The Movie: I'd never heard of this movie before I saw its trailer on some other DVD which I don't remember now, but I remember I was fascinated by its long and varied list of cast members which includes Ben Stiller, Brooke Shields, Claudia Schiffer, Elijah Wood, Jared Leto, Joe Pantoliano, Scott Caan, Robert Downey Jr., most of the Wu Tang Clan, and yes, even Mike Tyson.

It starts out exploring a subculture of rich white kids who act like and/or want to be black, and a filmmaker making a documentary about them. We follow the kids as they become more involved with an aspiring rapper from the ghetto, who turns out to have been living a life of crime, but is trying to pull himself and his friends up out of it. One of those friends is a star basketball player, who ends up getting into some other trouble with a detective... who happens to know someone else, who happens to know someone else in the movie.

I guess the theme of the movie is to show how worlds can collide, black and white, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, law and criminal, gay and straight, but what it really ends up being is an extremely disjointed piece that doesn't really get a chance to fully explore any of the issues it touches on. I found it rather hard to connect with many of the characters who mostly seemed rather one-dimensional even though I think I was supposed to be shocked by their "other sides" or something.

I guess I can say that overall I didn't particularly enjoy this movie, though the fact that Mike Tyson would let himself be portrayed the way he was in this movie makes me wonder if I should applaud him for his courage and boldness, or wonder what the hell he was thinking.

The DVD:

The anamorphic video was mostly clean, though it did have some dust and dirt, and seemed a bit grainy, though that may be intentional as perhaps the director wanted a gritty, run-and-gun documentary type feel to it. But contrast and color were generally good, though not spectacular. The audio was clean, but nothing special, with a smidgen of surround effects thrown in.

Special features include commentary, some deleted/alternate footage, a music video, a trailer, and a director's video diary type thing. Overall it's a decent DVD release. I just happened not particularly enjoy the main feature, that's all.