Sunday, March 26, 2017

Auteur Watch - Daron "Southboy" Fordham

Oh, good!  Another short one.  Welp, neither the IMDb or Wikipedia has any extended biography information on Daron Fordham.  Which seems to me that, while this guy's trying to pass himself off as a hardcore gangbanger and all that, if only by the thematic content of his oeuvre of work... I'm thinking he comes from old money!  Sure, maybe he's adopted, maybe he just had a really, really successful chain of coin-op machines, but somehow I'm thinking he doesn't quite have the street cred that he, um, purports!  But for the most part, the hip-hop musical is a burgeoning genre... is Idlewild one?  I guess the fact that it's a period piece might preclude it for some.
And so, having conquered the genre of the thinly veiled autobiography with Confessions of a Thug... incidentally, do thugs confess a lot?  Seems like the day you start confessing, that's the day you stop being a thug... at least, as far as "The Game" goes.  Not that I would know, mind you.  Seems like your partners in crime would have a problem if you started spilling the beans to the authorities.  Anyway, after (w)rapping Thug, pun intended, it was time to explore the wide world of documentaries.  You know, just like he did with Shake Dance.  Sheesh.  And so we get Film Hustle.  The plot summary on the main IMDb page seems a little vague at first, but wait til you get to the full plot summary!  That's right!  It's a documentary about the village roadshow-style promotional campaign for... Confessions of a Thug!  I'm thinking Bill Duke had to do most of the heavy lifting on this one... way way more than he thought he would.
But a long road trip is nothing if not elevating.  It changes your world view, often both literally and physically!  And if you get back home in one piece, you might think about trying something different with your life, in your life, what have you.  A conversion on the Road to Damascus, if you like.  Love that phrase.  For Mr. Fordham, he found himself interested in seeing things from an opposite perspective... you know, from the hip-hop fan's perspective.  And so we get a short film called Hip-Hop Headstrong.  It's only 30 minutes long... sure, he could've done a feature length feature about hip-hop fans, but no.  Fans only get the short feature treatment from the likes of Fordham.  Alas, we only get a taste of what to expect on the YouTubes.  I guess you can't blame a brother for trying... sorry, I mean brutha and... dyammmn!  Is that the dude from Hail, Caesar!?  IT IS!!  Oh, this dude's got the touch... then again, it was six years ago.  I guess TBS wasn't interested in turning it into a Tyler Perry-type deal.  Man, it's hard to get ahead.  Also, how many Hollywood producers have an AOL account that they're actually proud of?

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