Songs FROM THE Hole
(director/author: Contessa Gayles screenwriter: James “JJ’88” Jacobs cinematographer: Michelle Kwong, Contessa Gayles editors: Contessa Gayles, Rafe Scobey-Thal, Princess A. Hairston new music: richie reseda, Tairiq Dazzling, Garfield Dazzling, James “JJ’88” Jacobs forged: James “JJ’88” Jacobs, Victor Benjamin, William Jacobs Jr., Janine Jacobs, Reneasha Jacobs, Jacqueline Williams, Naaji Pruitt, Lauren “Indigo Mateo” Jacobs, Myles Lassiter, Devonte Hoy, Jovon Instances, Africa Turner, Ernest Walker, Ryleigh Legget, Kellie Evans Runtime: 107 MPAA Rating: NR producers: Contessa Gayles, richie reseda, David Felix Sutcliffe Cocomotion Images 2024)
“A heart-wrenching hip-hop visual album.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A coronary heart-wrenching hip-hop visual album about the fifteen-calendar year-outdated James “JJ’88” Jacobs, who fatally shot in LA a man in excess of a perceived gangland slight and has been serving at any time considering the fact that a double-life sentence (at the time of filming, he’s a 31-year-old prisoner who has served 15 many years of his sentence).
Days immediately after the murder, the brother of Jacobs was slain in his crime-ridden community.
The remorseful prisoner is seeking to reform from his foul deed and has spent substantially of the time in solitary confinement, where he’s in “the hole” for regardless of what explanations. That’s the place his skillfully understood audio is manufactured, as he spends his time generating tunes and contemplating how he bought right here by not managing his anger.
Jacobs co-writes his story with the gifted bleeding heart liberal director, Contessa Gayles (“The Feminist on Cellblock Y”), who provides her subject matter a truthful prospect to notify his story and cry out or sing out for justice.
Much too lousy the useless man couldn’t cry out or sing out with his music to have his daily life back again. In my opinion, murderers should be executed, while prisoners to be unveiled back again in modern society are the types in need of a opportunity to be rehabilitated.
Crime is rampant in the region, and some of the causes incorporate a failed loved ones composition, a failed judicial and prison methods, racism and poverty. Parts not adequately dealt with right here.
Murdering somebody, even as a juvenile, ordinarily should not be an excuse for not understanding right from improper.
It played at the SXSW.
REVIEWED ON 4/13/2024 Quality: C+