Street Fight: A Film by Marshall Curry
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Movie Reviews of Street Fight: A Film by Marshall Curry
Movie Review: GREATEST DOCUMENTARY ON RACE AND POLITICS VERY RAW AND REAL A++++++
Summary: 5 Stars
STREETFIGHT HAS TO BE ONE OF THE BEST DOCUMENTARYS ON POLITICS I SEEN IN A LONG TIME. I REMEMBER RENTING THIS MOVIE AT THE LIBRARY AND THE COVER HAS A LIGHT SKINNED DUDE YELLING LIKE HE WAS CRAZY BUT IT WAS WELL WORTH THE LOOK. THE DOCUMENTARY IS SHORT LIKE 90 MINUTS BUT ITS SOOOO GOOD BECAUSE THIS DOCUMENTARY LOOKS AT TWO AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN RUNNING FOR OFFICE OF MAYOR BUT THE THING IS THAT THIS WAS A REAL STREETFIGHT NOT WITH FIST BUT WITH WORDS OF RACE, CORRUPTIONS AND QUALIFICATIONS. I THOUGHT THAT SHARPE JAMES WAS A LOW DOWN PERSON WHO USED RACE AS WAY MOVE AWAY FROM THE ISSUES THAT SHARPE JAMES WAS NOT HANDLING AT ALL. WHEN PEOPLE YELLED ABOUT THE CONDITIONS THAT ARE HAPPENING IN THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD...SHARPE JAMES TALKS ABOUT CORYS JEWISH BACKGROUND HOW HE WANTS TO BE WHITE AND DOESNT HAVE ANY CONNECTION WITH THE BLACK AND LATINO COMMUNITY. I THOUGHT TO MYSELF THAT IS SO CRAZY THAT SHARPE WOULD USE HE RACIAL BACKGROUND AND TALK ABOUT HE WANTS TO SOUND WHITE AND BE WHITE AND MEANWHILE HE IS COLLECTING AN HIGH PAYING SALARY ON THE TAXPAYERS MONEY AND HE IS NOT DOING ANYTHING FOR THE COMMUNITY TO CHANGE THE DRUGS THE CRIME THE PROVERTY OR EMPLOYMENT. THIS IS THE KIND OF MOVIE THAT DOES GET YOU ROOTING FOR CORY BOOKER. I WAS ROOTING FOR HIM TO WIN BECAUSE HE IS IDEALIST PERSON WHO IS SO SICK OF THE CONDITIONS THAT ARE HAPPENING IN HIS NEIGHBORHOOD AND DECIDED TO RUN FOR MAYOR AND TAKE A STAND . I LOVE THAT HE KEEPS IT REAL AND GOES TO THE PEOPLE AND TELLING HIM THAT HE MAY COME FROM A RICH AND EDUCATED BACKGROUND BUT HE HAS THOSE DIRTY CLOTHES THAT NEED TO BE WASH IN HIS APARTMENT AND HE NEEDS TO WASH THOSE DISHES. THE POINT HE WAS MAKING WAS THAT HE IS NOT LIVING A RICH LIFESTYLE THAT HE IS LIKE THE POOR TRYING TO MAKE IT ANOTHER DAY. YOU WILL SEE TWO SIDES OF THE FIGHT I CHOSE CORY SIDE BECAUSE I LIKE WHEN IDEALIST PEOPLE HAVE TO FIGHT THEIR WAY TO THE TOP TO SHOW THE WORLD THAT LIKE DUST I WILL RISE. SO BUY THIS MOVIE WHEN IT GOES CHEAP BECAUSE ITS A LITTLE TOO HIGH NOW BUT WHEN ITS THE RIGHT PRICE YOU WILL SEE THAT AT THE END OF THIS DOCUMENTARY SEE HOW THIS STREET FIGHT TAKES POLITICS TO A NEW LEVEL. ENJOY THE MOVIE AND SUPPORT CORY BOOKER!!!Movie Review: Riverting Documentary
Summary: 5 Stars
With the current focus on the presidential election, it's easy to forget how local politics can be done, and how it reflects America. We want to believe that our democracy is perfect, that a political machine can't exist in an American city in the 21st century. "Street Fight," the excellent film by Marshall Curry, shows that, unfortunately, it can.
