neumu [ cinematronic ]




	Bones
	Ernest Dickerson Snoop Dogg, Pam Grier, Michael T. Weiss, Khalil Kain, Bianca Lawson 2001 Special edition — widescreen; closed caption; audio commentary by director Ernest Dickerson, star Snoop Dogg and screenwriter Adam Simon; "Digging up Bones" production documentary; "Urban Gothic: Bones and Its Influence" documentary; deleted scenes; music video: "A Dogg Named Snoop" (two versions, standard and live); theatrical trailer.		Go ahead and relish the apparent stunt-casting of gangsta-rap icon Snoop Dogg as a deadly, pimp-style spectral presence — a ghostly "playa," if you will. As these things go, it's a not-too-bad take on the haunted-house genre, with some scares, a relatively novel inner-city back story, and expectedly broad performances by Snoop, former-blaxspolitation-queen-turned-serious-actress Pam Grier ("Jackie Brown"), Michael T. Weiss (TV's "The Pretender") and a quintet of young people led by Khalil Kain and Bianca Lawson. Some middle-class kids want to turn an abandoned ghetto dump into a chillin' hip-hop club. Meanwhile, the shade of '70s numbers kingpin Jimmy Bones (Snoop), betrayed and killed on the premises, still haunts what was once his headquarters. Now, Jimmy will exact his revenge on those who murdered him, even if innocents get in the way. The climax is derivative bunk. Considering this anything more than matinee material is a mistake. But by that standard, it turns the trick.