A Day in the Life (Review)

A Day in the Life

A Day in the Life (2007)

Directed by Sticky Fingaz

[This review brought to you by Insano Steve, who while watching this movie gunned down 3 innocent bystanders]

One day while mindlessly browsing the YouTubes, I stumbled upon the trailer for "A Day in the Life". Little did I know, I had just discovered the best black movie in at least the last 10 years.

As a self-proclaimed expert in the modern blaxploitation genre, I had largely given up on the modern black film. Apparently, I just wasn't looking hard enough. While mainstream audiences have had enough of gangstas shooting each other dead in the streets for the sake of a soundtrack, the direct to video/download markets are still alive and well.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A Day in the Life is a Hip Hop, action-drama, musical film. The film begins as the sun rises, it's just another day in the life of Sticky's character and concludes before sunset of the same day.

The story takes the audience on a wild journey through one day as witnesses to an intense street war between two rival crime families.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Onyx: The producer and main star of 'A Day In The Life' is Sticky Fingaz from the famous rap group, Onyx. Onyx was a rap group from the rape and murder filled streets of Queens, NY. They first reached fame in the early 1990s with the hit single "Slam".

At the peak of their of popularity, there were over 850 members of Onyx in the wild. Although, only 2 or 3 of them actually rapped. The only requirements for membership were to be:

1. black
2. bald
3. angry

Later on, the hair and racial requirements would be lifted.

Unfortunately, by the year 2000, deforestation and erosion would slowly dwindle the Onyx population until only the 2 main members remained, Sticky Fingaz and Fredro Starr. With no space in the music marketplace left for angry blacks, the Onyx had no choice but to adapt and embrace the film media. In "A Day in the Life", they were the first to make a film where the dialogue is entirely in rap! Yup, the whole 90 minutes are rapped!

Plot: Sticky Fingaz (played by Sticky Fingaz), is a gangsta that’s been robbed by the guy who played Big Worm in ‘Friday’. So, Sticky and his boy, Fredro, vow revenge and many many many bruthas end up dead in the process.

In fact, more bruthas die just in this movie’s trailer than in even some my favorite blaxploitations! And these murders are fucking brutal. Lots of bloody white Tshirts yo!

Rap: Oh shit. When I heard all the dialogue was rap, I just couldn’t see how it could be done. But damn, Sticky really did it here. To make all the dialogue work in terms of the plot (no matter how negligible) and still sound good as a rhyme, this really is genius.

One of my personal highlights were: Sticky and Fredro rapping over a cellphone, and the bad phone signal serving the role of a record scratching. Also, everybody in the movie raps. Not just gangstas. The cops rap, old people rap, white people rap, they all rap. And with the miracle of Auto-Tune, it all sounds good!

Rappers/Name Dropping: Damn near everybody you can think of is in this shit. Best rap performance by an actor goes to:

• Omar Epps (who wrote his own rhymes)
• Michael Rappaport as he often does, plays the good cop (aka, the only white guy in the movie).
  
• Back from the dead, ‘Caine’ from Menace II Society plays Rappaport’s corrupt partner/the bad cop.
  
• Mekhi Phifer and Bookeem Woodbine provide some acting credibility to the movie.
  
• Omar and Wee-Bey from ‘The Wire’ are in this, playing pretty much their same characters.
  
• Treach, of OPP fame, plays Sticky’s personal arms dealer.
  
• Even Ray J, who’s not actually famous, has a tragic/funny cameo.

Who knew Sticky friends with so many people? Cause there’s no way he paid them.

T&A: Good amount of booty shaking. At least one scene of simulated sex and bare breasts. All females in the film are either bitches or hos. Now, that’s blaxploitation!

Gore: Lots and lots of gunshot fatalities (the best of which is done execution style). Also, a guy gets stabbed in the neck with scissors. Oh yeah, and one case of vehicular infanticide!

WTF Moment: Fredro is shot in the chest at close range multiple times, which sends him to intensive care. Later that day (yes, same day, remember the name of the film), Fredro checks himself out of the hospital, having recovered enough to his satisfaction.

Perhaps, the bullets bounced off some bullets that had already been lodged in his chest from a previous attack?

Anyhow, upon his release, having not shot anybody in several hours, Fredro, unprovoked, unloads his gun on one of his friends who has come pick him up at the hospital. Why!?!? I don’t think anybody will ever know, but I definitely appreciated this senseless violent act.

Insano Steve's Final Prognosis: See this fucking movie. At least, for novelty sake. I mean this film has singlehandedly reaffirmed my faith in modern black cinema.

I had once been lost and confused. Searching for something to fill the emptiness in my soul that was once filled with rap and gang violence.

But now, I can say, once again, I am whole. Yes, I have found my savior. And my savior’s name is Sticky Fingaz, ……

Alternate Rating: 4 YEARS, NO PAROLE!

Rating:
Check out the long ass trailer.





Check out the shorty trailer homey.

A Day in the Life Yo, They be rappin their lines as they go

Thank the gods for Insano Steve's endless search for the modern day blaxsploitation movie. Like an innocent bystander getting shot, Insano Steve found this awesome flick from the depths of DVD obscurity. What is it?

It's a hip hop/rappin musical brought to you by Sticky Fingaz (from the group Onyx). I'm not kidding. Think Waist Deep meets Menace to Society meets Annie.

Insano Steve is gonna review this bad boy for ya so in the meantime check out the trailer below. It's bloody, its graphic, it stars multiple people you know (from rappers to black actors). It's got baby mammas, gangstas, cops and hitmen.

It's fuckin awesome. You feel me?

Check out the long ass trailer.

Check out the shorty trailer homey.

Can't we all just get along? (Racial Satire at its raciest)

With February being Black History Month, I could have done what Andre @ The Horror Digest has been doing all month and honoring famous black actors and movies. But we here at the jaded viewer tend to skew our look at black history with a different perspective. I've already put up my sarcastic A Not So Good Moment in Black Horror Movie History (if you have another suggestion, let me know)

African Americans have blended into pop culture and should be honored in our new Obama nation. But the struggle continues. And the one thing we should learn about the past is its been a difficult path to gain full acceptance into Americana. The struggle and the revolution continues and we should all keep fighting the good fight.

But the history of this movement in film is filled with lots of satire, anger, revenge and humor. Yes folks, humor. I've pulled some trailers below of some infamous racial satires that slant towards the struggle, the horrifying truths and the improbable funnyness of all that is black and white.

Fight the power!

First the racy raciest race movies of the 70s. Here is the trailer for Fight for Your Life, a film about racist motherfuckers that get their comeuppance.

What could be worse than that? How about the trailer for Goodbye Uncle Tom, a movie about the slave trade by notorious Mondo Cane directors Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi.





A little too much for ya right? OK, let's go get some funnies. Here's the trailer for The Thing with Two Heads.





And finally the whole movie for Watermelon Man is on YouTube. If you've never heard of Watermelon Man before is the plot:

An extremely bigoted white man find out the hard (and somewhat humorous) way what it's like being a black man, firsthand!





So what's the modern version look like today? Well anything from Spike Lee of course. But Black Dynamite was released on DVD last week and is one of the funniest parodies of blaxsploitation movies.

This concludes my contribution to Black History Month. If your looking for more black movies in film, check out Insano Steve's The 10 Best Black Films of the 1990's.