"Street Fight" is about the 2002 Newark mayoral race, between long-time incumbent Sharpe James, and challenger Cory Booker, both Democrats. Booker was highly successful in college, being a Rhodes Scholar, a Yale Law School graduate, and an athlete at Stanford. He did not like the way his hometown was being run, however, and wanted to change things. He won a hard-fought contest for city council in Newark, moved into a public housing project, and made the decision to run for mayor in 2002. Sharpe James was racked by corruption scandals, with several of his staff having to resign, though James himself stayed in office. James had given himself a raise to about $200k a year, and became a state senator with a similarly large salary, so he made more than most state governors make. In addition, though James had built a performing arts center, new housing, and a sports center in downtown Newark, poverty continued to be a reality for about half of the city. The mayor had also, according to Booker, demolished about 10,000 poor houses, but only built 2,000 new ones. So it sounds like Booker is in a good position to unseat James.
Unfortunately, Booker has to contend with a powerful machine. Business owners have visits from code enforcement if they put up Cory Booker signs in their windows. The head of code enforcement was demoted to supervising 2 sanitation workers when he supported a candidate for city council that James didn't like. A pastor of a church was threatened when he criticized James. Curry himself was subjected to intimidation when he filmed James' announcement that he was running for re-election; some plain-clothes officers tried to confiscate his footage. Evidently, they saw Curry with Booker. A nightclub where a Booker rally is supposed to be held closes, since he believes the police will come if the event is held. And on and on.
Booker is determined to rise above it, however. He goes door to door and talks to people on the streets about the problems he sees with the city. Someone on the Booker campaign says that in Newark, elections are fought and won on the streets, not in soundbites. Since Booker is running a "choir-boy campaign" (all positive ads), he risks falling very hard if he falls. And boy, is James determined to make him fall, He calls Booker a "carpetbagger" and a "sop," implies that he's a tool of Republicans and Jews, and implies that he's "not black enough." Booker doggedly fights on, though, going on talk-shows, into neighborhoods, preaching his message to anyone who will listen.
On election day, the atmosphere had become so intense that federal election monitors are brought in to watch for voter intimidation. Their impact is sporadic, since we see people selectively taking down Booker signs in blatant disregard of a federal order, and since there are allegations of voting levers being broken. Despite big leads in the Hispanic and Portuguese districts, Booker ultimately loses, by about 4,000 votes. The machine won. In 2006, James unexpectedly dropped out of the mayoral race, and Booker won by a landslide. Further, James is currently under investigation on fraud and corruption charges.
Local politics is often more interesting than the national variety, since that is where the politicians are closest to the people. "Street Fight" shows a microcosm of American democracy, and anyone who enjoys American politics and social history on a small scale could do no better than to watch this excellent movie.
Movie Review: Where Can I Sign Up for the Cory Booker Campaign?
Summary: 5 Stars
Having been involved in several political campaigns, there is really nothing quite like the dynamics that go into a municipal campaign. Though some might think that an election in a city or town might not rise to the same level of intensity and interest as say a statewide election might, the local political campaigns often times are the most spirited, divisive and dirty.
As a city known to have its fair share of political and public corruption running rampant for several years, Newark, New Jersey was perhaps one of the most difficult places to decide to run against the establishment in the past two decades. However, thanks to the relentless campaigning of one individual destined to make his city a better place to live and work, Newark's political climate perhaps has now been forever changed.
