Skip to main content

Blue Story review – south London boys in the hood

Two friends from rival postcodes are caught in a feud in this familiar but convincing tale of corrupted innocence

With backing from Paramount Pictures and BBC Films, writer-director Andrew Onwubolu (AKA the south London MC Rapman) has turned his three-part viral web series Shiro’s Story into a feature. I’ve often wondered what would happen if low-budget “hood” movies were made at scale; the clarity, energy and rhythm of Onwubolu’s storytelling make the case for it.

The tale itself isn’t especially new; Timmy (Stephen Odubola) and Marco (Top Boy’s Micheal Ward) are friends from rival postcodes (Deptford’s SE8 and Peckham’s SE15) who inherit a feud. Fatalities ensue; the documentary-style iPhone footage and TV news clips about gangs, guns and knife crime that bookend the film reinforce its message. If it weren’t clear enough, Onwubolu breaks the fourth wall, interrupting the narrative with music video-style interludes, his rapped commentary functioning as the film’s Greek chorus.

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2XJhtAs

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Knives Out review – Daniel Craig goes Columbo in Cluedo whodunnit

Craig grills an all-star lineup of suspects when a wealthy novelist is found dead in Rian Johnson’s sharp, country-house murder mystery R ian Johnson unsheathes an entertainingly nasty, if insubstantial detective mystery with his new film, Knives Out. Back in 2005, his debut movie Brick (a high-school thriller) paid tribute to the hardboiled noir genre. Now he does the same thing for cosy crime, although there is nothing that cosy about it. Knives Out has a country house full of frowning suspects, deadpan servants and smirking ne’er-do-wells and an amusing performance from Daniel Craig as Benoît Blanc, the brilliant amateur sleuth from Louisiana who annoys the hell out of one and all by smiling enigmatically, occasionally plinking a jarring high note on the piano during the drawing-room interrogation and pronouncing in his southern burr: “Ah suh-spect far-wuhl play!” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2L0NKO4
Post a Comment
Read more

Tracey Emin decorates Regent's Park and a celebration of Islamic creativity – the week in art

Emin and others survey the state of sculpture, Glenn Brown takes his decadent imagination to Newcastle and artists offer northern exposure – all in your weekly dispatch Frieze Sculpture Park Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan and John Baldessari are among the artists decorating Regent’s Park with a free survey of the state of sculpture. • Regent’s Park, London , 4 July until 7 October. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IDCpPV
Post a Comment
Read more

When Brooklyn was queer: telling the story of the borough's LGBTQ past

In a new book, Hugh Ryan explores the untold history of queer life in Brooklyn from the 1850s forward, revealing some unlikely truths For five years Hugh Ryan has been hunting queer ghosts through the streets of Brooklyn, amid the racks of New York’s public libraries, among its court records and yellow newspaper clippings to build a picture of their lost world. The result is When Brooklyn Was Queer, a funny, tender and disturbing history of LGBTQ life that starts in an era, the 1850s, when those letters meant nothing and ends before the Stonewall riots started the modern era of gay politics. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2H9Zexs
Post a Comment
Read more