NORTH HOLLYWOOD THE MOVIE Review | Just A Bit A' Banter
hi guys this is christina welcome to our
new segment called just a bit of banner
today we’re going to be talking about a
film we watched a couple weeks ago
called north hollywood
it’s an independent skate movie directed
by mikey alfred
we also did a commentary on that so make
sure you go check out that commentary
and although noho is mikey’s directional
debut he is
no stranger to filmmaking he’s directed
a short tv series called summer 17 which
was uploaded to youtube
the cherry bomb documentary and a short
film titled the dispute
he was also a co-producer on mid 90s but
i would argue that the biggest thing
monkey is known for is
illegal civilization illegal sit for
sure and i see for even shorter
ic is a um skateboarding company and the
self-proclaimed
first teen movie studio which was
spearheaded by none other than mikey
alfred himself the company
studio literally does everything under
the sun clothing
movies mini tv shows youtube videos much
in general
i don’t like comparing two completely
different entities but
if you’re struggling to grasp the
concept just think
odd future
music illegal siblings more into
skating and filmmaking so what does
illegal sit have to do with noho
well that’s where the movie was
cultivated it was born it was bred and
the stars of noho make up some of the
core members
for example you’ve got ryder mclaughlin
who plays the titular character mikey
nico haraga plays jay and aramis hudson
plays adolf
and other illegal civic corps members
can be seen sprinkled throughout the
movie like sunny solidic
the movie is loosely based slash
inspired by mikey alfred’s real life as
a young skater growing up in north
hollywood that’s why the name of the
main character is michael
and yes you can clearly see that one is
black and the other is very much not
but don’t worry we’ll get to that for
the sake of the video we’re going to
refer to the movie mikey as
mikey and the director mikey as alfred
this review is going to be broken up
into three different parts
the first part is going to be like what
we like the second part is what we
didn’t like and part three is if you’re
from africa
why are you white that’s when we’re
going to be talking about race and all
that good stuff that i know you guys are
here for
so christine did you kind of want to
take the lead on this one what did you
like about the movie
so first off the scenes with jay are
superior and the only scenes i like
thoroughly enjoyed
yeah yeah i agree jay’s character is
amazing and his
chemistry with i guess you would say
nico haraga’s chemistry
and aramis’s chemistry is top tier like
when i was watching the movie i felt
like yeah i’m watching two dudes have
been best friends
since they were like five something i
really really like about the film
is just the way it looks for example
they’ve got like a dolly zoom in there
right after mikey is told that he can’t
be an ultra server anymore the scene
cuts to him at the skatepark and there’s
like this dolly zoom wikipedia basically
says that
it’s commonly used by filmmakers to
suggest a character is undergoing a
realization
that causes them to reassess everything
they had previously believed
oh yeah so i really like the use of the
dolly zoom there because that also leans
into the coming of age
like he’s really growing up like time is
moving on yesterday you know i start
thinking about things
exactly you have to start taking life
seriously and i feel like we’ve all had
that moment where like
oh snap life is changing like
another thing is that i feel like i
sensed a bit of like a tarantino-esque
shot with the carrot
when he’s eating the meal with his
father and his father’s basically like
you keep messing up it’s gonna be your
last meal and the dad tells mikey to
like eat the carrot
obviously got to talk about the music
the music and the movies i love the
music
the music is so immersive and it always
hit just at the right moments we’re
going to talk more about the music too
when we get to that one particular scene
with adolf and mikey
and they have their fights we want to
talk about it now let’s talk about it
okay go ahead okay so mikey gets caught
lying again it was the second time in
one day and so adolf’s like dude you’re
lying again and mikey was like
i don’t want to be seen around you like
you’re childish and so like the camera
focuses on the two kind of just
arguing and the music fades out and it’s
completely silent and you can only hear
their two voices it’s like isolated
and then he says watch yourself around
me
and then music not from the band but
different music starts playing
[Music]
i think that was like my favorite part
of the whole movie yeah like i really
felt like a friendship coming to an end
and it was really sad
okay what else did you like the
light-hearted summer type of scenes were
like the best scenes like the one where
they were at like the diner
or when they went to the little lake i
thought there was a water blue fight
the water when they were on the hill
yeah those scenes like i caught myself
smiling so hard i was like i love these
scenes
and then also just going back into like
dynamics i feel like vince vaughn and
like ryder their chemistry was really
good too it’s like father-son doing it
was
so believable when we were in the house
like the scenes in the house
i felt suffocated like i felt like i
couldn’t make a sound because i was like
if i do one thing wrong
vince vaughn the dad is gonna like yell
at me right right now hopefully this
isn’t too controversial
but first of all i want to put
disclaimer people don’t solely exist to
be
representation if someone who’s not a
size zero
posted tick tock and people in the
comments are like i love the
representation you’re putting out there
for like mid-sized people and it just
kind of feels like a backhanded
compliment you know what i mean like
they can’t just exist they can’t just
exist right but i do have to say
i love the representation that jay
provides as a character
as an asian character a lot of the times
in american media they’re portrayed as
not being desired they’re being less
than you know
they’re the nerds right or they’re just
smart they have no like dimension to
them whatever it’s like they’re just
a smart kid right so i just have to say
i feel like jay provides like that sweet
