Beat Street
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Movie Reviews of Beat Street
Movie Review: Old School At It's Best
Summary: 5 Stars
Being a big fan of 80s music, electro, rap and hip hop from that era, this was a movie I had to see. Initially, it was to put my extended soundtrack in play order, only I found out the 2 official record releases only cover about half of the songs. In total, their are 39 tunes in the movie, 34 of which can be found on the soundtrack LPs, searching on the Internet or buying separate single LPs for various songs. The bad thing about this classic "breaking" film is that the credits are terrible in respect to the musicians. All it says is "These artists contributed songs to the film" and then shows their names. No song titles or who did what. I've never seen a movie do that before and it makes it a major pain to figure out who did the few mystery tunes, which play for a few seconds to several minutes, but have lyrics. Even worse is trying to track down artists heard in the movie on the Internet and not finding anything by them, like Andy B. Bad (aka Andy Bonafede), Richard Sisco and Wanda Dee and Brenda K. Starr's "Vicious Beat" (which was clearly done for the film due to the lyrics). Sure glad the IMDb (International Movie Database) site has a good sized message board on the movie, otherwise I wouldn't have figured out a lot of the tunes I was missing.
As for the movie itself, it is a masterpiece of early 80s era dance culture with awesome electro, rap, hip hop, reggae, house and dance music. The story is involving, emotional and entertaining. The break dancing is amazing. I can't help but be highly impressed and astounded at the moves the kids (and adults, for some looked like young guys, but weren't) were able to pull off. You watch and go "Wow!", "OMG!", "How did he do that?", etc. The celebration for Ramo at the end is wonderful and brings tears to your eyes with all the energy it brings. Would have loved to be in the huge audience at the time of film. Must have been great. Back in the 80s, I didn't like this style of movie, nor the music (except for electro), but I do now. The rap of the 80s was musical, not garbage (though there were a few groups that were) and the hip hop was intensely danceable and positive in lyrics, compared to today. I just never gave it a chance back then, same for heavy metal from that time, which I like now too (depending on the group, of course). "Beat Street" is a must-see for anyone that loves 80s music and a good story. You will not be disappointed.
Movie Review: Hip Hop In It's Hay Day
Summary: 5 Stars
The movie Beat Street, has always been one of my favorite movies of all time. Mainly because, it captured three important elements of Hip-Hop, and that was Djing, breaking and Graffiti writing on the subway cars.There are so many different scenes that I enjoyed in the movie, but the scene when Kenny was djing in his room before Tracy came in happens to be one of my favorites. I feel this way about that scene because Kenny was zoned out in his own world, and I can relate to this because I'm a dj and I often do this myself. Another one that involves Kenny was when they had the party in the abandoned building, and he starting the party off saying "It's working.....It's working. Wow what a classic scene.
The battle scene at the Roxy,was and is still to this day, one of the legendary battles to have gone down in Hip-Hop history. To see all the orignal members of The Rock Steady Crew and The New York Breakers battle was just exciting to see to. Even till this day, I don't know how Crazy Legs, took his sneakers off, after doing a backspin.
The soundtrack to the movie was excellent just as well. Some of my favorite joints that were played in the movie was, LaLa's "Into the night" and C.M.'s "This could be the night"and also the "Beat Street Breakdown" by Melle Mel and The Furious Five. Another one of my favorit scenes, was when Kenny was at The Burning Spear and he was playing D.j Globe and The Whiz Kid's "Play that Beat" with I.O.U. by Freeze. Damn, I wish I was there.
Today, there are websites and books that you're able to look at different pieces from various graffiti artist like "Lee"- (Wild Style), Dondi-(Style Wars) and Dez just to name a few. But to actually see it in a movie was a great feeling. Even though a few writers atually did the art work on the subway cars in the movie, Ramon did an excellent job making us believe that he really did it all.
The movies "Wild Style" and "Style Wars" were some of the first films to ever be made on this sub-culture. But when, "Beat Street" was released, I think it made things brighter for those that were in the darkness about the Hip-Hop culture and what it stood for. Too bad we can't relive the early 80's again.
