Part of Pizza and a Movie
Gritty and unabashed, MENACE II SOCIETY is a sobering portrait of Black life in the projects of southern Los Angeles. On the quest to secure a better future, 18-year-old Caine Lawson (Tyrin Turner) wants to break out of the vicious cycle of inner-city violence he’s always known growing up in the hood. A mixture of boiling racial tensions, gang related crime, and poverty stricken desperation all coalesce in the Hughes brothers cinematic commentary on the dangers of white establishment and systemic oppression. Violence begets violence.
With an impressive ensemble cast including Larenz Tate, Jada Pinkett and Samuel L. Jackson, MENACE II SOCIETY remains one the most relevant films of Black cinema history 30 years on.
Pizza and a Movie, co-presented by Slim & Husky’s Pizza Beeria and the Belcourt Theatre, is a series of the best Black movies from decades past.
“Nothing the Hughes brothers have done in their videos for Tone Loc, Tupac Shakur and others prepares you for the controlled intensity and maturity they bring to their stunning feature debut.” —Peter Travers, Rolling Stone “The Hughes twins…reveal here that they are natural filmmakers. MENACE II SOCIETY is as well-directed a film as you’ll see from America this year.” —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (May 26, 1993) “Let me say right now that the Hughes brothers are major filmmakers; their work evinces a visual dazzle and dark emotional resonance that owes more to the Martin Scorsese of MEAN STREETS than to the John Singleton of BOYZ N THE HOOD. MENACE II SOCIETY is bleak, brilliant, unsparing…. the brutal honesty of their vision can serve as a cathartic wake-up call for the audience. The fact that a movie as accomplished and unblinking as this one could get made in the first place is, in a strange way, its one true sign of hope.” —Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly (May 28, 1993)