sweet representation i’ve been needing
for my asian american boys and girls i
love seeing him have steez i love seeing
him being able to carry himself being
able to dress like he can skate but he’s
also smart too
so moving on to what we oh i don’t want
to say what we didn’t like what we
didn’t fancy what was in our cup of tea
and what we changed about it i also want
to preface this by saying i’m not going
to hold like an
independent film to the same standard as
i don’t know like a hollywood
blockbuster do you know what i mean yeah
yeah yeah and
also this is his directorial debut he
has so much potential
it’s only gonna go up from here so we
just want to preface this segment by
saying that
so i guess i’ll start off by saying the
movie was not at
all how i thought it would be because
tesse sent in our little sister group
chat okay before we watch noho you guys
should watch the summer 17
little tv minute series yeah so i was
watching summer 17 i was like okay
i love this i was getting excited i
liked how it was very much
just summer boys doing summer things
like skating but oh there’s also
a couple of trials and tribulations here
and there but it doesn’t like take over
the whole
summer 17. so whenever it got to noho i
was like oh this is completely different
this is not at all what i thought it
would be
i didn’t realize it were focused so much
on mikey yeah i was kind of like oh
no i was click-baited for me something
that i didn’t know i didn’t really like
but i didn’t really understand
was the element of what it takes to
become a pro skater because i did watch
an interview with alfred and he was
saying
something along the lines of hopefully
when people watch this they understand
what it takes to become a pro skater but
after watching the movie it left me with
more questions than answers
because in the film no one uses a phone
and i was wondering is that a conscious
choice how does that make sense in the
world that this movie is taking place in
because social media is so integral to
anything nowadays that’s how you blow up
that’s how you get exposure
true so i was like so do pro skaters not
need social media nowadays
all the skaters i see are on instagram
so that threw me through a loop so i was
like what does it take to become a pro
skater
let’s talk about mikey lying lang lang
lang line that was a huge part of the
movie
probably the most important part of the
movie was that he was constantly lying
bro that was the plot that was that was
the flop
what’s the plot of noho mikey lied the
way that was conveyed to us was that he
doesn’t usually do this
mikey doesn’t usually lie this is a new
wedge between his relationship with his
father and the relationship with his
friends he’s changing
yeah he’s changing but we as the
audience never saw a change from
a to b we were always just at b he had
always just been lying when we met mikey
there was never that gradual change like
you’ve really changed everyone kept
telling mikey you’ve changed
you changed you changed i didn’t see a
change mikey’s been a liar he’s been a
lie he’s been lying
you know who did that transition well
yeah high school musical too
but yeah yes but then again i felt bad
because i was like comparing it to high
school musical two is different because
they had a whole first movie to
establish how good of a friend troy is
how good of a teammate he is and you
could empathize with troy
yeah because you want for him to go hoop
with the college guys you want for him
to worry about his future but you also
want him to not forget about his friends
where he came from but i couldn’t
empathize with mikey
the same way that i could empathize with
a character like troy bolton because
mikey’s been a liar if anything i don’t
want him to i don’t want him to be you
don’t deserve it like why are you
talking to the pro skaters like that
talking about you scared to fight
security guard
okay you can stay in no home with
what i put next was there was too many
unlikable characters in this movie
who do you hate so obviously mikey adolf
like a lot of the time obviously at the
end i was like oh okay
and then nolan knocks call act
i i’m sorry you guys you just felt like
a cameo
yeah and you never want to feel like a
character like it’s like the disney
movies where the cameo comes in
everyone’s like
yeah and they’re just looking around and
they’ll be like
can you tell me where the restroom is oh
my god
oh my god oh my god lebron
jesse oh my god my last like beef with
the movie is such a nitpick that i
honestly feel bad about saying it but
to me costuming hair makeup whatever
it’s integral to the film as well it’s
really important
i just want to say mikey’s hair i feel
like mikey’s hair could have told
us a story it’s a big part of the movie
because obviously it ends up getting
shaved so i’m thinking
it would have been nice to see when
mikey’s around the pro skaters
mike is around rachel when mike is
around rachel’s dad his hair’s slicked
it’s conveying that he wants to impress
he’s not really being himself but when
he’s with his escape friend and when
he’s in his home with his dad
it’s all over the place he doesn’t care
about it because i noticed when he was
with his friends and it was slicked and
i was like
why would they slick to the skates right
was it because he came from church
but there was other instances there was
other instances and it could have been
also like oh once he got to the skate
park he scruffed it up that would have
been cool to be like oh
yeah so that’s just a nitpick but i do
love a bit of costuming
it’s a bit of me it’s a bit of me really
okay so i wrote down the thing that i
maybe i would have changed is that
instead of adolf being the one to take
off his converse it would have been my
key to show that like old bro is really
changing because they made such a big
deal about it like that is what they
have done since they were kids
how awesome would it have been for mikey
to kind of be like oh to really roll
with the pro skaters i’ve got to put
these childish things away he was the
one complaining about his friends being
childish
i feel like it would have been cool for
him to take off the um converse and put
on merch
shoes that the pro skaters gave him and
then be like really clean
really obnoxious do you know what i’m
saying
so now to get to the bit i feel like
people have been waiting for
