Hustle, Flow and Grace

One life, one world: anything holding us back? Hustle & Flow (2005) may be an unconventional choice for Easter, but it's one of my new favorites; like Craig Brewer's more recent Black Snake Moan (2006), it carries the spirit of the New Testament throughout. Going back to Brewer's first film The Poor and Hungry (2000), one can trace his compassionate vision through rough territory, the kind of places where Jesus spread the Word. We in the twenty-first century need all the compassion we can seek -- and hope to find within ourselves. Grace comes from somewhere else.

Opening epiphany (DJay the pimp/Terrence Howard to Nola the prostitute/Taryn Manning):

See . . . man ain't like a dog. And when I say "man," I'm talking about man as in mankind, not man as in men. Because men, well, we a lot like a dog. You know, we like to piss on things . . . We territorial as shit, you know, we gonna protect our own.

But man, he know about death. Got him a sense of history. Got religion.

See . . . a dog, man, a dog don't know shit about no birthdays or Christmas or Easter bunny, none of that shit.

And one day God gonna come calling, so you know, they going through life carefree.

But people like you and me, man, we always guessing. Wondering, "What if?" You know what I mean? So when you say to me, "Hey, I don't think we should be doing this," I gotta say, baby, I don't think we should be doing this neither, but we ain't gonna get no move on in this world, lying around in the sun, licking our ass all day.

I mean, we man. I mean, you a woman and all, but we man. So with this said, you tell me what it is you wanna do with your life.

Today's Rune: Journey.

Birthdays: Mary Pickford, María Félix, Betty Ford, Carmen McRae, Kisho Kurokawa, Seymour Hersh, Kofi Annan, Vivienne Westwood, Catfish Hunter, Julian Lennon, Patricia Arquette, Ana de la Reguera .

Happy Easter! Keep the Faith.