Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Adam H. Kerman" Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv Subject: Fruitvale Station (2013) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2024 05:14:57 -0000 (UTC) Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 106 Message-ID: Injection-Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2024 07:14:57 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="93275fb6e216ea3600500033cc56c8c8"; logging-data="540012"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/twhl7LJXmogtev7bHJ04vkzcxnWJyOS8=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:mkWXXUmBwPbvN2R/e+USi150jIw= X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test77 (Sep 1, 2010) Bytes: 6094 I saw this movie in theater when it was new. It didn't do big business, $17 million box office, but it cost only $900,000 to make. Even with Hollywood accounting, I think it made a profit. This is the story of Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan), a real-life person rousted by transit cops and then shot after travelling into San Francisco from Oakland on New Year's Eve 2008. He was shot by a transit cop early morning New Year's Day 2009, and then died. He was 22. I think Jordan would have been 26 during production so he's playing 4 years younger. This made national news. It was an early incident of a bad police shooting captured on cell phone video. I did like this movie. It's a fictionalized portrayal of his last day. It's not sensationalized and Grant isn't a saint. He had knocked up his girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz) maybe when they were still in high school, but their 4 year old daughter is adorable. Yes, he's been to prison for selling drugs (marijuana) and he's cheated on Sophina with other women, and he was fired from his job as grocery clerk for showing up late. That day, he tries to make amends and turn over a new leaf. There's a flashback to a prison visit by his mother Wanda (Octavia Spencer). This scene gives Spencer an opportunity to demonstrate her acting chops, as she runs through a series of emotions being scared for Oscar and disappointed in him. She tells him she won't visit and that he's got to shape up for his daughter. After the flashback, he's discarded his package of drugs and won't distribute it to his friend dealing drugs. He gives him his money back. Question: He's in prison at San Quentin. While that's handy for visitations from the Bay area, why would a nonviolent offender have been sent to a maximum security prison? Earlier in the day, he's in the grocery store he was fired from at the fish counter buying fish for his mother's party; she was born on New Year's Eve. Probably the best scene in the movie: A young white woman Katie (Ahna O'Reilly) wants to impress her white husband with southern style fried fish and has no clue what she's doing. Oscar puts her on the phone with his grandmother who gives her an impromptu cooking lesson. His day is mundane. He promises his girlfriend he won't cheat on her again and finally confesses that he had been fired. She's a bit pissed that he got rid of the drugs as they need the cash but starts to see him in a new light. They drop off the kid as the want to go into San Francisco to see fireworks. Her mother won't take her but her sister -- with six kids -- does. At his mother's birthday party, his mother, worried that they'll both be drinking, urges them to take BART. They travel with a group of friends; all jump the clamshells to board BART. The BART trains are quite crowded unlike real life but New Year's Eve may be an exception. On board into San Francisco they observe the new year. Pretty much all we see in town is that he talks a restaurant manager who has just closed up into letting the women use the bathroom. The fateful incident: On board heading back into Oakland, there's the coincidence of Katie spotting him and calling out his name. This attracts the attention of dudes he served time with who want to beat him up. A fight breaks out. Cops are called and want to make the arrest at Fruitvale. They grab three black men who weren't part of the fight. Oscar returns to the train hoping to blend in but they drag him out anyway. He's lying prone on the platform, handcuffed. One cop shoots him one time. He does get taken to hospital but they can't save him. There were two cops directly involved in his death. The one who shot him was charged with first-degree murder but he successfully argues that he was reaching for his taser, which the jury believed. He was convicted of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. No need to tase anyone well controlled in police custody. Cops were fired and this forced the resignations of the BART executive director and the chief of police. The captions said there were demonstrations and some rioting (I don't recall the rioting at all). Critics raved about Jordan's performance in this low-key movie. Till then he was mostly known for television, which he started as a child. The Wire first season, three seasons as recurring character on All My Children, a tv show I don't recall at all The Assistans, and of course, later seasons of Friday Night Lights. He was also on Parenthood which I didn't watch. Plenty of one-off appearances, and in various movies, working his way up from bit parts to supporting roles to being part of an ensemble. He hasn't done Fantastic Four yet which somehow doesn't kill his career. He hasn't done Creed yet either (in which we are supposed to suspend disbelief that he's bulked himself up into a heavyweight boxer). The director Ryan Coogler, from Oakland, was in film school at USC (because of course he was) when the incident happened and wanted to make a movie. Octavia Spencer got big bucks since her Oscar for The Help but she waived her salary to keep the movie on budget as there just wasn't any financing. She helped to find some. Coogler's subsequent movies have had bigger budgets.