Hustle & Flow

Hustle & Flowⁱ is a very earnest, and a very credible production from the apparent expert entomologist (now that Tarantino hung up his boots). Craig Brewer understands black culture, or Southern culture, or humanity or whatever the hell he understands. Well.

There's one major disruption in the construction - to wit I do not believe a pimp that never hit his girlsⁱⁱ will have thrown out the main bitchⁱⁱⁱ in her underwear + toddler. Just like that, bam. Tings dun work dat way, mang.

That aside, the hustle flows, convincingly, smoothly. There's a tradition where everyone in movies pisses on computer kids, as if they didn't exist, which manifests in the insanely poor quality of footage that includes computers. Seriously bitch, you've been typing for two minutes and didn't touch the spacebar once ? With all fingers lined up on the F line ? Hurr. (To not even get in the blinkenlichten and assorted nonsense^iv.) There's a very similar tradition to piss all over music, with the most improbable bullshit misrepresentation of how that works, very much in the same insanely offensive manner computing is misrepresented.

Well - this film doesn't do that. Not at all. They actually take the craft they depict so seriously, the one-offs they made for the purpose of being filmed in the making actually escaped into a career of their own - as musical pieces! Can't argue with that.

Can't argue with much, actually. Guy who did something bad and consequently feels guilty and also happens to be holding a gun shoots it without thinking at some rando who surprised him. This is generally how it goes. Guy who made it doesn't give a shit about yet another wanna-be fan with a hometape up his sleeve. Quite how it goes. Guy trying to make it can't care less about who's the prisoner and who's the guard - he just wants to give someone his shit. So it goes.

I could say that I'm vaguely displeased by the man who does assert his will over his woman ; but then when she bends and brings him cookies fails to giver her a cookie of her own. Don't do that shit, it's stupid. But I'm not going to say that, because honestly... there's not that much better stuff to watch out there.

1. 2005, by Craig Brewer, with Ludacris, DJ Quals. [↩]
2. These do exist, yes. [↩]
3. You know that's what she is after three seconds of watching her bark. It's what they do, see ? [↩]
4. You seen Swordfish ? You know, the worst film ever made ? In which Travolta (at the absolute top of his non-acting anti-game) explains how he... protects our way of life. You know, say the bad guys bomb a church - he bombs ten. That'll show em! Which is why he has to bomb a bank see, to steal the money to finance the church bombing. So really, if the terrorists bomb a church of ours, he bombs ten of theirs and a bank of ours. Logic!

   Now let's quote :

   - So how did you do it?
   - Do what?
   Break the code.
   I dropped a logic bomb through the trapdoor.
   No, you didn't. You didn't have time.
   - What'll you have?
   - Scotch.
   - You can do better than that.
   - I used a password sniffer.
   Uh-uh. How did you do it?
   I don't know exactly. I see the code in my head. I can't explain it.

   They are discussing, for the record, the "breaking" of a... 128bit code. Through keyboard manipulations. In the space of... one minute (Did you know that the top hackers can do it in a few hours ? Well this really good hacker can do it in a minute. Through hitting ? in a ftp session repeatedly, or somesuch.)

   So yes, no time for dropping the logic bomb through the trap door ? Use a password snitcher. And make sure you backtrace it! They never tell you the true shit in movies, see, for fear you start doing it and then where'd The Man be. But here on Trilema we give the show away : if you ain't got time for logic bombs through the trap foors, by all means sniff your password drawer - but whatever you do, please, for the love of all that is jolly, make sure you've backtraced it.

   Oh, and contrary to what those oppressive white males fulla priviledge over at the CS department might have told you, computer programming isn't a rational process. Jus' gotta feel dem vibes naimean ? You show 'em Rakim, dun let no-one put you down now dawg! [↩]