I think people are being so0o close-minded about this movie, that its pretty sad. The director did a great job at showing urban life and how it is growing up as a teenager, because I know thats just how I am and that how it really is where I'm from. I feel like I can relate a lot to the character since I have more going for myself and I am trying to get out the hood, which I think the director was trying to show. Just because you come from poverty doesn't mean you have to stay and that Doesn't MEAN YOU CANT DRESS NICE!!! Also in a movie, nobody says you have to like the main character, so why are so many people writing that?? You don't have to agree with the things the main character does, the director is just trying to get a story across. And just because someone is BOOK SMART, it doesn't mean they don't like flashy things such as cars, because their just not used to it. And whoever wrote the comment about making $500 in a little grocery store- you are so wrong!! And Lastly, just because you live in an urban area it does not mean that you surround yourself around VIOLENCE, GUNS, AND DRUGS!! People can be so ignorant about lifestyles they never experienced and then they want to be comment negatively about it. I think the director did a great job!!

Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. (1992) was an interesting movie that was neglected during it's release at the theaters and on video. I saw a trailer for this film at my local art house cinema. I enjoyed this movie very much. The budget was shoe string and the cast was filled with mostly novices but the end results were very effective. A sad tale about people who'll be swept under the rug due to ignorance about life, their economic situation or the environment where people live.

A young African-American teenager wants to make it out of the ghetto and go to college and make something out of herself. But some questionable judgment calls, a dire environment and the out spoken person that she is slowly drag her down. Can she claw her way out of her current dilemma or will she just become another girl in the projects who tried but failed?

Too bad the director never made a follow up picture or produced a sequel to this film. I would like to see if she managed to pull herself out of the poverty mire or just became another disenfranchised person on the dole or in government housing. Sad but filmed with a gritty realism.

Highly recommended.

... are explored here. The cultural references - clothes, dancing, music - are somewhat dated, but then this is not just another teen movie. The story is told through the eyes of Chantel Mitchell, a 17 year old girl living in Brooklyn with her parents and much younger brothers. Dad works the night shift, mom works days, and even then they work paycheck to paycheck. They have just enough overlap in schedule that they argue just before dad gets up and after mom goes to bed, so Chantel knows all of their problems. She is a smart girl, she has the grades, she has the plans - she wants to go to college and on to medical school. Financially, you just wonder how that is going to be possible, but she has drive and you are pulling for her. But she also has a mouth on her that gets her into trouble at work when she waits on entitled yuppies and at school when she wants to disrupt the teacher's lesson plan and get a more Afro-centric conversation going. Even her African American authority figures such as the principal say things like "a young lady should do this" or "a young lady should do that"...viewpoints that probably nobody even of my generation - I'm 57 - wouldn't have rolled their eyes at when 17.

Chantel is never going to make the mistakes her parents made and get trapped here. There is just one problem. Chantel is 17, just like her parents were 17 once, just like her parents who probably had parents that were too busy scraping a living together to give the close supervision and guidance needed, and thus she gets mixed up with a more well off boy, has only word of mouth and borrowed birth control pills to go on when it comes to sex, and she gets pregnant.

When Chantel discovers her condition she acts like so many teenagers - like this is a case of acne that will go away if she just ignores it. Then when it doesn't just go away she comes up with very unclever ways to hide her condition from he parents. Ways that are so unclever they are hilarious. Any parent would notice what was going on if they weren't so busy fighting the daily business of making a living as Chantel's parents are doing. So they don't notice.

I'll let you watch and see how this turns out. There is one thing that Chantel does at the end that made me dislike her for just a minute, and then I realized that this was just part of the panic and denial that she had been in for nine months. She just needed to get a grip.

This one is not well known but I think it is worth your time. If anything it shows you that just telling the African American community that they need to "clean up their act" is much easier said than done.