[ __ ] dark keys wherever are the dark
keys okay okay
obviously in the introduction you heard
that i said this is loosely based
inspired by mikey alfred’s life growing
up in north hollywood as a teen as a
skater
and then you see who plays mikey and
that man doesn’t look anything like
mikey does it
mikey alfred has reasoning behind why he
chose ryder to play him you know i
pitched this movie
to everyone and when people would say
you know you want a white person
to play the version of you and you want
a older white guy to play a version of
your dab it didn’t even make sense to
them
and his explanation is basically like
this story my story transcends race
people will see this movie
and they’ll know that it can be applied
to anyone the thought that
a black person could take their story
and
have the perspective to view it as a
human story
and not let race get in the way it’s
really hard people understand
but to me that doesn’t make sense that
doesn’t make sense to me i feel like it
would have hit harder if you would have
had a black main character because then
it really hones in on the idea that
this movie does transcend race because
if you can apply
a black person story to any other racist
story then it’s really like yeah
it’s not about the race it’s about the
story how many movies do we have
millions and thousands a hundred
thousand millions of movies where
we have to watch white people and we
have to reflect it onto our own lives
it’s not a dying genre it’s not it’s not
lacking i don’t think white people need
that kind of representation they already
have that representation
i can look at ladybird oh a young
adolescent wants to go her own way in
life and she’s dealing with
a relationship with her parents her
mother it’s basically the same story
this one just has skating in it
right there’s so many movies with white
people at the center where it’s coming
of age it’s them wanting to go their own
way but their parents disapproving
mikey alfred was also basically saying
black people in media
they were always seen struggling so why
in this movie could we have
not been seen struggling because this
movie wasn’t about it wasn’t about
slavery it wasn’t about racism it was
about
regular stuff that regular people deal
with so why couldn’t a black person be
the forefront if you didn’t want to you
didn’t have to include any racism you
didn’t have to include any nuance like
that
it could literally have been the same
story centered around a black person and
his black father
and have it be about that right and for
once let white people have to apply that
to their lives and black people have
some type of representation
if you would have just made this a
regular movie with just the black person
at the forefront
yeah it would have normalized just
having black people have coming of age
movies
exactly because now it makes you feel
like someone told you we need to make
this movie more
palatable right no right how do you feel
like someone said that
yeah and i don’t like that feeling if
you wanted ryder to play you just say
that
but don’t use the excuse that it
transcends it
i’m doing something different no you’re
not you’re doing the same thing
every other day you’re doing the same
thing
movie about white person what’s new mid
90s did it skate kitchen did it
jay and adolf asian and black why
couldn’t one of them have been at the
forefront
it feels very much like we only exist as
people in the background we only exist
as the friends
yeah because let’s talk about rachel’s
friend in the dark who had one line why
did she not
say a single line until the end of the
scene
why did no one talk to her at the diner
why couldn’t she have been the love
interest why did it have to be
rachel and like what was the thing you
said about the shave in the head
oh like bro i’m so because i was about
to end this thing thank goodness
okay so like how we talked about with
the hair before the hair was pretty much
a big deal in the movie because mikey’s
dad shaves his head off because his dad
is basically like that’s a mess you’re
never going to get a job with hair like
that you need to look respectful
you need to look respectable that is
based on a black person’s experience
you could just tell off the back i don’t
know a single person who’s had their
head shaved off because they need to
look more respectable
do white people not just get haircuts
when white people shave their head they
look like criminals it’s not a thing
that they do to look respectable
yeah black people they get a nice line
up they do a little shady shade
and there is a huge huge huge thing
within the black community so could you
imagine
how much that scene would have hit
harder if we had a black person as mikey
and could you imagine that that being
like it’s not respectable you’re not
gonna get a job like this and they shave
their head off
that would have hit a lot harder because
that seems more believable and that is
something that actually happens within
the black community right and that’s
nuance you can provide within the movie
that provides representation without
having to be such a negative thing like
racism or this
or that that’s something we can look at
as a black community and be like
yeah i can relate but at the end of the
day i still love the movie
and it’s definitely something i will be
watching again and i can’t wait for
any other thing mikey comes out with
also if anyone
from illegal slip is watching this right
now put me in the next movie
put me in make her the main character
too don’t put me in that damn movie
i don’t want to be a soviet city with
any of that but you better put my sister
at the forefront let me even have movies
she better have
all the lines i can’t act but i will
learn i will learn for illegal
civilization hey if they can have that
no they’re not i know that black hole
can act and then no that knocks out they
have to say
more lies than she had i’m sick to my
stomach oh
anyway thank you so much for rocking
with us guys i always say that
thank you so much for watching it’s cute
have a good day evening night whatever
it is wherever you are this was just a
little bit bent or really a little bit
just a little bit of banter oh if you
want this style of video more and you
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let us know if you want more of this
like comment yes
all right bye bye
and pause
daddy
