Sums up the M town music scene

Rating: 9/10 (4 November 2005)

Being a filmmaker from Memphis living in NY, I picked up a lot of small things that neither the audience or my film-making circle understood. The hand held rough, blues-y, new south is new to a lot of people. They have been exposed to the commercialized view of the new south and not what it has and will always be to many people from that region. I enjoyed Howard's performance in the fact that there are a lot of people "coming- of-age" in Memphis and there is a lot of stories to tell of the new struggles and glass ceilings that remain. my work reflects my hometown and is something that the south does to an artist: it creeps into your work with conviction. The best scene of this is the scene where Terrence and Nola are in the church. Even though he is a pimp he still goes to church!!! Now many may think this is contradictory, but in the south, everyone's profession is rooted in the church. The scene where he describes his midlife crisis and tries to restrain his fear is something that is programed in the south for us...to be hard on women, and maintain a sense of control of everything around you....Craig Brewer does this very well with his characters. If you notice, ALL the female characters in the film are submissive to some male character or another...another staple of the south. But also, the idea goes the same universally-men are even harder on each other as we saw in the skinny black and DJ 3rd act climax....