The movie Street Fight is a documentary glimpse at the 2002 campaign of Cory Booker, an Ivy League educated Newark City Councilor who decided that the years of mismanagement at the hands of Sharpe James needed to come to and end. Sharpe James, a sort of politically ruthless leader who at times seemed more concerned about his own money and power than the success of Newark, had been mayor for decades and Booker's take is that the city had suffered greatly at the hands of Mayor James.
The movie is interesting in the sense that it really dives right into the facts and scenarios of ground level campaigning on a grassroots level. Booker's attempts to overthrow the Sharpe administration from the mayor's office certainly was nowhere near as deeply entrenched as Sharpe's political machine was and the movie did a phenomenal job at showing the political forces that the Booker campaign was up against.
For instance, at political events certainly there was an ethical breach by members of the Newark Police Department who were intimidating and accosting members of the Booker campaign and the documentary film maker at Sharpe James' events. This clear violation of public servants serving in campaign capacities was brilliantly documented by the camera and it would be interested to see if complaints were in fact ever lodged for these violations.
The movie also does an admirable job at trying to show the mudslinging that was done by the James campaign against Cory Booker not just as a candidate but as an individual, as well. Calling Booker a carpetbagger, Republican and homosexual to name a few, the James campaign was certainly exposed for their down and dirty campaign methods for which they were willing to put ethical standards or morals aside and instead focused their goals on whatever it took to win.
There is an enormous amount of expose sort of reporting that went into the creation of this documentary. One scene that comes to mind is when Sharpe James was talking about how his ground forces of campaign volunteers were Newark residents who wanted to re-elect him thanks to all that he had done for the city. When the camera then turns to alleged Sharpe James supporters the truth of the matter is that the volunteers are instead paid employees from a temp agency out of Pennsylvania. Certainly not the constituents that Sharpe James thought they were.
The open and outward animosity and aggression that the Sharpe James campaign showed toward not just the Booker campaign but also the documentary film maker was remarkable. To be so bold as to attack a member of the press certainly was an audacious move the Sharpe James campaign resorted to more than once and the capturing of this on film makes this documentary all the more interesting.
While Street Fight was perhaps not meant to make the viewer become enamored with the persona and campaign style of Cory Booker, after watching this film it is almost as if the viewer becomes sold on the fact that Cory Booker should have won the 2002 mayoral election and if I had the opportunity to cast my vote for someone, just by meeting Booker in this film alone I would have been more than impressed and would have supported his candidacy.
Directed by Marshall Curry, Street Fight is an absolutely stellar documentary showing the inside workings of a municipal political campaign. Although the effort mounted by the Cory Booker campaign in 2002 was not enough to overthrow Sharpe James in 2002, Cory Booker did go on to become mayor of Newark the next election cycle and currently serves as Newark's mayor.
Movie Review: Amazing eye opening view of democracy gone wrong
Summary: 5 Stars
This is down and dirty politics. Street Fight pulls no punches and gets you front row seats to a no holds barred political battle. One of the best documentaries I've seen in a long time. You will be shocked, frustrated, angry, hopeful, and on the edge of your seat. For any fan of politics American style, or of great documentaries, grab a copy and get ready to put up your dukes. Movie Review: Politics at the Ground Level
Summary: 4 Stars
Street Fight is a very interesting documentary that chronicles a mayoral race in Newark, NJ. The challenger, Cory Booker, is young (32) and has a great resume - Rhodes Scholar, Stanford football player, Yale Law School. He even lives in inner city Newark among the poorest of people. The incumbent, Sharpe James, is a wily incumbent politician who knows how to work the gears of office. It is a great race, with dirty tricks, lies and tricks.
Overall, it was hard not to root for Cory Booker. With his resume, he could easily take up a high powered job on Wall Street, but he really feels strongly about being a politician. Sharpe James is really the epitome of everything that is wrong with politics. Booker goes house to house to get his message out. James uses intimidation to keep people from supporting Booker. I never really paid close attention to local politics, and it was an eye opener. Highly recommended for those interested in politics, especially in this campaign season.