The O.C. representz...Hip Hop

I got word of a graffiti film screening at the Newport Beach Film Festival. The O.C.? No way Jose, unless I'm going to Westminster to have hot Vietnamese food and peek the smoking girls too ;-) I'll travel for Hip Hop, except on a school night, so I won't be trekking 51 miles :-( to Newport Beach from my yard. Tooo far.

Here's the film trailer:

The feature-length documentary was recorded over two years and follows the lives of four Los Angelean graffiti writers. The trailer doesn't really so the film justice...it seems pretty cliched on first watching. But, if the film delivers what is described it could be really interesting: Romoff and Gibbs seek to show the four artists from different backgrounds and the different paths they take to legitimize their art. I, for one, would be soooo bored if this was just another film about the angst of street graffiti writers and how they struggle against the system to express themselves. YAWN!

I transcribed this quote on the trailer - it really captures the misconceptions outsiders have about graffiti artists and the reasons for following the illicit path:

"You need to address what they are fleeing, what's home look like? What are the traumas that they're exposed to?...You wanna be able to address what they're fleeing when they're out on the streets at night writing on a freeway wall and what are they escaping when they're doing it?"