DVD Review: Thug Life in D.C.

There is a war going on in the streets of Washington. Teenage ‘thugs’ armed with automatic weapons run many of the inner city blocks. Fully half of the black men between the ages of 18 and 35 are in the prison system. That is more than 24.000 young men in jail or in prison, on probation or parole, out on bond or on the run. For many of them ‘Thug Life’ is the guiding philosophy. As they see it, life is short, with few options, so they live fast and dangerously, as they scramble for their share of the pie with the rapacious zeal of corporate raiders.

Filmmakers Marc Levin and Daphne Pinkerson follow one of these teenagers over the course of two and a half years, from his entry into the prison system. We meet Aundrey Burno #268 428, aka ‘Bruno’, in the DC jail, where he is awaiting trial for the attempted murder of a police officer and the murder of an 18-year-old boy. He has been locked down on suspicion of stabbing another inmate. He wears a towel over his face, outlaw style. He is king of the juveniles, well respected for his dedication to thug life. ”I am the definition of thug,” he says. He is facing a total of 115 years.

Thug Life In D.C. tells the harrowing true story of Aundrey. On one hand Burno is a street-hardened young man who talks of the "thug life" creed that "you gotta do what you gotta do to survive," but at the same time it's hard not to see the fear and despair in his eyes as his case moves along, or in his pleas to his younger brother not to follow the path he's walked. Thug Life In D.C. was produced by Levin for HBO's America Undercover documentary series.

But as his 18th birthday approaches, so does the grim realization that he may spend the rest of his life in prison. He takes off his mask to speak to the filmmakers, revealing a young man with surprising insights into himself and his circumstances. He tries to convince his younger brother, Kevin, not to follow in his footsteps, but predicts that he will join him one day. Bruno feels that he has no options in life, observing, ”Our generation died when our fathers were born.”

DVD Review: Dough Boys

Most of you probably saw this on BET and thought it was a fake Juice or Boyz N Da Hood, or some other 'hood movie. Nah, it doesn't even scratch the surface of those classic films, but it does display the greed of a group of young hustlers who have no direction in life but to live what they know.......survival.

When four young men plot to make quick cash by breaking into a storage facility and steal the counterfeit poker chips of a unknown person and sell them to a known big time hustler from the neighborhood, they didn't expect what would happen next. For the next few days, their lives are turned upside down when they have to come up with $10,000 by the end of the week and pay the individual whom the chips belong to.........the hustler they were trying to sell them to.

Check out the young men as they plan, plot, scheme, rob, and sell their possessions to come up with the money by the deadline or get bodied. But when unforeseen circumstances happen and they to, get robbed, their situation takes them right back to square one. Now they going to come up a dollar short and a day late on making their payment, so they plan another thoughtless move.........rob the big time drug dealer living in their apartment building. Now they really knee deep in something they don't know how to handle. Can they stick together and figure out a way to come up with the money, or will they crumble and meet their fate, by way of the gun?

DVD Review: V (The Mini Series)

First of all, most of you kats are probably too young to remember this television show unless you are in your late 20s, early 30s, or older to remember it. This show came on NBC and it's considered as a groundbreaking sci-fi show for its special effects during its time. The show came out in 1983, so most of you are not going to know what I'm talking about and why I'm even talking about it.

I just got this DVD in because Hollywood is about to do a movie remake out of it to make that almighty dollar from something of the 80s once again and I want to get my hands on it before it'll be a hard find. Apparently, Hollywood has run out of ideas and now is reaching back to the Golden Era of movies and entertainment to recycle their dollar. I ain't mad at them for doing it, plus it'll introduce some good stuff that the last couple generations missed out on.

The story starts with alien ships coming to Earth in search of resources, since they used up all their resources on their home world (sounds like us in the next 50 years or so). So the aliens seems nice and they want to exchange technology and other pleasantries with humans to show they are peaceful. Well, we all know that's B.S. because the aliens real plan is to kill or enslave all humans, take Earth's resources and get this............eat rats. Yep, the aliens favorite dish is that almighty rat. They not hungry for any iHop, Yums, Levi's, or Popeye's chicken, they want that rat and sometimes...........humans. And the worst thing is that they may look human on the outside, but once they tear away that rubber skin, we get a green goblin lookin' lizard up under there. And to make matters worse, some of the aliens develop feelings (emotional and sexual) towards humans, and even a cross breed alien/human baby is born during the series. You have to check it out.

Call me a geek for knowing what I know about all this stuff, but I'm here to keep you entertained. We all know how fun the 80s was, and I remember how entertaining V was to me, so take your mind on a trip down memory lane and check out V (The Mini Series).