Drylongso

The 1990s brought a slew of films lamenting the plight of poor African Americans caught in a vicious web of drugs, gangs and crime in urban slums. Many of these films seemed to be motivated by an unfortunate combination of liberal guilt and sublimated envy that led to glamorization of the subject matter. Not so this film, whose title is a slang term meaning "ordinary" or "same old thing." Director Cauleen Smith is clearly aware that she's treading on familiar turf, but she offers up a slightly more candid and personal take on the subject. Pica (Toby Smith), a young black woman, rents a room in her mother’s house in Oakland, CA, struggling to get by as she tends to he...