Displaying items by tag: Crime

So, the crime case that shocked the world and invented Reality Show Culture got made into a series.

With new mayor DeBlasio in and stop and frisk under review, is New York's crime poised to rise again? The South Bronx burned, Harlem overdosed, and Brooklyn was ruled by the knives and bicycle chains of feral gangs. Then it got worse. The Mafia poured tons of China White onto the street and 13 year old warlords peddled vials of cocaine to passing cars.

Coming clean, he told the world why he was robbing the bank that day. Citing that through his wife’s suicide attempt over not having a woman body he had resorted to robbing a bank to provide for it.

“Nobody would ever rob a bank to give a guy a sex-change operation, that’s why they made a movie about it”

G Frsh is sitting in his recording studio, where he logs nine-to-five days every week like he's a working stiff. He looks low key, no fashion logos or excessive jewellery, just a grey T-shirt, and tracksuit bottoms. The rapper who is now 28, is smart, funny and very smiley. He is the boy from South London who is twisting rap into his own image thereby offering a lifeline to kids, showing hard work pays off.

Some of the groups which most influenced punk rock have had a limited following themselves. Critically reviled at the time, hard-pressed with finances, having just a limited regional following or with a life-span too brief to move onto the worldwide stage, these records influenced my life and many others'. What are yours?

© Words Matteo Sedazzari

Villains is a little gem from 1972, created by Andrew Brown ( co-creator of Manhunt, writer for Armchair Theatre, producer of Prick Up Your Ears, Selling Hitler) aired and commissioned by London Weekend Television.  It is a story about nine criminals who plan and carry out a heist on a bank, it is not ‘the normal’ bank raid, heavies armed with sawn off shot guns screaming at petrified bank tellers to fill the bags and no one will get hurt. No, instead they plan what they believe will be the crime of the century, to tunnel into a bank in London’s EC1 area via a disused ladies toilet over the weekend. With meticulous planning and an array of professionals in their field, the criminals think they will walk away with a windfall that shall set them up for life.  A new life abroad, Spain, Portugal, South America, anywhere other than Old Blighty. 

© Words Matteo Sedazzari
Baker may have left Wales, but was proud of the country of his birth “I’m a Welshman and proud of it. But I’m no nationalist. I think the Welsh nationalists are foolish and misguided people.”   stated Baker in 1969, a comment that could have alienated him.  However in 1970, in his home town  Ferndale, Rhondda, Baker attended the unveiling of a plaque placed on the house in which he was born Albany Street.  It seemed that Ferndale offered solace to Baker, and kept him grounded, as he would return to visit old haunts and catch up with old friends, “Acting can be an artificial business, that’s why I go home when I can to the Rhonda Valley, I do it to be with my own people. They love in a real way, It’s a great leveller. 

© Words - CP Lee

In 1993 a man called Cliff Twemlow passed away. When he died at the age of 55 a whole mini-film industry died with him. But Cliff didn’t only just make films, he wrote the plots, scored the music for them and starred in them too. Oh, and he wrote paperback pulp novels as well. And before he made his own movies he wrote a couple of thousand tunes that were recorded and put out by DeWolfe Music. And he was a night club bouncer.

© Words William Goodchild

Oren Moverman’s follow-up to the Oscar-nominated The Messenger sees the writer/director again not shying away from challenging subjects and the downright bleak.

Dave “Date Rape” Brown (Woody Harrelson) is an unapologetic misanthrope who is happy to dish out merciless beatings. Sometimes he even shoots people. He’s also a member of the Rampart Division of LAPD, which serves the mostly-Hispanic communities of Downtown Los Angeles. The “Date Rape” '