively\u2014which is not to say that this movie didn\u2019t offend me, just that it offended me for other reasons.
\n
\nI have nothing against the melding of fact and fiction in art. The result can<\/i> be beautiful\u2014look no further than The Girl Next Door<\/a>, the book and the movie. What Jack Ketchum was able to do with the horrific, real life story of the death by torture of Sylvia Likens<\/a> is nothing short of alchemy. It is one of the greatest works of American fiction, and one of the greatest American horror movies of all time\u2014and is so because Ketchum was able to imbue the story with plenty of heart-pounding metaphor.<\/i><\/p>\n

There are no metaphors to be found in Fruitvale Station. I mean sure, there\u2019s stuff like a random pitbull, which, according to the filmmaker, represents ‘what it\u2019s like to be a black man’\u2014but that doesn\u2019t mean<\/i> anything. It\u2019s mere substitution\u2014\u2018metaphor\u2019 in name only. Real<\/i> metaphor unlocks something previously locked in all of us. It makes a connection that expands our consciousness\u2014whereas, if anything, the goal of Fruitvale Station is for our consciousness to contract.<\/i><\/p>\n

Ryan Coogler is an inexperienced filmmaker\u2014and I mean that without a shred of insult. That\u2019s just a fact, one I\u2019m sure he would agree with. This is his first feature-length film, writing or<\/i> directing, and with it, he bit off a lot to chew. Who is he<\/em> to undertake the intensely complicated task of figuring out what the murder of Oscar Grant \u2018means\u2019, and distilling that to less than 90 minutes? If he had set out to make a documentary, and brought together experts and thinkers and witnesses, maybe<\/em> he\u2019d have a chance. But a drama? Fuck<\/i> that\u2019s hard.<\/p>\n

That this film works at all is quite impressive. It\u2019s got moments, I\u2019ll give it that. Michael B. Jordan is a compelling actor, and when he\u2019s allowed to simply be<\/i>, we can\u2019t help but be charmed by his presence. Had this movie been focused more on honest, poignant moments such as the one where he sneaks his daughter an extra pack of fruit snacks, or goes the extra mile while helping a customer at work, it really could have been something, and said<\/em> <\/i>something, about what makes a man\u2019s life memorable in this world. That<\/i> could\u2019ve been its message, and would\u2019ve sufficed just fine for an 85 minute movie.<\/p>\n

Instead, it tried to be too many different things. We\u2019ve got a mumblecore-esque opening scene, followed immediately by the introduction of a video game-esque texting overlay motif which serves no purpose other than cool factor, followed by cute kid stuff, followed by a rap-scored driving montage, followed by cute grocery story stuff, followed by random, angry<\/i> grocery store stuff, followed by jail thug-melodrama stuff, etcetera, all the way up to a Crash<\/a>-esque climax. There\u2019s way more instances of shifts than that\u2014those are just the ones that come immediately to mind\u2014but you get the point.<\/p>\n

At the end of the film, we are left bewildered by its poor script\u2014and then they try and trick us into thinking that the bewilderment we feel is over injustice. This is done through a pre-end credits sequence providing us vague, lazy, day-before-it\u2019s-due school essay-ish details on the murder of Oscar Grant III and its aftermath. I immediately checked out the Wikipedia for the case<\/a>, and learned a lot of interesting information that I didn\u2019t learn from the movie or its coda\u2014in fact, I\u2019d argue that the classic phrase, \u2018the book is better than the movie\u2019 should be updated to \u2018the Wiki page is better than the based-on-a true-story movie\u2019.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to see this film as anything more than a mere cash grab. A film like this can be produced very cheaply, and is just about sure to make its money back, if made for the right amount, because it can ride the interest of the real life case. It\u2019s also critic-proof. As smart as some professional critics like to think they are, there really is<\/i> a formula to tricking them into liking something\u2014if you can get them to feel as though a good review from them would be them doing their part for a \u2018cause\u2019 they agree with, they will look the other way when it comes to glaring flaws such as rookie screenwriting mistakes (Fruitvale Station Drinking Game: drink every time a scene is twice as long as it should be). Most important of all though, it\u2019s awards bait\u2014in the age of Tyler Perry, a movie with a predominantly black cast simply has to not be laughably<\/i> bad in order to be heralded as an important achievement in black cinema (except in the case of Lee Daniels\u2014The Butler<\/a> and Precious<\/a> are unintentionally hilarious, yet fawned over).<\/p>\n

Perhaps the must frustrating aspect of all when it comes to this film though, is that this piece of art is a man\u2019s eulogy.\u00a0<\/i>He deserves better. It\u2019s not just<\/i> that this eulogy of sorts is poorly-delivered, but that it doesn\u2019t appear to be designed to bring us even a modicum of peace, clarity, or wisdom. If you are upset about what happened to Oscar Grant III, you will feel that same way after watching this, almost as though you were crying and then someone came over and consoled you, but sucked at it\u2014and also took your ten dollars. Hollywood hucksterism, in the guise of a hug.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t need this movie, like we don\u2019t need the proverbial extra special, super-duper expensive casket for the funeral of the one we love.<\/p>\n

Fuck you, Fruitvale Station.<\/p>\n

1 1\/2 out of 5 Codys.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"fruitvale2\"
\n

\nFruitvale Station<\/a> (2013)
\n<\/b>Written and Directed by Ryan Coogler
\n85 min.<\/p>\n

Extremely minor spoilers.<\/i><\/p>\n

Basing a movie on a true story is a lot of responsibility. At least, in theory<\/i> it is. In practice, facts are often handled willy-nilly\u2014take for instance the movie Any Day Now<\/a>, a film which, despite baring the \u2018based on a true story\u2019 badge, is near entirely made up. Fruitvale Station<\/a> plays fast and loose with the facts too, but nowhere near as offensively\u2014which is not to say that this movie didn\u2019t offend me, just that it offended me for other reasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1],"tags":[32,3611,3613,3614,3615,3612,104,185],"class_list":["post-4561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts","category-codysreviews","tag-cody-clarke","tag-fruitvale-station","tag-fruitvale-station-bad","tag-fruitvale-station-bad-review","tag-fruitvale-station-negative-review","tag-fruitvale-station-review","tag-smug-film-2","tag-smugfilm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4561"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4574,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions\/4574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}