Ghetto Dawg 1 & 2 Hood Movies Double Feature

[00:00:00] This podcast is a production of Unfiltered Studios. If you would like to know more about joining Unfiltered Studios, please visit our website at unfpod.com for more information.

[00:00:32] Things can be just a little bit better. Certain things that a man's gotta do. Eddie, once you hit, you get hit. You must have a death wish. I ain't going out like that. We missed. We loaded it. We edited it. Sometimes we get so deep into conversation that we have separate segments worthy of their own place in the sun. The reshuffled mini-episode.

[00:02:53] So, welcome all once again. We love doing a cult movie discussion. In this case, we like talking about movies that are basically, like, they spawned an unusual amount of sequels, but people ate them up. Whether it was on cable TV, video stores. I mean, since we started, I always was like, I want to justify the underdog, no pun.

[00:03:44] Someone who is. I want to justify the underdog movies. I mean, I want to justify the underdog movies. Someone who has basically, you know, made a living doing all kinds of different movies. And in this case, for this godfather-themed week, I was just like, yeah, but we talk about the Ghetto Dawg movies. they are a thing and in this case they were basically just a mixture of hood movies

[00:04:10] underground fighting movies and even more just at the end of the day they served as just a reminder of a do-it-yourself kind of movie and how you can still be interesting even with only showing basically just people walking around it's just but solid camera work surprisingly for

[00:04:36] these kinds of very you know it's basically a micro budgets movie but it's definitely with smoother editing and static but involving camera work and limited locations it becomes basically just a low budget film that by making good use of its

[00:05:03] resources it was able to elevate and just be way more watchable and it's so wild how movie one and two like they're related in concept they don't really share the same characters but that's okay like we when we do a b movie it's gotta be you know and there's trashy ones there's deliberately dumb ones they're so bad they're good ones we look for ones where it's like okay no this was made

[00:05:31] with an actual intent of being a movie with a concept and engaging premise you know and in this case these movies i just really dug because they're just kind of that whole do-it-yourself kind of routine and i i mean with watching all kinds of youtube shows as well as

[00:05:56] just frequenting dvd stores you were always going to see unusual indie films that even if they weren't just straight to video they only played at a festival and then maybe premiered on showtime or hbo or stars and these movies go back and forth on being labeled action or crime they're both the action might be

[00:06:20] minuscule but there's an exciting you know race against time kind of deal and it was cool to know that someone wanted to do their own kind of gangster premise without just ripping off better movies because at this time you got to remember you know when dvd is becoming a thing people are doing get it yourself kind of concepts but you know like i saw this recommended on plenty of other

[00:06:47] blog spots and other people who review indie or made for video action films and yeah this had an okay concept on those sites and i mean movie one had robert de niro's adopted daughter Drena De Niro as well as Gianna Palminteri who yes is related to Chazz Palminteri so that's what was cool too is like you're seeing all these la and new york types it's a mixture of black and white casts so it's not

[00:07:16] just a you know at this time when you're doing hood movies everyone's trying to rip off john singleton's boys in the hood as well as the huge brothers menace to society and dead presidents and you know there's some fun movies like those a lot of them are being very uh heavily emulated in puerto rican and latino films like empire and blood in blood out

[00:07:43] and mi vita loca to name a few and at this time you know road dogs is kind of one of the bigger latino crime films that's got rewarding drama with shoot them out action and so that's what's cool too is like it's using similar aspects but it's not even ripping off scorsese's mean streets and good

[00:08:05] fellas it's not even ripping off the tarantino style you know fast talking and stylish yet convoluted crime comedy it's not doing that either and so movie one came out in 2002 it follows well meaning to reek looking to escape his job as a mechanic in a car thief for a mobster at the mobster is gresh

[00:08:30] and after tarik meets the lovely robin gresh wants tarik uh more than ever because he's become involved in the dangerous underworld pit bull fighting to assure tarik's cooperation his new family is jeopardized emotionally and physically this movie surprisingly you know despite having some sleazy content it reminds

