With the city as a muse and backdrop, Sorry to Bother You and Blindspotting look at the way neighborhoods change?and why What does gentrification look like" Filmed in rapidly changing Oakland, California, Sorry to Bother You and Blindspotting, two of the summer?s most talked about movies, articulate what it?s like to watch your familiar city become virtually unrecognizable.
(Spoilers ahead.)
An early scene in Sorry to Bother You?director Boots Riley?s anti-capitalist story told through the lens of sci-fi and magical realism?sets the tone for the whole film. Cassius, the main character, played by Lakeith Stanfield, drives down West Oakland?s Wood Street in an old Toyota that looks like it?s been frankensteined together from a chop shop?s scrap pile. A serial number is scribbled on the windshield, none of the wheels have hubcaps, the paint is faded, bed sheets cover the seats, and yellow pom-poms are tacked onto the roof. But what really steals the scene?and sets the tone for the film?isn?t the car; it?s what?s in the background: block after block of homeless encampments that are cobbled together from campers, cast off wood pallets, scrap metal, tarps, and other salvaged items.
For the team who made Sorry to Bother You, the homeless camp was a daily reminder about the economic and cultural critique in Riley?s film. Soundwave Studios, the 25-year-old recording studio where parts of the movie were filmed and produced, is right across the street.
?Al [Luchessi, th...