With the country fueled into a heated, racially charged rage over the Trayvon Martin case, it's put a spotlight on the thousands of other similar incidents where African-Americans have fell victim to one supposed enforcer of the law or another. Another that stirred both peaceful and violent protests out in Oakland, CA was the Oscar Grant case. On New Year's Eve 2009, 22-year old Grant was partying with some friends in San Francisco, and while on the train headed to the Fruitvale station, he got caught up in some sort of altercation that caused police to pull him and others from the train. Grant was handcuffed and set down on his knees by the police, and while dozens of rowdy on-lookers watched, officer Johannes Mehserle shot Grant in the back. He died the next day.
There's more to it than that, of course, with Mehserle claiming he had meant to use his taser rather a gun. The story of Grant's last day alive will be brought to the big screen with Fruitvale, marking the writing/directing debut for Ryan Coogler. Michael B . Jordan(Chronicle) and Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer(The Help) will star in the indie feature, with Jordan in the lead and Spencer as his overprotective mother. Forest Whitaker is on hand to produce, with filming set to begin in July.
Jordan has been on a roll lately, also appearing in the Tuskegee Airmen flick, Red Tails. Spencer has jumped at the new opportunities coming her way, co-starring in Diablo Cody's directorial debut, and also starring in Bong Joon-Ho's science fiction adaptation of Snow Piercer.
The Grant case was a big deal, and unfortunately you can probably expect to see a lot more movies on extremely divisive subjects like this in the near future....[THR]
