Homeless In America (2004) Review

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(More customer reviews)I screened this film because I wanted to know if it's appropriate for a class in peace and justice studies I teach. It is. Directors Tommy Wiseau and Kaya Redford have put together a very nice collage of homeless people from the streets of LA.
I emphasize the word "collage." If you're looking for facts and figures and analysis, you won't find it in this film. Analysis and data are important--crucial--but their problem is that they tend to distract us from the faces of real people. "Homeless in America" fills that gap by introducing us to a number of very real folks. The film is deliberately impressionistic, and consequently has a strong visual impact that sticks with the viewer.
Some of the unforgettable people interviewed in the film: There's the 70-year-old man, black as ebony, beard snow white, who declaims with the eloquence and fire of a prophet. There's Roy, a baseball-capped man who seems emotionally disturbed, who says that he's on the street because he's running from his problems, but wonders why society isn't a bit more ready to help him now that he wants to quit running. There's the quietly sobbing black girl who lives in a makeshift in a freeway tunnel. An intruder has just stabbed a friend of hers. There's the attractive middle-age woman who claims that she was once the wife of an NBA player, a multimillionare. Who knows if she's telling the truth? Who cares? There's the LA chief of police, who talks in the clipped language of the bureaucrat about the "issue" of homelessness, and there's the aging and weary-looking director of the LA Mission who says, grief and frustration burring his voice, that we need to learn how to love better in this country.
All in all, a good cinematic introduction to homelessness. Especially recommended for middle class folks who generally won't get within a block of a street person.

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Item Name: Homeless In America; Studio:Wiseau-Films

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Slumdog Millionaire (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)Slumdog Millionaire deserves a place among the masterpieces of world cinema. Praise is pouring in for this brilliant film, directed by Danny Boyle from a screenplay by Simon Beaufoy adapted from a novel by Vikas Swarup.
The settings move from the bleakest - the slums outside Mumbai, where our hero, Jamal Malik, lives as a child with his older brother Salim - to high rise vistas and no less than the Taj Mahal. The story ranges from the worst despair and heartbreak to the noblest sacrifice and most romantic love.

We are introduced in the opening moments to the young adult Jamal, played by Dev Patel. He is a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and has just answered the ten million rupee question prior to the end of the show. His next question will be worth twenty million rupees, an unimaginable fortune to the average Indian. The arrogant, primping star of the show, played with artificial charm concealing an oily narcissism by Anil Kapoor, cannot stand that young Jamal is stealing some of his spotlight, and believes that the young, uneducated "slumdog" is cheating. (One of the key sequences involves the host "proving" to himself that Jamal MUST be cheating.) Jamal has been handed over to the police, who torture him to make him confess his deception. This moment in Jamal's life frames the rest of the film, told in flashback, and explains the torturous road that allowed Jamal to answer even the most difficult questions.
We are not told about Jamal and Salim's father, but in an early sequence we see their mother murdered in a brutal religion riot as club-wielding Hindu's attack a Muslim slum. Orphaned, Jamal and Salim live in the trash dump at the edge of the slum. They befriend another orphan, the young girl Latika.
The remainder of the film fills in the gaps of the lives of Jamal and Salim and Latika, who call themselves the Three Musketeers, but only got far enough in school before the murder of their mother to learn the names Athos and Porthos. Along the way they encounter police brutality, orphanage directors who make Fagin and Bill Sykes look like Mother Teresa, as well as Indian gangsters and other people-traffickers. Several sequences show us that Salim is becoming hardened by their harsh life, although he retains a degree of love for Jamal. For his part Jamal makes the most of what life gives him. He only resorts to the criminal activities Salim sees as the only way to make it out of necessity. At two different times Jamal is heart-breakingly separated from Latika, and at one level the entire film is a love story about Jamal's single-minded dedication to reunite with the only girl he ever loved. (Nine astonishing performances are given of the "Three Musketeers" at three different ages of life, and it is appropriate to give credit to Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Rubiana Ali as the youngest Jamal, Salim and Latika as well as Tanay Chheda, Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala and Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar as the just-past-puberty versions. Dev Patel and the beautiful Freida Pinto may become international sensations as the adult star-crossed lovers. Madhur Mittal has less screen time as the adult Salim, but his character plays an important role.)
The faint-hearted should know that the language could appear on American television and that there is no nudity, but the violence, in particular two torture scenes, are flinch-inducing.
Slumdog is a piece of fiction - a fantasy - but it includes real emotions and believable human characters. I walked from the theater feeling a little better about being alive, and knowing that I had just viewed a stunning artistic achievement.
One of the inequities of the movie business is that a film like this can only open in a few theaters in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, and take weeks to arrive at "lesser" destinations like Atlanta and Houston and St. Louis, while Beverly Hills Chihuahua opened nationwide on thousands of screens. I'm just sayin'.


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Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is just one question away from winning a fortune on India's version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" But how has this uneducated young man from the slums succeeded in providing correct responses to questions that have stumped countless scholars before him? And will he ultimately win it all or lose everything, including his true love?
Audio: English: 5.1 Dolby Surround / French: Dolby Surround
Language: Dubbed: English & French / Subtitled: English, French & Spanish
Aspect Ratio: Widescreen: 2.35:1

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The Corner (HBO Miniseries) (2000) Review

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(More customer reviews)Before viewing this miniseries, I had only read the book (of the same name) by David Simon and Edward Burns published in 1997. Still, the world of decaying neighborhoods, the havoc of street drugs and hopelessness among the disadvantaged has deepened in the Bush era. It took an ingenious director like Charles Dutton to recount one family's troubled history gripping miniseries that doesn't miss a beat. And he's selected a cast of relative unknowns who assume their roles with dead-on realism
The film follows a year in the life of one impoverished family against the backdrop of their neighborhood during the 1990's a drug-ridden quarter-mile from Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Dutton, like Simon and Burns, dwells on the humanity of his cxharacters and the universal themes of their day-to-day struggles. You needn't have been an alcoholic or drug addict to enter the hearts of these people or understand how they swing between hope and hopelessness.
As political commentary, THE CORNER couldn't be more timely, especially in its grasp of urban education, inner city commmunties, underage pareenthood and America's Dickensian juvenile justice system. Viewing what these potentially gifted people endure, viewers may ask how many good people we discard because of our cultural myopia, institutional racism and apathy.
The core performance here is T.K. Dutton's "Gary" -- the father of his broken family. The ways in which he struggles to overcome present shame in light of past success is something most of us will recognize -- race aside -- if not today, then tomorrow.
There is no score to speak of except for Corey Harris's blues track which occurs on splash screens and during the credits for each of six episodes. Dutton frames each episode with interviews of different principal characters to evoke the feel of a documentary, and he more than succeeds.
Dutton understands the lives of these characters because he grew up in their neighnorhood and experienced first-hand the dissolution of life on these corners -- where red tops and spider bags are the basis of life and death. He knows that the pain of addiction is potent, but not always as devastating as the cruelties of the real world "clean."
Every facet of this production suggests HBO should rebroadcast THE CORNER on its tenth anniversary. You wil laugh, weep, wince and cheer; and when it's over, you will hate to leave these good people.
While there are segments that are bleak, Dutton didn't intend to shock. He wanted to remind us that these men and women are fully human, and that --like Gary-- we have the potential to stumble, too. We might be doomed to the Corner but for the grace of God.
Five glowing stars for the DVD set -- and the book on which it's based.

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A family living in a Baltimore ghetto struggle for normalcy in a place surrounded by illicit drugs and behaviour.Genre: Feature Film Urban DramaRating: UNRelease Date: 22-JUL-2003Media Type: DVD

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