I want to start off by saying that I actually do like 8 Mile. It's pretty entertaining, and was made during Eminem's peak (pretty much), and while he's not great in it, he was basically acting as himself anyway, so it worked well enough. But it's a good movie.

That being said, after watching some of it over the weekend, some things bothered me about it.

First things first, it's so awesomely hilarious that the climax of this movie is a rap battle at some random club in Detroit on like a Friday night. Like after it's done, Rabbit just goes back to work because in reality, all it was was some silly rap battle at some little random club in Detroit.

But anyway...

Round One: Rabbit (313) vs. Lickety Split (Free World)

Lickety smashes Rabbit with lines about shooting himself with Papa Doc's gun (which was in his face the night before), called him a Nazi and told him to form a group with Vanilla Ice, and even calls him a hillbilly and says that "this ain't Willie Nelson music." He hits some lines about Rabbit's stupid friends (Chedder Bob shooting himself), and blasts his friendship with Future. Drops an Elvis reference (who was a white man doing "black music") and ends by telling him to get his white arse back across 8 Mile. Really solid.

Best line:
Silly Rabbit, I know why they call you that
Cause you follow Future like he got carrots up his asscrack

Very accurate. And leads me to a later point.*

Rabbit drops some weak lines about Eric Sermon, Free World, and calling Lickety a worm with braids. Then he gets better in the second batch of lines when he flips the shite creek line a little bit. But he ends with a whimper when he gets into his whole "lickety splickety spickety splickety split lickety" bullshite instead of coming up with real rhymes. He should've been DQ'd for that weak shite alone. He tries to save it by mooning Lickety, but IMO he had lost at that point anyway.

Best line:
You're a disgrace
Yeah, they call me Rabbit
This is a turtle race

Let me say that lyrically, Lickety demolishes Rabbit. And it's not even close. His punchlines are much better than Rabbit's. Lickety should've taken this one, but the crowd liked the mooning line, and of course Rabbit had his boy Future controlling the crowd anyway. Which brings me to my asterisk point:

*How is it fair that Rabbit's best friend Future is the host? All Future does the whole time is hype up his boy B Rabbit (telling the crowd he's "a genius" and vouches for him, and calls his battle opponent Lil Tic a bitch earlier in the film), and talk shite to the Free World rappers (and even publicly insults one's mother at one point). It's not only unfair, but complete bullshite that he is allowed to MC this battle when he is clearly invested in one of the contestants. It doesn't matter how well the FW dudes do, Future is just gonna shite on them and be like "OOOOHHHH!!" for his padna Rabbit no matter what he says. Someone without a conflict of interest should've MC'd this night.

Round Two: Rabbit (313) vs. Lotto (Free World)

Lotto comes out pretty weak, but rebounds nicely with the suicide line to Rabbit and dropping the line about having a better chance of joining the KKK than Rabbit has of winning. He kills him with the Leave it to Beaver line, then ends on a high note with the "I'll take pictures of my rear end so you won't forget my arse" line and then the "frick you, have a nice day."

Best line:
frick 'Lotto,' call me your leader
I feel bad I gotta murder that dude from "Leave It To Beaver"

Rabbit finds his groove and comes out firing this round. Not only does he flip the Beaver line on him, but he manages to include other Free World members as well. He pounds him with the "get him another steroid" line, and continues it with the "Snoop Dogg just got a fricking boob job" line. Even though he embarasses himself with this bullshite:

quote:
"Blahbity bloo blah blah blahbity bloo blah!" I ain't hear a word you said, "hipidy hooblah!"

..he still manages to demolish Lotto in every other line of the battle.

Best line:
Lookin' like a cyclone hit you,
Tank top screamin', "Lotto, I don't fit you!"

This was a drastic step up from round one. However, after Future tells the DJ to cut the music off, Rabbit goes into overtime and says the following:

My motto: frick Lotto!
I get the 7 digits from your mother for a dolla tomorrow!

Now, that's a great line for sure. But it's after the music stops, which is against the rules. So while Rabbit straight up merks Lotto, he should've been DQ'd for breaking the rules...45 seconds is 45 seconds, and you shouldn't be able to get those extra lines in if Lotto didn't have the same chance. And to be fair, although it was close with the crowd, they didn't fully erupt until Rabbit dropped his extracurricular verse. It's fricking bullshite. But of course, the crowd eats it up and has no consideration for the rules..

At least Lickety gets a line in afterwards about how Wink got more than seven digits from Rabbit's bitch. Lickety still dropiing mad fiya even after being fricked over during the competition. It's hard not to appreciate his attitude there.

Round Three/Final Round: Rabbit (313) vs. Papa Doc (Free World)

Now this one is all B Rabbit, as we all know. And he is on point from start to finish. Not only does he get the crowd super involved from jump, but he uses that to trash PD. Then he blasts the whole Free World crew with his Pacs countdown lines. And when he really gets going, instead of blasting PD the whole time, he starts off by making fun of himself over and over while gaining the respect and opinion of the crowd. And then at the right time, he flips it and starts in on PD, a.k.a. Clarence, about going to private school and living at home with his parents who have a great marriage.

So by all rights, he's won before Papa Doc can even say a single line. But then the music stops and this happens:

quote:
frick the beat, I go acapella
frick a papa doc, frick a clock, frick a trailer, frick everybody
frick y'all if you doubt me
I'm a piece of fricking white trash, I say it proudly
And frick this battle, I don't wanna win, I'm outty,
Here, tell these people something they don't know about me.

All great stuff, but again it happens when Rabbit, with a clear disregard for the rules, goes FAR too long. Again, it's unfair to every rapper who battled that night, and as MC, Future should've held Rabbit accountable for pulling that shite. But he won't because they're boys. So Papa Doc, after having respectfully allowed Rabbit to go first...is so flabergasted at the blatant lack of respect for the rules of the game that he chooses to make the bold, brave move to walk off the stage because he's better than that bullshite.

So to recap, in addition to Rabbit losing his girl to Wink, he should've also lost all three rounds (got beat in 1, then DQ'd in 2 and 3) of the rap battle. Additionally, Future should've been fired for his blatant allowance of consistent rule-breaking by his friend when he cuts off other rappers when their time is up.

Thoughts? (besides how much time I have on my hands

)