Ed's Review Dot Com

Real Folk Productions

It’s very difficult to make a movie about such a volatile subject, not to get carried away one way or the other.  I can’t fault them for that.  I think they did their best to portray the subject as fairly as possible, but I’m not sure everyone acted the way the people in this film did.  Especially in 1970.  On the other hand, I do have a personal story I have to tell a little later in the review.  It’s my article, so I can do what I want to.  🙂

But first on the film.  It has a large cast.  It’s an intense story and it is based on a true story.  Henry Marrow, a black Vietnam Vet, returns home and was murdered by a group of violent racists.  Later, the killers are acquitted by an all white jury. 

Vernon Tyson (Rick Shroeder) is a minister, who insists on trying to integrate his congregation.    Ben Chavis (Nate Parker) is an African American local high school teacher who organizes a boycott of white businesses and triggers the civil unrest that follows and things would never be the same.   This is a powerful story.  It is based on a book written by the son of Vernon Tyson. This causes some of the controversy because many of the people involved are still living.   The families of the people who were tried have setup web sites to tell their side of the story, and why they think some of the facts are incorrect or twisted. It is based on the eyewitnesses of the events that happened, and from all sources I can find, is relatively accurate about what happened.  But there are other opinions.   A little research on the internet and you can find both sides of the events of that week.  It is hard to write a work based on something that happened to your father while you were old enough to remember and be completely unbiased.

But whatever, it’s sure that you will remember this film long after watching it.   It’s strange remembering the things that were happening when you were just a young man.  I remember the violence of the late 60’s and early 70’s.  I grew up, as I have said in my biography, in western Pennsylvania.  I never really saw racism in our little town.  A portion of the kids who went to school with us were black, and we never paid any attention to it.  We played little league with both white and black kids and it didn’t matter to us.   When we went to school or to birthday parties or to the parks, black and white children played together.  I came from a rather large families and we had lots of cousins and we played together all the time.   One of my cousins, when he was about 10 moved to South Carolina, and in less than a year or two, he completely changed.  One day in the summer when we were all playing together we went to a large community swimming pool.  Were were laughing and playing and having a good time, when suddenly we noticed our cousin sitting on the bench beside the pool.  No matter how much we cajolled and pleaded for him to come back in, he would not.  Finally he said,  “I cannot go in that water, there are N****** in that water.  We were appalled and shocked that he could change so much in such a short time.

No not everyone in the Carolinas in 1970 were racists, but if they are guilty, they are guilty of allowing it to happen.  They are guilty of tolerating 3 rest rooms in every public building….Men, Women, and colored.   They’re guilty of tolerating  white and colored drinking fountains.  There is no excuse for this kind of behavior.  Lucky it’s a different world, but this film is a great look back into this time.  Whether the exact facts are right or not, and whether the words were spoken in the order they are depicted in this movie, the story is true and it was a disgraceful time, and I’m glad we have the chance to go back and remember where we came from.  It was an awful time.

It is a powerful movie!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Movie Rentals Releasing Today Tuesday September 7th, 2010

• Killers
• MacGruber
• Solitary Man
• That Evening Sun
• Date Night (Netflix release)
• The Joneses (Netflix release)
  

Lionsgate, The Tyler Perry Company

Tyler Perry, Janet Jackson, Jill Scott, Sharon Leal, Malik Yoba, Richard T. Jones, Tasha Smith, Lamman Rucker, Michael Jai White, Louis Gossett Jr., Cicely Tyson

This is a sad movie.  This is also a depressing movie.  This is a story of four couples who are off on a vacation to the Bahamas for fun and relaxation, and boy do they have issues!   One couple fight constantly and make a scene wherever they go.  She has no trust in him whatsoever, and she’ jealous because he’s doing better than her.  One couple is stressed over spending all their money on the trip and he’s worried because he can’t find a job.  He’s insecure and to top it all off, her ex-husband shows up at the same resort on his vacation too.   Another couple is the perfect couple with all the answers.  She’s a writer who writes relationship books who is in complete denial.  Everything is fine, I’m fine, we’re fine, it’s fine.  The fourth is the only stable one, really in love, really together, but he loves her too much to not realize there are real problems.

This is a realistic film, and though it is very funny many times, and the character’s are hilarious, is also a serious look at relationships and how we deal with the kinds of problems everyone must face from time to time.  Apathy, hate, anger, distrust, cheating, boredom, fear, insecurity, sickness, death, children, families, friendship, are all here and explored.  Things are not always what they seem, and everyone has their share of secrets to be uncovered.

Based upon the idea of the last night of the vacation where everyone takes turn standing in front of the group as a couple and saying,  “This is why I got married” and give a story of what has happened in their lives.

Cicily Tyson and Louis Gossett Jr. have a cameo role where they play an old couple met on the  beach while they were scattering ashes of a frend. They’re invited to tell their love story as well, and as touching as it is, we find out the perfect couple hasn’t always had it so easy either.