[00:08:51] me of the animal films with being rames it's a decent mixture of uh just it reminds me of those william lustig kind of movies like maniac cop or even vigilante where it's just kind of grimy but very involving and despite involving pit bulls i didn't recall any dog cruelty it's just even

[00:09:17] though the sport is heavily implied there was also some really really strong acting just the kinds of actors i don't recognize the rest of them but a lot of them have gone on to do some other things while some of them are just kind of five movies and then done but this was also interesting to see just a movie like this and there's not any rappers surprisingly i was like what's going on here

[00:09:40] usually you know rap stars get in on the action or they get i don't know they get uh other personas who you know just never turned down any kind of low budget movie but yeah that i mainly had heard of ghetto dog too because that focused on a young man who's seeking revenge against a gang of thugs responsible

[00:10:03] for the death of his brother so see again gritty but not exploitive and it was directed by josh and jeff crook who i love those guys those guys have done so many different kinds of actions horror and crime movies including salvage la soga rockaway and a lot of those movies played at festivals

[00:10:28] and you know flooded dvd markets couldn't not find them at blogbuster or mom and pop stores or even walmart bins um but there again these guys are new yorkers and they come from a novelist and journalist family so the acting bug bit them i remember them acting with other people like manny peres and forged and eyes of the dead so there's still a lot of other movies by them that i still want to check out but they even came out around the same time with another underground

[00:10:56] fighting action crime movie called sucker punch no relation to the zach snyder film but again it's a mixture of puerto rican black and white and they do it very realistically i never feel like anyone's doing any hip yo man it's like that was so popular back then like these movies are just literally just straightforward revenge films decent gunplay i think some people

[00:11:24] got turned off by it because they saw the poster and were like oh shoot you know it's just like that looks trashier that looks lame and kind of like rap movies where only people who were fans of that genre really checked it out but trust me guys like these are dimes in the rush these are just so surprising because it's not just the amount of care put into them they flow real fast they

[00:11:49] neither of them has any amateur overdone camera work if they were using camcorders it was really good quality net there's never any moment where the lighting lacks it makes you go oh that hurts my eyes oh i was shot in someone's basement now don't get me wrong there's plenty of solid movies that were shot in someone's basement but like yeah these had to be like ten thousand dollar movies tops but

[00:12:13] they made it count by getting their actor buddies to help out decent engaging mix of convincing wreck and electronic music that plays without disrupting the scene it's playing because it needs to be there because there's a club or what have you and i just like these kinds of movies because it also reminds me you got to think of even tv shows that are so revolutionary around this time you know you already

[00:12:37] had you know shows like homicide life on the street and then other stuff like the shield and the wire doing the whole just making it look like someone's shooting this on a camcorder or digital video and making it look authentic and like you're looking in on this voyeuristically and that's what they do

[00:13:00] really well here they they give both in the moment kind of look and the character stakes are just so solid like because they don't over explain it and they keep simple and then they add a little nuts and bolts to it by making it awesome you know action scenes and confrontations and there's never a moment

[00:13:25] where you're just like you know like it's not fully ready for prime time but it's still a pretty solid shot in terms of atypical what you would expect so i think this is it it's not just i expected it to suck i didn't but because it's really doing so good with the hood genre uh at just having a diverse cast and some surprisingly progressive characters instead

[00:13:54] of just everybody being a pimp or crack whore or hitman they just always just have it be a mixture of people who are down on their luck so it's almost like a rocky story for lack of a better word it's like they just characterized everyone enough they let the actors roll with it they didn't have easily avoidable crud that i expect from bottom of the barrel you know z-grade movies they

[00:14:20] they didn't have stuff like over explaining the plot or too many characters or nothing happening followed by random violence no i didn't have anything like that it was they're just all just adrenaline pumping mixed in with uh just when it's time to breathe they only slow down to explain the plot while then still moving it along pretty further and they'll even have the character like getting up in the morning and working out doing a montage so it's like yeah they

