Fresh

December 10, 2012 7:59 AM

Fresh is the story of a 12 year old drug pusher and the world he inhabits. It stars Sean Nelson as Fresh, Samuel L. Jackson as his father, Sam, and Giancarlo Esposito as the dealer Esteban. The whole film is on Youtube in multiple parts.
posted by marienbad (32 comments total)

It's from 1994, and it sounds like it's actually pretty good. Here's Wikipedia on it.
posted by koeselitz at 8:04 AM on December 10, 2012

Great movie, though I haven't seen it in years, I hope it's aged well. The last scene always got me. In the end, he was still a little kid. (Being vague for those who haven't seen it yet.)
posted by beowulf573 at 8:15 AM on December 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

My memory of seeing this 10-15 years ago paints this as an excellent film.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 8:18 AM on December 10, 2012

Thanks mod. And Koeselitz.
posted by marienbad at 8:30 AM on December 10, 2012

I like Fresh and it was good, but there are a lot of unauthorized films on youtube. Ah, this one's gone...
posted by mrgrimm at 8:33 AM on December 10, 2012

For example, here's Oldboy, with subtitles. (NFSW)

The other Fresh the Movie.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:38 AM on December 10, 2012

I always confuse this with Juice.
posted by elizardbits at 8:38 AM on December 10, 2012

Yeah, that last scene...
posted by zombieflanders at 8:42 AM on December 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

"Fresh" was on one of the cable channels about twice a month for a few years. I remember liking the chess analogy.
posted by surplus at 8:53 AM on December 10, 2012

Great movie.
posted by orme at 8:57 AM on December 10, 2012

Oh, can we go back to the earlier MeFi thread with lists of movies that you will always stop channel flipping for so I can add Fresh? Saw it again not too long ago. It holds up on the strength of Nelson's acting alone. The story of the dog and that last scene still work like a punch to the gut.
posted by eyeballkid at 9:01 AM on December 10, 2012

This was for sure one of the best of the early 90's "hood" movies.
posted by billyfleetwood at 9:13 AM on December 10, 2012

He wasn't pushing. I was pulling.
posted by telstar at 9:14 AM on December 10, 2012

And it's blocked.
posted by Brent Parker at 9:16 AM on December 10, 2012

Great movie, though I haven't seen it in years, I hope it's aged well

I caught it maybe five years ago and yeah, it's aged very well. Though it was far more grim than I remembered -- what the kid ends up having to do to pull off his strategy. And a master strategy, it is. Great movie.
posted by philip-random at 9:22 AM on December 10, 2012

Here's a transcript of the script.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:24 AM on December 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

and a good write-up from Seongyong Cho via Ebert: The boy who played chess with life
posted by mrgrimm at 9:28 AM on December 10, 2012

I saw it sometime in the late 90s, and, like Radiophonic Oddity, was very impressed.
posted by doctornemo at 9:38 AM on December 10, 2012

I love this movie. For me it stands up as one of the best in its genre. One of the things that kind of sets it apart from the other movies like this is there's very little hip hop on the soundtrack (or maybe even none, my memory is unreliable). Instead it has a wonderful, quirky, soundtrack by Stewart Copeland that is hard to associate with any particular era. Sean Nelson is great in it and I don't think the director (Boaz Yakim) has made anything better.
posted by wabbittwax at 10:34 AM on December 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

This video contains content from MC MRMX, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

Sorry about that.

That's not how you spell Miramax, Miramax.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:36 AM on December 10, 2012

It's currently unavailable on Netflix of Amazon, sadly, but very much worth tracking down on disc. I strongly encourage folks to do so.
posted by trackofalljades at 12:02 PM on December 10, 2012

I'm curious...I know I've seen "this movie is on a video tube site go check it out" posts on mefi before but I think they were mostly obscure, impossible to find stuff. What does the blue think about these kinds of posts? Is this kosher?

If it's okay for someone to post a streaming link, is it acceptable to post a link to TPB? Because there are two with plenty of seeds.

FWIW, I own this on disc and highly recommend it as a blind buy, it's that good.
posted by trackofalljades at 12:06 PM on December 10, 2012

I'm curious...I know I've seen "this movie is on a video tube site go check it out" posts on mefi before but I think they were mostly obscure, impossible to find stuff. What does the blue think about these kinds of posts? Is this kosher?

I say no. I'm pretty anti-post-deletion, but there's literally no link to discuss here. What's the subject of the post? A 20 year old movie that's not available (legally) online ...

If it's okay for someone to post a streaming link, is it acceptable to post a link to TPB? Because there are two with plenty of seeds.

I ask this question all the time, and I don't think mods have ever answered. It seems that it's OK to link to unauthorized copyrighted material on YouTube or streaming sites, but not to link to downloads. *shrug*
posted by mrgrimm at 12:11 PM on December 10, 2012

Huh. Looking at mrgrimm's link I see that Giancarlo Esposito (Gus Fring from Breaking Bad) was in it. I enjoyed the heck out of this movie back in the day, especially the fact it didn't insult the viewer's intelligence, and I am somehow not surprised to see his name attached to the work.
posted by Sparx at 12:18 PM on December 10, 2012

Sparx: He is Esteban, one of the major players.

I absolutely love Fresh, its still one of my favorites all these years later. It came out a few months before Samuel Jacksons breakout in Pulp Fiction, and even inspired some well known tracks.
posted by lkc at 1:30 PM on December 10, 2012

Sean Nelson was in The Corner? Another reason to finally get around to watching that one.
posted by orme at 3:07 PM on December 10, 2012

Sean Nelson was in The Corner?

He was in fact the lead (DeAndre McCullough, if you know the book).
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:05 PM on December 10, 2012

I ask this question all the time, and I don't think mods have ever answered.

We answer this question frequently. Torrent links are not okay. People linking to older movies that are available in chunked format on YouTube is one of those "Not great but we usually won't delete them for that reason alone" things. If people want to discuss this more, please feel free to open a MeTa thread about it and we'll be glad to talk more about it. Please don't continue this conversation here.
posted by jessamyn at 4:12 PM on December 10, 2012

Like many other people here, it seems, I saw this in the mid-90s and have remembered it ever since, if only for that last scene. Really wish it was on Netflix so I could look at it with fresh eyes and see if it lives up to my memories.
posted by Rangeboy at 8:27 AM on December 11, 2012

We answer this question frequently. Torrent links are not okay.

Thanks.

How about file-hosting service links (e.g. uploadto.biz or whatever) and/or links to blogs that contain file-hosting service links (e.g. No Data)?
posted by mrgrimm at 8:32 AM on December 11, 2012

File-hosting, no. Links to blogs that do, uncertain. Please follow up in MetaTalk or the contact form if you need to, not here.
posted by jessamyn at 8:43 AM on December 11, 2012

Really wish it was on Netflix so I could look at it with fresh eyes

In retrospect, I see what I did there.
posted by Rangeboy at 12:34 PM on December 11, 2012