#MENACE TO SOCIETY O DOG MOVIE#
For its part, Menace came on the scene with a rude, snarling, fuck-you attitude about the truths it was aiming to tell-not unlike that of its two young directors.Ĭoming out of the gate as straight-up enfants terribles, with several hip-hop videos and a 1990 student short called The Drive By (a black-and-white drama about gang violence in Los Angeles that was a test run for Menace) under their belts, the Hughes boys-just breaking into their twenties-made a movie that aimed to be the antithesis of Singleton’s hopeful film. Dickerson’s Juice, Matty Rich’s Straight Out of Brooklyn, and John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood-which became the most financially successful and acclaimed (earning two Oscar nominations) out of all of them. In the two years before Menace, multiplexes had already been bombarded with such in-the-ghetto dramas as Mario Van Peebles’s New Jack City, Ernest R. It was quite the jarring, exhilarating addition to the hood-movie genre, a genre that was otherwise already beginning to show signs of been there, done that. Released in late spring 1993, Menace, the Hughes brothers’ debut feature, was made on a $3.4 million budget and ended up grossing nearly $30 million, becoming one of the more surprising hits of that year. Especially if they are as brutal, blunt, and, yes, Black as Menace. As has been proved in American cinema history time and time again, if studios release films made by African Americans, about African Americans, and starring African Americans, African Americans will go see them. Will sang the movie’s praises in a Washington Post op-ed whose headline called it “violence therapy”), Black people saw it and dug it anyway. While some white people got the message (George F. In several interviews, Albert has mentioned how he and his brother made the movie to let white folk know what was really going on in the inner city. These are the words of Albert Hughes, who codirected the movie with his twin brother, Allen. Running time: 97 minutes.First and foremost, Menace II Society is a movie for white people. A New Line Cinema release of a New Line Production, opening today at Showcase Cinemas, East Hartford and Berlin. MENACE II SOCIETY, directed by the Hughes Brothers screenplay by Tyger Williams, based on a story by Allen Hughes, Albert Hughes and Williams director of photography, Lisa Rinzler music composed by QD III production designer, Penny Barrett edited by Christopher Koefoed co-produced by the Hughes Brothers and Williams executive producer, Kevin Moreton.
Rated R, this film contains a barrage of vulgarities and lots of point-blank mayhem with a profusion of sophisticated firearms. Sharp, slangly dialogue and intense action scenes also make this a watchable and often wrenching vision of the way too many young Americans live, and die, today. Pounding "gangsta" rap also drives forward this tour of the projects and bungalows of Watts. Impressive techniques - a long tracking shot through a houseful of high teenagers, potent cross-cutting at the climax - make the Hughes brothers' debut impressive and compelling throughout. Finally, Caine's relationship with a single mother, bewitchingly played by Jada Pinkett, provides the lift that could change his life. A football-playing friend urges Caine to move to Kansas City with him, and there are also preachings from the teacher's son, a devoted Muslim. Dutton, sounds the warning that Ciane's life is on the line. The teacher, played with gravity by Charles S.
For a time, there is hope that Caine will escape.