[00:14:50] if anything they use the rocky technique of just not over explaining it and then having the clock constantly ticking what's the ticking time bomb what's the plot uh barrier that's going to set everything off you know at the end of this day both these movies they're related in tone some of the characters in the background are semi-related but basically they titled them because the first movie did pretty well i guess and i recommend either one you don't have to watch

[00:15:19] either one in order but you will be heavily entertained because again of the respect to the craft and the filmmakers not fucking around and finding out like they decided let's just jump into this and let's give it all we got and same thing it was a different crew on movie two same deal they were like let's give it all we got let's show you some exciting fights it's not going to be you know jason board or

[00:15:46] arnold schwarzenegger level but it's still going to be a pretty good shot and they just have really awesome shots like you need in any crime movie of just when everyone's getting tactical with all the different turf wars and you know criminal exchanges they have the actors explain what's going on while they're doing something else like counting money or smoking a joint and they give them a moment to kind of breathe in the scene together so it's like again just the technical details really amp it up a bunch

[00:16:16] the acting is really solid and that says a lot because usually in a b movie you're going to get something okay or you're going to get someone who's charismatic but not perfect or again you're going to have some decent filming but still have some lighting issues you're only in jeopardy when it's just like very sloppy or very confusing or music that's blaring with bad dialogue recording no it

[00:16:44] doesn't have any of those issues that are so common in some of these movies and so again it just shows you you don't have to be john singleton ayla's level but you also don't need to be trashy bottom-of-the-barrel grindhouse or drive-in type stuff too this is just like the decent kind of cult movie if it had been made maybe in the 80s or 90s it totally would have been probably a local made-for-tv production or a drive-in

[00:17:14] theater movie but that's not the case it just was played at festivals or dvd markets but definitely both worth checking out and i just wanted to put it in the godfather themed week because if anything i i would bet you money these guys are fans of those kinds of early kinds of Sydney Lumet Francis Ford Coppola scorsese and spike lee and Oliver Stone even type of movies just

[00:17:40] have people with in-your-face moments and then not overbearing distracting music use your resources and tell the truth in every scene there's never a moment where i thought okay uh you know tropes and cliches that i expect from these movies are going to happen any minute right it's like no there's dog fighting but you don't see much of it because you know it's a low budget movie but i'm sure they don't

[00:18:04] want to get sued by an animal rights you know for dog misuse and they don't need to show it they want to they don't want to actually have actual exploitation they want to just show a decent revenge film you know all the actors and actresses look somewhat both tough and beautiful

[00:18:28] but they had reasonable makeup and you know it might lack some art direction but that's kind of okay considering it's using just whatever resources they got and if it was their friends houses to film at so be it you know they still have decent shots blocking and cameras lighting and solid sound there wasn't anything where i was like i can't hear anything and there wasn't any blaring music

[00:18:59] what limited clubs or outdoor stuff we see is still also just here and there it's not to the point of we ran out of money and we have to over show you everything i it's a diamond in the rough these kinds of movies so that's why i really was like out of all the b movies i'm going to review i promise i'll do these

[00:19:19] because you know it came from a labor of love it wasn't let's just make shit up and hope for the best and you know spartan entertainment was pretty good about stuff like that and the music jams are pretty nice and again while some of the women show up to you know romance the hero

[00:19:49] they'd be okay date movies too because i don't feel like the dialogue is trite or like everyone exists just to screw on screen you know and that's the other thing too some of the guys are neat at just they're everyday people they're not macho guy with abs who can take anything out that's the other thing too it's just like and it's all about twisting it but instead of

[00:20:17] the twists are both atypical but it's also just about getting you to the next scenario that will determine the next outcome and then we can have you get through the waves of various villains and yeah i i do like when independent companies like spartan and what have you were getting productions like this because they always had some decent pyrotechnics you're seeing gunshots go off which made you go man they must have shot that at a closed off alley just to get that shot you know

