8 Mile/Boyz 'N The Hood/Higher Learning DVD

8 Mile (2002): Eminem (Marshall Mathers) makes his big screen debut with 8 MILE a bracing drama directed by Curtis Hanson. Set in 1995 in the bleak urban battle zone of Detroit the film follows the struggles of a young man who is desperate to make a better life for himself. Jimmy Smith Jr. better known as Rabbit is destined for a life of squalor. Living in a cramped trailer with his deadbeat mom (Kim Basinger) Rabbit works in a factory to make ends meet. His only outlet is hip-hop. Possessing a talent for freestyle rapping Rabbit still hasn't managed to unleash... his true potential. But his best friend Future (Mekhi Phifer) is determined to make that happen. Future forces Rabbit to enter a freestyle battle that he blew the week before giving him another chance at redemption. Hanson's stellar portrait of lower-class urban disillusionment shot with uncompromisingly gritty realism by Rodrigo Prieto proves that the issue is no longer about race it's about money. Eminem delivers a bold performance as the troubled youngster who is still trying to find his place in a harsh cruel world. Boyz N The Hood (1991): Boyz N The Hood is the critically acclaimed story about three friends growing up in a South Central Los Angeles neighborhood and of street life where friendship pain danger and love combine to form reality. ""The Hood"" is a place where drive-by shootings and unemployment are rampant. But it is also a place where harmony co-exists with adversity especially for the three young men growing up there: Doughboy (Ice Cube) an unambitious drug dealer; his brother Ricky (Morris Chestnut) a college-bound teenage father; and Ricky's best friend Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) who aspires to a brighter future beyond the ""The Hood."" Higher Learning (1995): Director John Singleton's Higher Learning follows three very different freshman students in their first term of university who find themselves having to reassess their lives and confront such thought-provoking issues as prejudice racism and sexism... Former high school track star Malik Williams finds that instead of cruising through his first year of an athletic scholarship he's actually going to have to run faster and harder in order to make the grade. Naive Kirstin Conne is ill prepared for a completely different aspect of college life - not only does she discover that male students don't always accept ""no"" for an answer but she also starts to reassess her own sexual leanings. Finally there's Remy the sad quiet kid from Idaho who nobody wants to befriend. Ultimately he turns to the only group that will have him - the trouble-making neo-Nazi skinheads. Among the characters that act as forces in the lives of these three students are Professor Phillips and long-term student Fudge who serve as positive role models as this provocative portrait of modern life builds to its searing and shocking climax. [show more]

Read More