Hustlers · Live PD · Longreads
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The director of Hustlers is dishing the dirt on the music from the film. Of course you know by now that everyone thinks that the true-crime tale (which, as you know, is based on “The Hustlers at Scores”) is the greatest thing ever, that J-Lo deserves an Oscar, and that, all-in-all, it deviates very little from the initial reporting on the racket. (You can read my review of the film here.) If you’re like me, along with searching eBay for vintage furs (because you are not a monster! But if it’s upcycled…), you’ve been trolling Spotify for Hustlers-themed playlists since seeing the movie. Here’s where you raise your hand if you’ve car danced to “Gimmie More” at least once in the last couple weeks.
Writer-director Lorene Scafaria tells the LA Times that she thought of the movie as a musical, and that its music cues -- right down to the specific songs -- were written into the initial script. “The Janet cues were the start of it,” Scafaria says of the long tracking shot that begins the film, set to “Control.” The movie also ends on Janet Jackson, specifically “Miss You Much,” which Scafaria says “was always the bookend for me in that it represented everything…about the relationships that we have that maybe don’t last our whole lives but are really meaningful.” You can read the full LA Times piece on the movie’s music here. -- EB