Performance rights included. (Gr. 6-12, College) This program from In the Mix covers a second videoconference exchange between a group of Iraqi teens from Baghdad and their peers from a Connecticut school just weeks after the Bush administration declared an end to major combat in Iraq. Iraq Unplugged offers viewers a unique insight on post-Saddam Iraq through the eyes of the teens who lived through the war. . From the bullet holes in Ruba’s living room curtains, to Omar’s lively stories about befriending U.S. troops and then becoming their translator, they openly talk about their experiences, their attitudes about the U.S. role and their hopes for the future.
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Rappers Pras and Ja Rule star as Diamond and Gage, drug-dealing buddies on the mean streets of New York, in this energetic but hopelessly muddled hip-hop crime thriller. You've seen it all before: the childhood street pals hit the crisis point when Diamond wants to go straight and hot-headed Gage aspires to become the baddest gangsta on the block. Ja Rule plays the loose cannon bad boy Gage with pent-up anger and a bullying sneer, a firecracker next to burnt-out match Pras, whose commitment-shy suffering artist has a sleepy, withdrawn blandness until he's out on the streets. "I can't guarantee I'll be there for you," Diamond lamely sputters to his pregnant girlfriend before heading back out for a night of music and gunplay, coming to life with two-fisted ferocity as he coolly empties clip after clip into rival gangs. Director-screenwriter Robert Adetuyi never worries about reconciling the two sides of Diamond, and the contradictory clichés about loyalty and responsibility are delivered without a trace of irony. The John Woo-inspired action scenes are the highlights of the film, flashy, high-energy explosions of excitement that reveal Diamond as a cool-headed, criminally sharp gangster at heart. He just doesn't know it, and the film is too embarrassed to admit it. This glib, sense-numbing action fantasy coasts on the energy of the action and the music while having it both ways: violence without personal consequences and decisions without repercussions. --Sean Axmaker
