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Ice Cube is cool on Christmas
By Meriah Doty
(CNN) -- When you hear about Ice Cube's frosty attitude toward Christmas, you may be tempted to call him "Ice Scrooge." But don't judge the rapper-turned-actor too quickly. He merely has his own take on the holidays. And for some strange reason when Cube says, "F--- Christmas," it just doesn't have the same ring to it as his, then, shocking rhyme "F--- the police," that was featured on N.W.A.'s 1989 breakthrough album "Straight Outta Compton." Cube, whose given name is O'Shea Jackson, recalls the time he realized he would no longer get the plethora of presents he was accustomed to at Christmastime -- around the same time he started rapping -- at age 14. Christmas in the 'hoodCelebrating Christmas in the 'hood inspired "Friday After Next," in theaters nationwide Friday. The 33 year old talks about growing up in Los Angeles. "I experienced Christmas with no snow on the ground -- a California Christmas [with] 1,000 damn decorations." He explained why he pursued a Christmas-comedy theme for the third "Friday" installment. "We take stuff that terrorizes our neighborhood and just laugh at it," he says. "It's all about laughing at situations we usually cry about." Cube says he wanted to make lighter films about growing up in tough inner-city neighborhoods because movies like "Boyz N the Hood," in which he made his acting debut, and "Menace II Society" depicted the experience as very bleak. "I knew things were bad in my neighborhood, but I didn't feel like these movies' feel at the end ... When I was growing up I didn't feel this depressed," he said. From that frustration he wrote the script to the 1995 video hit, "Friday." He not only stars in all the "Friday" films, but has written every script, producing the last two. But he doesn't make the actors stick to the script. He admits that in "Friday After Next," "About 35 percent of it is ad-libbed." Rap, weed and barbecue
In this most recent installment, a scrawny thief dressed in Santa Claus getup breaks into the apartment of Craig (played by Cube) and his cousin Day-Day (played by comedian Mike Epps) on Christmas Eve and steals all their presents. "I like to deal with things I heard about," Cube says. "People are always getting their house broken into around the holidays. That's when the crime rate goes up." Among a barrage of potentially offensive content in "Friday After Next" women are often referred to in demeaning terms, Craig and Day-Day get their Christmas marijuana plant confiscated by the LAPD and grandma gets slapped across the face when the cuisine at Bros. Bar-B-Q tastes too good. "Our movies are a little rawer," Cube admits. But, he says, "People need to be offended sometimes. It gets their adrenaline going." He adds, "People love these movies because they're living in a 'Friday'. They live with crazy cousins, uncles and friends." Indeed they do love "Friday" films. "What's funny to me is usually funny to a few other people I've come to realize." Cube's magic touch
And New Line Cinema agrees. Cube's production company, aptly named, Cube Vision, has turned out four films for New Line so far -- all profitable. He has taken in $185 million and counting in North America for "Friday" (1995), its sequel "Next Friday" (2000), "All About the Benjamins" (2002) and the sleeper hit "Barbershop" (which he co-produced along with MGM), Black Enterprise magazine reports in its December issue. And Cube's big profits were made from a combined budget of only $40 million. Cube expects the same success with this "Friday" movie. "[New Line] will make their money back on this movie, which ensures more movies will be made in the future." Cube says that his winning numbers come out of a desire to please his audience. He says he tries to make "what I want when I watch a movie." He says he could care less whether the film makes a killing at box office on its first weekend in theaters. Rather, he wants to know "Will they rent it and watch it 1,000 times?" Cube is currently working on two more films as well as developing a series to air on HBO.
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