I finally caught Straight Outta Compton with my brother on Saturday. As someone who was fully into West Coast gangsta rap, the movie captured that late 80's/early 90's aesthetic perfectly. A lot of nostalgia triggers hitting me hard. I thought Yella's character got a lot more screentime than people were originally complaining about, frankly. If anyone got short shrift, it was MC Ren (incidentally, my fave rapper of the group).
Heard some noise about a possible Death Row movie thanks to the success of SOC, but that would be a waste of time to work on a story about an offshoot of NWA. What more could it bring to the table? More Snoop? I'd rather see a Tupac-focused biopic instead.
I also got to see Compton a couple of days back. Was really surprised how much I enjoyed it, especially the first half, considering that I'm not really a biopic fan. It was really well acted out, it had a lot of energy to it, and the anti-cop sentiment was woven through really well. In fact, all the scenes with the police were really cathartic and intense. If I did have any complaints, they would be that the film rushes through a lot of stuff post breakup that I would have loved to seen them focus more on, and the movie gets really sappy towards the end.
Overall it was a blast though. Now I want to see a biopic on Illmatic and the east coast scene.