



Produced by Forest Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi
Written by Ryan Coogler
With: Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, Octavia Spencer, Kevin Durand, Chad Michael Murray, Ahna O'Reilly, Ariana Neal, Keenan Coogler, Trestin George, Joey Oglesby, Michael James, Marjorie Shears, and Caroline Lesley
Release Date: 26 July 2013
Color/Aspect: Color / 1.85 : 1
Editing: Claudia Castello and Michael P. Shawver
Music: Ludwig Göransson
Runtime: 85 min
Release Date: 26 July 2013
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Color



Fruitvale
Station is the début
feature of Ryan Coogler. Coogler was a USC grad student studying film in 2009
when 22 year-old Oscar Grant III was shot and killed New Year’s morning on the
BART train platform in Oakland, California. Not wanting Grant to be just
another headline about a young black man shot by a white cop, Coogler devised a
film about the last day of Grant’s life and the events which lead up to the
shooting. The result is a thoughtful and restrained slice-of-life portrayal,
able to show many sides of Grant’s personality: loving husband, father, son and
brother, former petty criminal and prison inmate, a young man struggling to
hold a job and get his life on the right track. The film feels authentic, human
and free of directorial commentary. Coogler’s intention is simply to show us
the life that was ended early that New Year’s morning and he knows there is no
need to present it as an extraordinary life. On the contrary, it is in the very
ordinariness of Grant’s last day that we can find so much to empathize with.
After seeing Coogler’s movie I thought a lot about Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, a highly stylized, allegorical film that still feels relevant and contemporary more than two decades after it was made. These two movies are at opposite ends of the cinematic spectrum in terms of their directorial approach, but they both open up a world that is far too often obscured by both political sensationalism and journalistic neglect. While I tend to favor grand works of fiction sparked by real events over small dramatizations of the actual events themselves, a picture like Fruitvale Station demonstrates the value of the simple, pure, straightforward exploration of humanity that film can accomplish better than any other medium.
Produced by Forest Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi
Written by Ryan Coogler
With: Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, Octavia Spencer, Kevin Durand, Chad Michael Murray, Ahna O'Reilly, Ariana Neal, Keenan Coogler, Trestin George, Joey Oglesby, Michael James, Marjorie Shears, and Caroline Lesley
Release Date: 26 July 2013
Color/Aspect: Color / 1.85 : 1
Editing: Claudia Castello and Michael P. Shawver
Music: Ludwig Göransson
Runtime: 85 min
Release Date: 26 July 2013
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Color
★★★★★
One of the 5000 greatest films. Usually only awarded after repeat viewings, so there are more five-star films from decades past than recent years.
★★★★☆
An excellent film. Possibly one of the 5000 and certainly worthy of repeated viewing.
★★★☆☆
A good film well worth seeing. Films listed at the top of this ranking could end up one of the 5000.
★★☆☆☆
A disappointment, an interesting failure, or just a bad movie. Still, maybe worth seeing: I often enjoy the top two-star films in a given list more than the bottom three-star films.
★☆☆☆☆
A bad, rant-worthy film. Should be avoided regardless of hype or talent involved.
☆☆☆☆☆
One of the worst films.






















