The film “Straight Outta Compton” is history and culture. It is also a mystery of the kind that makes you think, “Why did it take Hollywood decades to make  this movie?” (See “Fences”) and, “How is it that I wasn’t more aware of these events at the time?” Today we speak of living inside “information bubbles;” we have always lived in cultural bubbles.

The acting, storytelling, and filming are very good. I seemed to notice that scenes were often shot with very low lighting when featuring Jerry, the white manager of NWA and Ruthless Records. It made perfect sense to include the Rodney King episode as a sidebar to the action.  The language was raw, but I would have expected worse.