The Oscar-winning dog tale that still stands the test of time
Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe challenge racism and police brutality through the tale of a dog owner
Somebody had a meeting somewhere and decided Joey Bada$$ should be everybody’s boyfriend who Noah Centineo was too busy to woo. (If you’re an ’80s baby, a better comparison would be Brandon Q. Adams or the late Merlin Santana.) Outside of Tupac Shakur, Joey Bada$$ (aka Joey Badass) may be the first Billboard hip-hop artist who seamlessly transitions from rapping to love interest — and he’s doing it well.
On everything from “Boomerang” to “Grown-ish” to “Two Distant Strangers,” he’s not just “the other man” or “the cute rapper with groupies” or “the boyfriend.” He’s managed to make his roles memorable. And by far, his most significant role to date (in my opinion) is the Oscar-nominated Netflix short previously mentioned: “Two Distant Strangers.”
From a casual glance at the short, you’d think Travon Free’s script for “Two Distant Strangers” was a cute story about a man and a woman (Carter and Perri) waking up to each other after a one-night stand, with the possibility of a relationship. It’s warm-hearted, funny and even includes an adorable dog who gets the Oprah treatment with dog treats. But it doesn’t take long before it goes down a really real path of what it’s like to be a black man in America, one who simply wants to live his life and survive long enough to get home to feed and walk his dog.