Fruitvale Station

[Red Commissar]

So, over the past few weeks I saw some attention emerge over the movie "Fruitvale Station", which covers the life and death of Oscar Grant. For those of you who don't know or need a reminder, Oscar Grant was the young man who was murdered by BART cops over four years ago back in January of 2009. Reading some of the reviews the common theme seems to indicate it gives a sympathetic portrayal of Grant, playing off most of the viewers knowledge that ultimately his life will end at the end of his day in the ovie.

Fruitvale Station has been warmly received by critics (excepting those angry that the movie is no more than "propaganda"), and looking at various sites has an overall good reception by moviegoers. Has anyone here seen it?

[KurtFF8]

I'm going to watch it tonight and then hopefully write up a review of it for the Left Film Review

[Red Commissar]

Well, I got around to watching it last night. It was a pretty enjoyable movie. You can tell it was low budget but that is not a bad thing, as it pretty much achieved what it intended to do.

The movie starts off with the cell phone footage we've all become familiar with, and then cuts to the plot itself with Oscar on the midnight of New Years' Eve. The movie follows Oscar's life for the rest of the day until the event. It's an interesting method, you know the guy is going to die in the end and you are shown all his problems and his attempts to over come them, as well as small glimmers of hope to break free of them, until it all comes crashing down in an event he had no control over.

It's really depressing in that sense, I think by the end most of the people in my theater were affected in some way. The movie really did feel natural too, so I guess it helped in that sense.