calvinnme ... are explored here. The cultural references - clothes, dancing, music - are somewhat dated, but then this is not just another teen movie. The story is told through the eyes of Chantel Mitchell, a 17 year old girl living in Brooklyn with her parents and much younger brothers. Dad works the night shift, mom works days, and even then they work paycheck to paycheck. They have just enough overlap in schedule that they argue just before dad gets up and after mom goes to bed, so Chantel knows all of their problems. She is a smart girl, she has the grades, she has the plans - she wants to go to college and on to medical school. Financially, you just wonder how that is going to be possible, but she has drive and you are pulling for her. But she also has a mouth on her that gets her into trouble at work when she waits on entitled yuppies and at school when she wants to disrupt the teacher's lesson plan and get a more Afro-centric conversation going. Even her African American authority figures such as the principal say things like "a young lady should do this" or "a young lady should do that"...viewpoints that probably nobody even of my generation - I'm 57 - wouldn't have rolled their eyes at when 17.Chantel is never going to make the mistakes her parents made and get trapped here. There is just one problem. Chantel is 17, just like her parents were 17 once, just like her parents who probably had parents that were too busy scraping a living together to give the close supervision and guidance needed, and thus she gets mixed up with a more well off boy, has only word of mouth and borrowed birth control pills to go on when it comes to sex, and she gets pregnant.When Chantel discovers her condition she acts like so many teenagers - like this is a case of acne that will go away if she just ignores it. Then when it doesn't just go away she comes up with very unclever ways to hide her condition from he parents. Ways that are so unclever they are hilarious. Any parent would notice what was going on if they weren't so busy fighting the daily business of making a living as Chantel's parents are doing. So they don't notice.I'll let you watch and see how this turns out. There is one thing that Chantel does at the end that made me dislike her for just a minute, and then I realized that this was just part of the panic and denial that she had been in for nine months. She just needed to get a grip.This one is not well known but I think it is worth your time. If anything it shows you that just telling the African American community that they need to "clean up their act" is much easier said than done.

nina-oh-nina the main character, Chantel is annoying. she is a huge Brooklyn, New York stereotype. she yells every line and her attitude stinks worse than rotten fish. at times she is unnecessarily rude with people who have done nothing to her...when she stole the money from the baby's father and spent it with her friend I was angry for him. then she attempted to talk him into putting the baby into a garbage can and throwing her away...I was pretty much done at that point. Then it cuts to her being all honky dory and back to life as if it hadn't even happened. I'm not the biggest advocate for abortion but I would have preferred she done that over going through labor and putting it in a garbage bag dumping it on the street

alcon_s I thought this was an excellent movie. It held my attention the whole time. The only acting I saw that wasn't really professional was by Ty and some of the smaller characters. But, really, that only added to the realism.Some people say there was overacting. To me these critics are probably overreacting to 3 things:1)Johnson's hard accent which if you are not used to, will think is over dramatical. 2)The lingo. You have to remember this was 1992. A lot of the stuff they were doing and saying was typical then. The house parties where everyone danced in step (which by the way, the scene that had the Caribbean dance feel mixed with the NY style was very authentic. I'm referring to the party that Chantelle went to after lying to her mom about where she would be, where she first hooked up with Ty). Plus the clothes were Cross Colors style, remember those? 3)The energy of Chantelle. It may seem over the top, but I've met people like this, and some from NY no less.I thought it was cool to show how Chantelle did try to hold up this self image of being so strong, but really she needed a male role model. That was evident when she couldn't believe her father hit her, or when Ty initially called her a bad word and stuff. She acted like she couldn't believe it happened after she put so much trust in them. That is very typical. A female needs a good man to be around and when they don't have it, they try to assume some of what they think are a man's characteristics. All that bravado Chantelle gave off with her mouth and actions? It was what she thought she needed to succeed in this harsh world. A comment was made that the family and Chantelle didn't look "poor" enough. That was dumb. What did the user want, Chris Rock on the crack in New Jack City? I've seen plenty of lesser income areas where from the outside, I was scared to enter. But, on the inside, their area was neater that my own house. Reason being, just because you have lesser income, doesn't mean your living quarters will be in shambles. Also, since you have less money and area to live in, you are almost forced to be neat. Lastly, everybody has problems like these from the rich to the poor. Comparing this movie's lower income area to "ones in LA" was another dumb comment. You can always find one area that is supposedly worse than another. Just like you can always find an area that is supposedly wealthier than the other. Those comments made me angry.Excellent movie. Where is Johnson? I don't know.2 last things:Back then, they didn't do director's commentary but that would have been nice to put on the DVD. I can't stress that enough.Johnson's commentary would have been REALLY good. Johnson, if you are reading this, please let us know where you are and comment. Or e-mail me.Third, they didn't really stress HIV/AIDs. But, I guess that is what the movie KIDS was for. Another NY movie. I remember the Nikki D song "Daddy's Little Girl" from the back in the day. That was always fresh, house mixed with rap.Brooklyn!!! I love it.

mizkwebb-1 Seldom do I see a movie which makes me scream for the death of the lead character, but this one did. I'm not quite sure if the point was to criticize the urban African-American "culture" of materialism and irresponsibility, but the net effect was to suggest that Chantel deserved all the heartache she got and then some. If you enjoy watching a totally irresponsible, self-centered, terminally attitudinal nut case mess up her life, this is the flick for you. Supposedly, she is intelligent and studious, but the film doesn't back that up, because everything she does is colossally stupid. This movie could be used by white supremacist groups to justify neglect of inner city youth; the folks in this flick don't seem to be that badly off (the high school looks positively middle-class compared to some of those in Los Angeles), but they resolutely disregard every opportunity that blows their way.