Here’s a side of Memphis little seen in movies. I’m not a huge fan of hip-hop or rap, but this film (much like 8 Mile) is more about people, their dreams, their realities, and how they treat each other, than it is about music. The main character, DJay, is a pimp going through a mid-life crisis. His “ho’s” are uniquely interesting characters, one pregnant and “out of work,” one a single mother working in a strip club and bringing home the bacon, and one who rides around with DJay trolling for tricks. The language is rough, gritty, full of street jargon, so I watched it with the English subtitles turned on and it made perfect sense. The only part I thought was overly long was the studio scene leading up to the creation of DJay’s demo tape. It dragged a bit. Good cast. Good story. And surprisingly good music, too. Well worth watching.

This kicked off the beginning of our themed movie week! The movie started off slow. In the beginning Adam paused it to say, “Can you guys understand a WORD of what they’re saying!?” We all just kind of said “Well, no, kind of, not really, sort of” and then pressed play and moved on. Once we got past the cheesy “trade this keyboard for some weed” scene where he’s dubbed “Stevie Wonder”, it got good. That part was just a tad too hokey. But it was HILARIOUS because the beats that were built into that little keyboard were the same beats that OUR keyboard had growing up: Adam said they were his, too. Like I told B, who knew what potential we had for discovering great songs with that little Casio? Unfortunately we never got past just feeling cool that we could hit a button and hear that beat in 1993. Anyway, I enjoyed the movie and we’ve been singing “whoop that trick” and “it’s hard out here for a pimp” ever since. I didn’t expect much from this film and I got a lot out of it.