Love will find a way, and it does, for some of them.  Not everyone gets a happy ending.  But for sure you’re going to come away reviewing what you have and deciding what’s important to you.  Pretty strong film from a guy who’s not a big Tyler Perry fan by any means.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Strike Entertainment, Studi0Canal

Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr, Louis Herthum, Caleb Landry Jones, Tony Bentley, John Wright Jr.,  Shanna Forrestall, Justin Shafer

I think a lot of people will be disappointed in this film.  It had a lot of potential for horror buffs, but it just doesn’t deliver.  This is the story of the son of a pentecostal minister who trained his son to be a preacher from the time he was a little child.   After lots of preparation he is unleashed at the ripe old age of 10 on Daddy’s congregation.  He’s a huckster and will do anything to raise money for the family.  He’s done lots of exorcisms, but not because they were needed, but because it seems to help the family who believes that is what is needed.  But after a very unfortunate event leaves a child dead, and after having his own family, he decides to prove that it’s all  bunk, and sets out on one last exorcism to prove to the world via a documentary showing how it’s all fake.  He has all the tricks and knows what to say.  So he randomly checks the mail and finds a plea from a remote Louisiana farmer who is looking for help with slaughtered farm animals.   Off we go to watch over the shoulder as he performs this fake exorcism of a 16 year old girl.

Things never go as planned, and even though the ending is foreshadowed, it still comes as a surprise…….that they would choose such a cheesy ending.  Certainly this movie would benefit from being brought back in and a new ending shot and the original ending dumped!   The general murmur of the crowd at the end was a combination of “Is this over?” and “What just happened?”   I have heard comparisons to Blair Witch, and in some ways those comparisons are fair, but the shaky camera which made some hate Blair Witch Project, District 9, and Cloverfield,  this, though shaky, wasn’t near as much, nor as bad.   The problem was the lost footage ending that is getting really old now.   You get really cheated at the end, and it builds to a climax that never arrives. 

The acting is good, mostly because of Ashley Bell who was totally convincing as a sweet little child/evil demon that hasn’t been seen since Linda Blair pulled it off in The Exorcist decades ago.   Actually even the documentary crew, the father, and the preacher and his family were all very well developed too, and the actors did fine.  The problem is the weakness of the story.  It’s fairly long (or it feels fairly long) but spends most of the time on the fakery and a crisis of faith, that doesn’t leave time for an ending which is rushed and it was like someone said,  “Oh crap, look how long this is, we better wrap this up fast, we’re almost out of film stock. 

So my opinion is that the hype and the preview gave the impression of an awesome horror film, that didn’t deliver.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Universal Pictures, Relativity Media

Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Alice Braga, Liev Schreiber

I was really disappointed in this movie.  I expected a lot because it was an interesting premise, but it was never developed properly.  The actors actually did a very good job with a script that just never came together.

Actually Wile Coyote did a better job of convincing me that ACME is an evil corporation that sells defective products.  In this one Union is a company that sells body parts.  No, not human body part, but mechanical ones.  But there’s no betterment of humanity here.  They’re so expensive that no one can afford it, but what if you have to have a heart or a liver to survive?  How much would you pay then?

So people find out they are dying and they sign the contract and their life is right again.  But 3 months of no payments and the Repo Men come to take the parts back, mostly leaving the patient dead.   Now why a company would want to take back a junk worn out used heart instead of refinancing or something is beyond me, but their business is not in hearts and lungs and kidneys, but in Financing and repossessing.

Now Remy (Jude Law) and Jake (Forest Whitaker) are school boy chums who grew up to be the greatest of the Repo Men.  Their checkered past gives them the guts to do the killing for the company.  However Remy’s wife doesn’t like it and wants her husband to get out of the racket.

Now here’s where they got cheap.  Logan’s Run, a great film about a cop, rebelling against the system, is copied heavily, but not near as well.  Additionally it’s dozens of other movies too.  Granted there isn’t anything really original anymore, and I can deal with that if it’s a solid movie, but I think the message of the greedy corporations screwing over the public got in the way of developing the story.   They do a horrible twist in the movie that negates half of it.   It wasn’t needed or realistic, but it did help to advance the agenda of the evil corporation.

Also, it’s unnecessarily gory.  The unrated version adds a lot of extra closeup of cutting and removing body parts so it’s even worse, but in the rated version, it’s still unnecessarily gory.  I’m not sure why they felt that they had to do it this way.  Maybe they were trying to make it edgier, but it’s not really needed.  I found the fight scenes weak, and not really much to advancing the plot.  The partnership between the two buddies never works either.  They never convince us that they even like each other.

Then the final blow is when the “Special Features” screen came up at the end of the movie.  “Wow, not many extra items, but there is a bunch of deleted scenes, and some making of featurettes, and a commentary that might help understand why the movie is done the way it is.

But lo an behold when you click on anything and annoying black screen comes up with a message that says,  “This is a rental copy of the film and only includes the feature film.  If you’d like to see the special features, buy a copy of the DVD or BlueRay.”

I can understand if they didn’t have a “Special Features” menu on the DVD, but to list the items and then try to sell you a copy was a cheap thing to do, and I don’t understand their reasons for playing tricks on their rental customers.   I’m going to keep an eye on Universal films and see if this is something they are commonly doing.  I didn’t like that idea one bit.

So, not a horrible movie.  The acting is pretty decent, but the story is weak, it’s derivative, and the action is not very good, so I think I would recommend leaving this one alone.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog