So, I finally got around to seeing Jonathan Levine’s ‘The Wackness‘; took a while, I know. If you’re not familiar with it, all you really need to know is that it’s a coming-of-age story set in the summer of 1994, set upon a comforting 90’s Manhattan hip-hop backdrop, with a bangin’ soundtrack. It’s good. Ben Kingsley is the one to watch.

I went in the afternoon, 2:20 pm show at the Angelica, solo. I found myself just watching the film trying fit it all in context with my own NYC experiences, sorta noticing some inaccuracies*, but nothing damningly unacceptable. A friend had warned me not to get hung up on all of that; “It’s more about the story,” etc. Some Giuliani references, good music from the era, and a capable and likable cast. The most engaging moment for me was getting sort of emotionally sucker-punched by a shot across the East River with the WTC towers, put in digitally.

Before I knew it I was back in the bright sunlight of 2008, walking across Houston going home and I was spaced-out trying to figure out where the last 14 years have led me and everyone I knew at the time. I came out of the theater kinda unable to understand that it was already 2008; the film is set in 94, and I’ve never really watched a ‘period piece’ that sent me back thinking about it so much. The film is great, but actually I’m attributing all of this to my own memories of the era, and the fact that I just busted out and went and saw the movie by myself, and became mildly immersed, with my 1994 memories and thoughts of visiting New York intermingling with the film’s 1994 “memories,” without anyone else from 2008 to look over to or mention anything about the film to while I was watching it.

Those early 90s were good years, well worth the reverence given to them, for me at least. I used to visit New York for a week or two in the summer, maybe three years in a row before I moved here, mostly to go to the New Music Seminar, buy records, vibe out on New York City, and visit my good friend Bart Blackstone, one of the main dudes who taught me how to DJ before he moved away from San Diego to give NYC a try. We had some fun times, mostly circling around the NMS, essentially what SXSW is now, especially for hip-hop. It’s where I first started getting connections in the industry, meeting people like Orlando from Delicious Vinyl and Dave ‘Funken’ Klein, guys who were super cool to me even though I didn’t really have anything other than a lot of enthusiasm and a bag of club flyers I would show them as my graphics portfolio.

I have a bunch of great photos with people I got to meet from the time, some of my favorites being Large Professor, Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Kieth (actually going under the moniker ‘Rhythm X’ at that point), and many others. It’s where I saw the ill run-in, live at a panel, as chronicled in the song “Scenario,” where Q-Tip verbally “rushed and rushed, and attacked.” I’ll try to locate those flicks next time I’m in San Diego and post them here.

There were some cool, strange things I got involved with in early 90s out in New York, including freestyle rapping in a circle with SuperNatural in Washington Square Park, seeing a ODB wild-out, before the release of ‘36 Chambers’ at a Rampage “The Last Boy Scout” party because he felt the Wu wasn’t getting the respect they were due, meeting Gilles Peterson at a Brand New Heavies interview, and subsequently spending the next two days at Calliope Studios videotaping the recording of the BNH’s “Heavy Rhyme Experience” vocal sessions for 3rd Bass and Black Sheep. Good times. I also went to Japan for the first time, as a DJ on a 11-day tour for the clothing line Tribal Streetwear with the Beatnuts as the lead act… Graf styles! Thanks again to Bobby and Carl for sneaking me on that trip, shit was amazing. Early 90’s Sneaker status: pretty solid at the time, with my steez being focused on Black Jordan IIIs, white Jordan Vs, a pair of classic Adidas Superstars with fat black laces, the thin tongue/original tooling of the shelltoe (not that newer ‘x’ pattern they push now), Adidas Campus, and the Adidas ‘Winterball’ - sort of a spacy futuristic Shelltoe that never got that much love, although they were pivotal in meeting my ‘brother from another’ Gerry V at the 432f trade show, within days of copping ‘em out in NYC - hadn’t seen anyone else on the west coast wearing them until I spotted this dude! They made it to a second model the next year, and then they slinked out of sight, without a trace. Although a knock-off of the design was showing up in some shoe from a company called “Anarchy” or something, Adidas themselves never reissued them and they’re almost written out of the history books, for some reason. Nary a mention on the entire internet! Gerry helped me find this lone jpeg:

So yeah, I came outta that theater high on memories of 1994, yessir.

*So what did the myopic, detail-minded asshole McMullen feel didn’t ring true in ‘The Wackness’? Nothing major, nothing terrible. The film plays it pretty straight, with little that really requires it to be set in any time frame, and it comes correctly the times it pulls out the ‘94 card, with the exception of a few things: for one, a shot of the NY1 channel, gurgling out a ghastly “weather on the ones” 104-degree summer temperature report, uses the current orange/blue graphics that they switched to back in 2003. Where’s the old-school blue/white motif, sans gradients?

The only other thing I felt was a little off was a scene where our love-puppy protagonist Shapiro, played by Josh Peck, asks his weed supplier, played by Method Man, “Who’s on the stereo?” “Notorious B.I.G…. He’ll change your life” Method Man imparts. Shapiro nods, taking it in as the fan of hip-hop he is, wise to some new shit. Or would that have been the case? The track playing is a clever wink to the heads in the audience - it’s the song “The What,” the street-banger album track that features Method Man. Key issue here is ‘album track,’ and Method Man tells our boy that the album has just come out. The problem I have with it all is that Biggie’s album was highly anticipated by New York hip-hop heads, one of which the film establishes Shapiro as. Even out in Cali we were all waiting for it to come out - ‘Party and Bullshit,’ the Red Hot Lover Tone posse cut, as well as a bunch of radio freestyles, the singles ‘Unbelievable’ and ‘Juicy,’ and a huge street-buzz had the whole hip-hop collective mind waiting for Biggie’s album. I contend that our man would have known who Biggie was before being told about him at the drug dealer’s spot, listening to the newly-released ‘Ready To Die’ album. I would have been really impressed if Josh Peck’s character had asked “Is this Biggie?” and Meth had replied “Yeah, but he had to change his name to Notorious B.I.G. - This is the album.” But it’s no big thing, and certainly not a criticism. Still found the film to be a stellar showing about a cool summer love story, set against a great time in music culture. Also notable for its authenticity is the title sequence and ‘month’ cards you see in the film, done by graf artist Zephyr, the legend himself. Not the first he’s done - he did the title animation for the film ‘Wild Style’ as well.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 09:53 and is filed under Graff, movies, HISTORY 101, nyc, Surreal, hip-hop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.