Super Amanda

Blindspotting is an very good story and an important film set Oakland, East Bay California where I was born and raised. Appalling aspects of changing Oakland and gentrification definitely took a back seat to the equally serious subject of police violence though. I could tell at once that the director had no personal connection to Oakland because he missed so much. The screenwriters while locally born and raised, came up in the final pre tech days (80s/90s) and we’re in their early 20s during the first dotcom boom (2002) missing much of the radical (and affordable) pre tech era that made Oakland what it’s now being gutted for. But ultimately though this film isn’t about Oakland it’s an indictment of police violence and that is what Mr. Estrada nailed in shattering detail. The last 25 minutes almost feels like a different film. Certain set up comedic scenes early on didn’t really work or felt predictable. The stream of consciousness rap and attempt to dissect N word usuage scenes didn’t flow but then the film opened up like a super nova. One silent three minute scene is an award wining work of art in and of itself and should run at MOMA. And the final scene can only be called a combination of Tupac and Gilbert and Sullivan’s A Modern Major General.