Why you need to see Fruitvale Station

I can't get Fruitvale Station out of my head and I'm writing about it two weeks after seeing it to see if I can explain why. I went to see it at Angelika in Soho and almost bought a ticket  for "Before Midnight" instead.

I had little foreknowledge of the Oscar Grant case and it didn't make a difference either way. The first scene of the film removed any foreshadowing whatsoever and it was more about the character's story than anything else.

Hard to talk about a brilliantly directed and acted film because really you just have to see it.

I'm still bewildered by the senselessness of what happened, shocked at the injustice of the aftermath, enraged by the helplessness I feel about avoiding it in the future.

This obviously isn't a light recommendation and I don't know what you will feel when you watch it. I simply recommend that you do. It's rare these days for a movie to move you so strongly. 

Movie Review: Pina

Pina is a cathartic experience. It pulls at you. I felt like I was going through a fight or flight experience half the time I was watching it. Not because I was stressed, but because I wanted to be involved. I wanted to do something. There was an urgency to it.

When you see such open expression repeating itself again and again, it's no surprise that it primes you to be openly expressive yourself. I didn't quite want to dance, but I did want to move, do something, yell out.

It was the kind of movie where you expect to blink your eyes and see the audience suddenly erupt in the same form of dance that's on the screen. I wouldn't have been shocked if I saw dancers synchronously moving down the side aisles. In fact, I'm a little disappointed it wasn't part of the 3D experience.

It's satisfying to know that an entire group of people are thinking and doing something so different from what you normally encounter. It reminds me of when I was doing bhangra and dancing 6,000 audience shows and I would meet people who had no idea what bhangra was. The world seems incredibly big sometimes.

I appreciate movies and books for so many reasons, but this has to go back to the root of their origin. To introduce. To reveal the unknown in an awesome way.

The trailer itself is beautiful and what it should be, a tease to entice you to the full experience.