Movie Review: A BRONX B-BOY'S TAKE ON THE MOVIE
Summary: 5 Stars
Well I'm from the(B.X)aka The Bronx, and I must say everytime
this movie end's I want to cry, becuase I know deep in my heart
those times are over. I have been reading all the postings from
people who love this movie, but think how you would feel to see
your life and times play out in a movie and done so well it takes your soul back into time. I still live in the bronx, and HIP HOP is still ineffect here but it is not the same man, TV does not copy us now we copy TV. Everyone loves this movie be it the dancing, djing, mcing, I love it because it's real baby, It was done with the real players from that time and that is why this movie will LIVE FOREVER. I knew guy's that would put a bullet in you if you went over there piece aka (graffiti). In New York City if you open the bottom of a light post there is a plug to get electricity, that is how we played are radio with no batteries. That is why THE GODFATHER AND GOODFELLAS are classics because they are time machines done with respect for what they are trying to capture. The movie (BREAKING) will never live in the minds of people because it smelled to much like HOLLYWOOD FAKE BS. There is a rumor that the graffiti in BEAT STREET is fake, are we talking about diamonds, graffiti is a style of art, if it looks like graffiti it is graffiti, who ever did the burners was well schooled in the art of HIP HOP, some look better then the stuff other guy's were doing at that time.
HIP HOP DON'T STOP! I'M OUT PEACE!!
Movie Review: disregard post below, STILL A CLASSIC, GROUND BREAKER!!
Summary: 5 Stars
To the Kid below that said this "I spent a good portion of my teen years in Riverdale (Bronx) near JFK High" Are you kidding me, RIVERDALE IS THE BEVERLY HILLS OF NEW YORK CITY, WEATHLY PEOPLE LIVE THERE, SON. So you know what that means, you know nothing about hip hop at that time, because your WELL TO DO, as@#
would not be around people like that, Thats like some body from beverly hill talking about gang life in east LA, HA HA come on!!! JFK HIGH SCHOOL, you went to private school, B.E.T AND VH1 has played this movie, this movie is so well done I can't believe I acted just like them at that time. This movie is so real that it showed the real way that rappers dressed back then,looking crazy like parliament and BOOTSY COLLINS. TO the statment that fool ("Ramo"), a damn grown man who would rather paint trains than get a job to feed his girlfriend and baby-who would sympathize with such a moron? At that time non-white guy's like him had no options, I think the movie was being nice about it, truth is guys like him could not get job's, thingS were BAD IN THE 70'S AND 80'S REAL BAD! The BRONX looks pretty now compared to back then, it looked like IRAQ, But you had no problems right RIVERDALE, to look at the bad side of life all you had to do buy a movie. So for all you fack, trying to open your mouth when all you have is a good education, using it to write clear bull#$#$. please stop,
YOU LOVE THIS MOVIE BECAUSE THIS MOVIE THIS THE ONE AND ONLY!!
Movie Review: Love this Movie and Soundtracks
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is a true hip hop classic that defined an era in my childhood. I have been looking for a particlular song that was played briefly in the movie, but it was never released on the soundtrack. I am not even sure of the name, but it is from the scene at the Burning Spear night club after the Christmas show performance. Kenny starts slow dancing with Tracy to this song, but I only have some of the words but no artist. Can anyone HELP me find out who sings it? These are some of the lyrics:
"Well alright, just look at you now
Nobody knows how you got it, but everyone says kid you got it, so now that I know that you got it, we can make it right.
You're one of the few, girl you got it, I feel it in you, girl you got it, I'm telling you now that you got it. We can make it right
Yes you might say there's a chance and we're taking it, boy it's up to you, so feel that nerve in your heart that's stinging ya take this breath of my love I'm bringing ya Keep on spinning the feeling round and round
Nobody knows how we got it, but everything shows kid we got it, and now that we know that we got it better do it right, better do it right, baby I know that you got it, oh it feels so good thatyou got it."