Sure, when Ice Cube ducked out of NWA and into his first big-screen film role in 1991, he’d already starred as a rough-talking gangsta in plenty of music videos… but real cinema? What most naysayers overlooked was that the man could actually deliver a bona fide, heartfelt performance! Parading around South Central L.A. in a shower cap, Ice Cube played the ugly-duckling son of a down-and-out family in John Singleton’s breakout Boyz N the Hood. With equal parts melancholy and bawdy jester, Ice Cube delivered much of the film’s nuance, easily shifting from an angry gangbanger to a yearning young boy trying to escape a desolate home life. A decade later, Ice Cube is banging at the door of Hollywood’s exclusive A-list. In August, he will headline an out-of-orbit horror flick, the $30-million blockbuster Ghost of Mars, and now that he’s producing, writing and acting, Ice Cube has silenced those early critics. Represent!
Friday (1995)–Like Cheech & Chong crossbred with House
Party, Ice Cube’s first screenplay is a laugh-a-minute slapstick about a
couple of down-and-out, dope-smoking brothers who do little more than mock neighbors
and elude the local drug dealer.
Anaconda (1997)–In a high-budget, low-suspense horror flick,
Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez star as documentary filmmakers floating down the
Amazon and battling a forty-foot snake. J. Lo gets her shirt wet and Ice Cube,
who is mangled by the slithering serpent, serves as the obligatory Black dupe.
Player’s Club (1998)–As the writer, director, co-producer and
bit actor (not to mention scoring half of the soundtrack), there is perhaps
no more clear reflection of Ice Cube’s in-your-face style than this film. Cube
cleverly juggles humor, humanizing reality and gut-clutching drama in a story
about the world’s seediest strip club. The days towards graduation tick away
like a time bomb as a nubile young stripper works her way through college.