CoryWestGrant

I appreciate the Ave Fenix Pictures movie approach, coined the La Raza method for those of you who are unfamiliar with the film strategy. It's a blend of realism and community coming together to make feature films. They are rule breakers for sure and bend the rules of film school law while probably making filmmakers who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars cringe, as they evolve their film above big studio movies.

Black Ruby has been my favorite film in the La Raza trilogy and hats off to the performances of Jules Mandel and Louis Katz (actors Joseph Mennella and Zachary Laoutides). The Huff Post got it right, these are Brando and Clift performances, the real black Rubies found in Chicago. Noteworthy that I'm using the analogy of ruby in the rough actors, now found and now polished into hopefully bigger projects coming their way.

It's sounds like a drama, because it is, two jazz musicians falling for a forbidden woman who is an escort. Like all films written by Laoutides (whom also resumed his leading man role) there is a complexity to his stories, the narration in particular (narrated by the pimp in the movie) and hidden messages in the art house piece. Also, kudos for the first feature film shot with the iPhone 7. You would never know it though as the film looks vintage and aged playing into the movie's themes (and I mean this as a strong compliment).

Love it or hate it, the film is a modern day Clerks that explore topics people shy away from.