Underestimate the crossover appeal of N.W.A at your peril.
More than 25 years after the Los Angeles hip-hop group went double platinum with their unheralded debut album largely without the benefit of radio play, Ice Cube, Dr Dre and the rest shook up Hollywood in the dog days of summer.
Straight Outta Compton, the N.W.A biopic produced by Cube and Dre, blew away industry expectations over the weekend with a US$60.2 million debut, even more than the US$56.1 estimated on Sunday. The film, cofinanced by Universal Pictures and Legendary Pictures for just US$29 million, was propelled by a provocative trailer, savvy digital marketing, strong reviews and the same kind of audacity that made N.W.A famous in the first place.
Photo: AFP
Just as N.W.A’s debut album stood out from the pack in 1988, when hair metal bands like Def Leppard and Guns N’ Roses were dominating the airwaves, Straight Outta Compton stands far apart from the majority of movies to land at the multiplex this summer.
The only other film with a largely African American cast to hit theaters this summer was the independently made Dope. It is a long-term trend that has attracted increasing scrutiny. A study by the University of Southern California found that nearly three-quarters of all speaking or named characters in the top 100 highest-grossing movies last year were white.
So Straight Outta Compton — a fresh and brash alternative to the usual summer spectacles — arrived with a wave of enthusiasm behind it, rising to the level of must-see cultural flashpoint.
On Sunday, filmmaker Ava DuVernay, whose Oscar-nominated January release Selma struggled at the box office, despite rave reviews, tweeted a passionate response to Compton, saying it “captured the plight of the black artist.”
“We rapped along, clapped, laughed, cried. For all that has happened,” DuVernay said. “All the stifling of our voices as young black people in that place at that time while a war was going on against us.”
The success of Straight Outta Compton could encourage studios to embrace more racially charged stories. Certainly, many will hope for such an effect, even if it stands against the prevailing risk-adverse nature of today’s Hollywood.
Before Universal jumped in, Warner Bros passed on Straight Outta Compton in part because of the project’s riskiness. Those concerns earlier appeared to be justified. Marion “Suge” Knight, who is portrayed in the film, is awaiting trial for allegedly running over two men in January after an altercation with Cle “Bone” Sloan, a technical adviser for the movie.
According to Universal, the film, which stars Corey Hawkins as Dr Dre, O’Shea Jackson Jr as his father, Ice Cube, and Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, was 46 percent African American, 23 percent Caucasian and 21 percent Hispanic.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number