Ryan Coogler’s FRUITVALE STATION has received critical acclaim (and quite rightly so) for its emotional delivery and compassion reconstructing the final 24 hours in the life of Oscar Grant and the film will be available to buy on Blu-ray and DVD from October 6th. And why not? The Bard produced his first tragedy when he was in his twenties.This poignant film is based on a true story about Oscar Grant, who was shot dead by police in 2009 and is available to buy on DVD and digital download on October 6th. But most of all, Fruitvale Station is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Coogler got his own thrill when the cinematographer Rachel Morrison came onboard, and together they've made an unexpectedly beautiful film. Jordan is a wonderful actor just watching him lift up Tatiana and strap her carefully into the backseat of their car, you sense the quiet thrill it gives him to be a dad. That's where the action really is in Fruitvale Station: not the street but the hearth, not focused on a drug dealer's fast money but on a manhood worth aspiring to.įemales are at the center of this film: Sophina (Melonie Diaz), the no-nonsense young woman Oscar loves but carelessly cheated on, and their little daughter, Tatiana (Ariana Neal, who effortlessly dominates every scene she's in). But the real information is how angry and aggressive prison could be making him-enough so that his mother (Octavia Spencer) refuses to see him again until he's out. Oscar's no altar boy we briefly see him slogging through a two-year prison sentence for selling Ecstasy. The elements of the popular, gritty urban action genre featuring bad boys and worse cops were there if Coogler had wanted to employ them. "Being black and from the East Bay and close in age to Oscar and his friends, I didn't want to do a documentary, because time was short and these situations keep happening." Fruitvale Station opens with cell-phone footage of the actual killing, but what follows in this astonishing first film is not just artful but real art that takes us down to the very core of truth. So images of Grant's death sparked outrage all over the country, and marches and demonstrations in Oakland. "Most people have cell phones now with cameras," Coogler points out, and the train stopped at the platform was full of revelers. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play The cop who shot him appeared shocked, and he later claimed that he meant to use his taser. Because Grant was lying handcuffed on the cement, the bullet ricocheted up through his chest and a lung, wreaking triple havoc. When Grant protested, the cop above him suddenly pulled out his gun and shot him in the back. But as Grant and his friends stepped off the train, transit policemen, responding to the conductor's call about a scuffle on the train, grabbed them, slammed them against a wall, and pushed them facedown on the platform. The evening's vibe had been so mellow that everyone in the train car, Grant included, started gently dancing to one passenger's MP3 player. Jordan) was fatally shot in the back on the platform at Fruitvale, his Oakland stop on the Bay Area Rapid Transit train. Mere minutes into celebrating the New Year of 2009, a 22-year-old California man named Oscar Grant (portrayed in the film by Friday Night Lights and The Wire's Michael B. It certainly does in Fruitvale Station, a gripping film rooted in a real-and needless-act of violence. "I work with at-risk kids, which is another reason youth-at-risk comes into my work." "I still have my day job as a counselor at juvenile hall in San Francisco," he told. Being practical as well as talented, he was prepared in case the film bombed. , then went on to win the Prize of the Future at Cannes. But at 27, Ryan Coogler also snagged the Audience Award with his captivating feature, Fruitvale Station Filmmaker magazine It's not unusual for a first-time filmmaker to win the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.
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