The documentary Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (dir. Robert Stone) is not remarkable in itself, being mostly a combination of footage and talking heads interviews. Nevertheless, the overall effect is simultaneously icy and almost comic, heartbreaking and ludicrous. The film, in a tight 85 minutes, chronicles the rise of The Symbionese Liberation Army generally and its specific crime of kidnapping Hearst and making her one of the SLA over the course of a year and a half, during which Patty robs two banks and sprays a store with bullets. For those of us familiar with the combination of earnestness, self-righteousness, naivete and otherworldliness brought by many children of the middle classes to graduate school many of the “characters” may seem vaguely familiar; but instead of the humorless radical correcting another student on his/her interpretation of Foucault, these humorless radicals take up automatic weapons, rob banks, kill people and issue “communique’s.” They call themselves “Generals” or “Field Marshalls” in the Unified Army of the People. They refer to the “pigs” and claim spiritual connections to Che and George Jackson.
(more…)

Three parts Hoop Dreams, one part 8 Mile and one part Pretty Woman adds up to one seriously entertaining crunk fairy tale. Set in the fetid streets of Memphis in July, Hustle & Flow takes about 30 minutes to find its groove, but from then on the film is truly irresistible. Terrence Howard is really, really good, but the supporting cast is just as strong (including Isaac Hayes and Ludicris). I’ll leave it to Reynolds to offer a thesis on the film’s politics of race not to mention its representation of black male subjectivity, but I liked this film a lot.