beathe and stop



last night, as i do most weekends, i settled in to my saturday night ritual of watching one of my netflix selections. this week's feature was MANITO. Manito is a award-wining, independent drama about a young teen, Manny, with a promising future who ends up blowing his chance at attending college (and his scholarship) by falling in the same cycle of prison as his older brother, Junior. set in the bronx, this film was a loud, riveting, salsa-driven family drama that showcased the complexities and challenges of growing up. it highlights the effects of the choices we make on our futures. while watching i found myself laughing, almost crying, and yelling, "DUMB ASS!" at the screen when Manny decided to make the wrong choice. this movie is definitely one of those films that doesn't make up your mind for you. it allows you to enter the world of its characters and make up your own mind as to what could or should happen.

i love taking chances on indie films such as this one. it just so happens that this DVD is a part of the Film Movement series, which is subscription service that sends it's users a new, award-winning independent film per month. if i weren't already a netflx member, i might consider this, because it's sounds like a good way to stay up on new films. one cool thing about Film Movement DVDs is that each feature film is accompanied by a short film. The Manito DVD featured a short film called MORNING BREATH.


MORNING BREATH is a 15 minute short film that depicts a typical, working-class brooklyn cat (Lord Jamar) as he traverses the streets, interacts with his boys, and falls in love. Sounds very predictable right? Wrong! The film is devoid of dialogue, but is instead driven by a 15 minute (straight dope) poem by Mums, of Def Poetry/Oz fame. While watching this film, not only was i taken in by the amazingly fresh poetry and cinematography, but i found myself hypnotized by Lord Jamar. For him, I would run this film back 30 times in a row just to catch his beautiful screwface (can you tell i was feelin it?). you see, i've always had this thing for slightly rugged, coca, new york brothas (brooklyn!)--all accent and swagger--with long & freshly lined lox (and goatees). Amen.