rough notes.
by Jon Dunmore © 1


pulp coincidences, excellent music, counter-intuitive music justaposed over situations. twists and turns some of the coincidences seem a little forced, but executed so well.
standout performances by Michael Pena, Terrence howeard ryan Phillipe, ven Ludacris does great job, as does Tony danza in a three-minute juicy role - ensemble cast of flawless performances drives this
stylish perofamnces - Brandan Frazer, magnificent from cheadle, Howard, Pena.
ensemble cast outdo themsevles

it's not about tolerance - it's abou tfinding understaidng - tolernce implies you stil hate, but you put up with it. always hated that word, this is about much more than tha t- about finding understanding - life-changing situations - psysical -ppsychological - affects you in horrifiyng ways - when these people find redemeption or not, their rsolutions come in strange little twists of fate.

music juxtaposed brilliant - not like Scrcese putting pop track over a beating , it's more organic

ssome do theright thing, some do the wrong things - some fidn redemption, some find damnation.

racism shown in sublte ways where it seemingly doesnt hurt or offend - as when danza the producer tells howard the black youth "doesnt sound black engouh"

I think it's height of hypocrisy because itsa l abotu being scared of ddiferent things - for the country that's engagesd in the most wards aroudn the wrodl - this country has all thisstuff about tolerance living toegeterh understand 0 and then to be engaged int he most wars - around the world - what is war edccept trying to tturn peple to your point of view?

it's about misunderstanding, never illustrated better than in Ryan Philipe's story - "wanna show me something? I'll show you someting!"

covering racism reverse racism , fear misdirected anger that we think is racism . anger manifests itself as racism even though its misdireacte-d Bullocks' character hitds on the point that it might not be rasicm as allbut everything that compuonds to make you snap at sometihing that is unrelatedbut race is an easy trope that we can identify with.

reminds of UNFORGIVEn in that no right or wrong solutions - even when people find redemption - there is none. Don cheadles story - his mother thinkshis druggie brother bought the gorceries but HE did, his mother pining after the layabout brother, the theif, who gets kille dand when he gets killed all her anger towards herslef for raising him badlyt flows out to the good brother - cehadle.

Of the ensemble cast, - some are dead at the end - some live - some learn lessons some are too oblivious to learn their lessonw, and some lessons are too convoluted to be learned.
and some characetess just have to live throug hanotehr day.

intense film - diving headlong into racism bigotry concatenation of events out of control interlocking stories

the vignettes are so moving andtouching intense. touch our

what is it about - fear-- illustrated never better with RyanPhillipe's story shooting larenz tate for trying to pull out a statuette