Rize
directed by David LaChapelle
An interesting documentary on a street culture peculiar to Los Angeles, where dancing has become an outlet to rival sports and gangs. I actually spent the first fifteen minutes of the film thinking that it may have been a hoax... because the clowns with their facepaint in the streets seemed to strange to be believable. Anyway, the kids in this film are really trying to do something positive, which is fantastic, but it also has this weird American feel to it, where it's not enough just to do good, but you also have to do it better than anyone else. In the end this left me feeling just a little strange. But nonetheless, the "krumping" and "stripping" is pretty amazing. The highlight is the very LaChapelle photo shoot type scene with the filtered ultra blue sky and the sweat soaked dancers.
7/10