[00:20:47] if they did this without permits which they likely probably were you know they were doing it at junkyards or just abandoned streets and there's decent driving around shots too and it's like yeah they just they hired some decent videographers who just had a cinematic voice and then you had to get the shots and again the self-awareness is also there too it's like we're not making again we're not

[00:21:15] making award-worthy movies but that doesn't mean we have to make something schlocky for like hbo or sci-fi channel either and nothing against those movies do if you want to enjoy it in that manner you can but you know we're just going to make a do-it-yourself you know shakespearean level just kind of it's like mixed in with just you know someone trying to go against all the odds and let the

[00:21:43] conflict be the voice in the room let the characters use reason and keep it taught keep it interesting keep it exciting but don't overthink it so and so it they all have they both of them avoid so many of the problems you often see on an indie movie where the setup is confusing or you don't know who's doing what for what reason is like no it doesn't do any of that thank goodness and i'm happy for it

[00:22:11] because it's just so rare again because they avoid so much of what is wrong with these kinds of movies i got to give both of them a three and a half out of five like it's there's seven out of ten star movies pretty solid b pictures that are elevated by care for the craft and reasonable if you just want to especially if you're an indie filmmaker you'll love these movies even more because when

[00:22:35] we're indie filmmakers guess what you watch slashers that were made at a guy you know a guy's uncle's mansion you watch action movies that are trying to be a love letter to you know planet hollywood or james bond wannabe films you also watch the made for tv movies that you know that there's sometimes decent you know mystery films that ended up on skinamax they're more decent coming of age movies

[00:23:04] that premiered on showtime you know but you don't get that anymore because people forget the video store days or they forget what other cool gyms you could find so you know if you're gonna take a shot at anything let alone something that's not schlocky then these are the place to be these are some winners so by all means check them out and you will not be disappointed you have my word on that

[00:23:32] thanks for listening as always cam on the jacked up pretty show we love sampling all different kinds of parts we'll go into all kinds of stuff including franchises you didn't know existed you probably just saw the first movie but didn't realize it had a spinoff or your favorite sitcom had five other shows with the same characters there's all kinds of different stuff we love giving a voice to and even if you can't relate to the whole oh i remember that that trip back in time we try to also just say

[00:23:59] hey where can you find these kinds of fun movies if you're this kind of audience would you like this kind of entertainment would you like this kind of video game or book or comic we try to cover all

[00:24:09] kinds of stuff so this was no exception you'll return after these messages here we got a 90 minute

[00:24:32] weekly shack stop it's growing all over the world find it at 2 p.m and 10 p.m eastern time on mondays then 3 p.m on wednesdays then 7 p.m on thursdays you can catch it on many more radio stations 99.9 k-e-r-b 1 p.m central time 2 p.m eastern on mondays then catch the encore on thursdays at 5 p.m central

[00:24:58] time 6 p.m eastern and catch it wednesday mornings at 11 a.m eastern time 10 a.m central 1077 k twins then hang out with us wednesday afternoons mxtr and house shack radio 3 p.m eastern time then thursday get up bright and early with us on 95 7 web radio at 6 a.m pacific time 9 a.m eastern of course we've

[00:25:26] got the friday covered as well 12 p.m eastern time on mxtrfm and 10 p.m eastern time 9 p.m central 1077 k twins find everything on house shack dot com do you ever find yourself thinking about who would win in a fight between goku and superman hi i'm james gavsey and on the who would win show me and my co-host ray ignore anything important

[00:25:54] happening in the outside world and debate fictional battles between characters from comics movies and video games we got a new show every week and almost always am i the winner yeah not true ray in the past we've discussed such matches as captain america versus darth vader solid snake versus the iron giant classic matchups like robocop versus terminator and even the muppets versus sesame street that one was crazy so if you're a fan of geek culture and love a spirited debate check out the who would win

[00:26:23] show wherever you get your podcasts or check us out at who would win show dot com the podcast is available on podbeam spotify iheart radio anchor apple and anywhere else podcasts are available feel free

[00:26:48] to review our show and leave comments on any of those sites thanks a million for listening