Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 31st, 2006
Yesterday is a powerful tale of the title character’s struggle to survive AIDS long enough to see her young daughter Beauty start school. Yesterday – named by her father because, in his opinion, yesterday was much better than today – lives for her young daughter. Her husband works in the mines of Johannesburg and carries a deadly secret, which, by the start of the film, has already entered his wife’s bloodstream. Through it all, Yesterday keeps bright spirits and a smile across her face. She only loses it when...she has to, and it’s through her powerful attitude the audience connects with the central plight, and pulls for her to in some way find peace out of turmoil.
The story is often heartbreaking, and never focuses too tightly on the behavioral causes of the disease, thus illustrating the horror of what AIDS is in a manner that everyone can connect with and feel sympathy for. The point of Yesterday is to illustrate that a disease with so many heavily attacked stigmas attached to it claims plenty of victims, who are complete Innocents, and should be fought to the fullest extent of our capabilities. It is without doubt a horrible disease and claims as many victims like Yesterday as it does the junkies with their dirty needles or the chronically promiscuous with their alley-cat morality and lack of regard for others’ feelings. It affects flesh-and-blood people of all kinds, and Yesterday personalizes the disease in such a way you have to care, so long as a heart beats in your chest. You can’t look away, and the film is so touching you won’t want to.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 28th, 2006
Oliver Stone has developed a well-deserved reputation for injecting conspiracy tales into his films. A veteran of Vietnam, he has developed quite a case of drug-induced paranoia over the years. While this probably makes him a real drag at parties, it makes for some really interesting films... especially when said films are based on actual events. Audiences can drive themselves crazy trying to separate fact-from-speculation-from-rumor-from-flat-out-fiction, and that kind of thing is great fun for somebody like me.
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 28th, 2006
Obviously, the idea of making a film about mixing races in 1949 was a topic that was quite taboo. Nobody can fault Pinky for being groundbreaking in its subject matter. However, this is the very definition of a timely film. Being viewed almost 60 years later, it comes across as silly, almost like a midnight viewing of Refer Madness. Just as the kids in Reefer are obviously not under the spell of some horrible mind-altering herb, so Jeanne Crain is about as convincingly “colored” as Bill Gates on ...now skis. Not only does she not have a single black feature, but her very mannerisms betray her, making her a figurative outcast even among the other black characters in the film.
This is not a film that would change the mind of any pre-existing racist, as it is just too absurd for rational thought. No, this is most certainly not To Kill A Mockingbird. Sure, Kazan went on to direct some amazing films, such as A Streetcar Named Desire, On The Waterfront and East of Eden, but Pinky was clearly just a warm-up to his later directorial achievements.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 27th, 2006
Synopsis
Based on the novel by Helen Cross, and adapted for the screen and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, My Summer of Love is an interesting story about two girls in Ireland (or England) who find friendship in each other’s company among a sea of desolation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 21st, 2006
Hustle & Flow works because of one reason and one reason only. That reason is Terrence Howard.
Howard injects himself into the role of DJay, a Memphis pimp who stumbles across a church choir and then strives to put his daily experiences into rap music, hoping to break out of the lifestyle he has grown to hate.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 21st, 2006
Hustle & Flow works because of one reason and one reason only. That reason is Terrence Howard.
Howard injects himself into the role of DJay, a Memphis pimp who stumbles across a church choir and then strives to put his daily experiences into rap music, hoping to break out of the lifestyle he has grown to hate.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 21st, 2006
If the Lifetime channel was around in the 70's, I would swear that this was an original production. This is a women's liberation film at the height of the movement. Unfortunately, while its heart is probably in the right place, the film is just a big mess. When Martin Scorsese made Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, he nailed the feeling and the theme of this movement on the head. This thing, however, is a train wreck. It just tries way too hard. An Unmarried Woman is one of those films that tells the vi...wer what is happening, instead of showing them. One minute, a man and woman hate each other. Moments later, they are madly in love. For a film that deals with relationships, there sure is an awfully lot of talking for so little nuance and emotion.
Audio
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 20th, 2006
Al Pacino is one of those actors who always seems to find himself in those type of roles that bring out the absolute best in him. In his last four films (Insomina, People I Know, Angels in America, and The Merchant of Venice) Pacino has brought the needed tension and power to his performances. Add 2005’s Two For The Money to that ever-growing list of excellent performances.
Pacino plays Walter who runs a sports betting hotline. Matthew McConaughey plays Brandon, the Vega... oddsmakers Walter brings to New York. Walter befriends Brandon and makes him a star by showing him how to act with an unleveled amount of confidence and exuberance. Rene Russo plays Toni, Walter’s wife.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 20th, 2006
Synopsis
The setting is an exclusive boys’ private school in New England, 1959. Welton Academy is deeply hidebound and conservative, and into this environment comes one of its graduates, Robin Williams, to teach English literature, and along the way encourage his students to make of their lives what they want, now what is expected of them. This approach clashes with the establishment’s ideas of how things should be done, and raises the ire of one parent in particular, whose son takes too much interes..., he thinks, in creative endeavours.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 17th, 2006
The Gospel is the first mainstream film to come out in quite sometime that deals with the role of the African-American church. Reading the title of the film, one must think The Gospel is an overly heavy religious filled film right? Well, I am very happy to say that the film is not particularly a religious film, but what a film that has the type of characters that can make a viewer become a believer. Not necessarily the type of believer of the church, but the type of believer in the music that is sung in...The Gospel. The film deals with the economic and social function of the whole church mainly how the church operates as a stabilizing force, a stage for random personalities, an area for various power battles and a business that must find a way to make a profit otherwise it will find itself going out of business.
The films features such well-known singers as Yolanda Adams, Fred Hammond, Martha Munizzi and ‘American Idol’ finalist Tamyra Gray. Even though the film does have a plot, the film never spends too long on one area only to return to the musical performances, which is where the film become so enjoyable.
