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To Sir, with Love [VHS] RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video Novelist James Clavell wrote produced and directed this 1967 British film based on a novel by E R Braithwaite about a rookie teacher who throws out stock lesson plans and really takes command of his unruly adolescent students in a London school Poitier is very good as a man struggling with the extent of his commitment to the job and even more as a teacher whose commitment is to proffering life lessons instead of academics The spirit of this movie can be found in more recent films such as Dangerous Minds and Mr Hollands Opus but none is as moving as this one Besides the others dont have a title song performed by pop star Lulu --Tom Keogh Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts Men of the Hour Jackie Gleason & Sammy Davis Jr. Just Another Girl on the Irt [VHS] Miramax Films Sassy in-your-face account of an intelligent flippant Brooklyn girl who lives in the projects and dreams of college Ariyan Johnson is captivating as the teen with attitude and a brain but she cannot decide which should guide her She wants a better life but finds herself taking a very hard road First-time writer/ director Leslie Harris put together a sharp realistic very funny account of life for a young black woman It is rough around the edges however and is definitely hampered by the minuscule budget This may not always be pretty but it is consistently interesting --Rochelle OGorman Do the Right Thing [VHS] MCA/Universal Home Video Spike Lees incendiary look at race relations in America circa 1989 is so colorful and exuberant for its first three-quarters that you can almost forget the terrible confrontation that the movie inexorably builds toward Do the Right Thing is a joyful tumultuous masterpiece--maybe the best film ever made about race in America revealing racial prejudices and stereotypes in all their guises and demonstrating how a deadly riot can erupt out of a series of small misunderstandings Set on one block in Bedford-Stuyvesant on the hottest day of the summer the movie shows the whole spectrum of life in this neighborhood and then leaves it up to us to decide if in the end anybody actually does the right thing Featuring Danny Aiello as Sal the pizza parlor owner Lee himself as Mookie the lazy pizza-delivery guy John Turturro and Richard Edson as Sals sons Lees sister Joie as Mookies sister Jade Rosie Perez as Mookies girlfriend Tina Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee as the block elders Da Mayor and Mother Sister Giancarlo Esposito as Mookies hot-headed friend Buggin Out Bill Nunn as the boom-box toting Radio Raheem and Samuel L Jackson as deejay Mister Se or Love Daddy A rich and nuanced film to watch treasure and learn from--over and over again --Jim Emerson Roots 6 Video Box Set [VHS] Warner Home Video From the moment the young Kunta Kinte LeVar Burton is stolen from his life and ancestral home in 18th-century Africa and brought under inhumane conditions to be auctioned as a slave in America a line is begun that leads from this most shameful chapter in U S history to the 20th-century author Alex Haley a Kinte descendant The late Haleys acclaimed book Roots was adapted into this six-volume television miniseries which was a widely watched phenomenon in 1977 The programs cover several generations in the antebellum South and end with the story of Chicken George a freed slave played by Ben Vereen whose family feels the agony of entrenched racism and learns to fight it Between the lives of Kunta and George we meet a number of memorable characters black and white and learn much about the emotional and physical torments of slavery from beatings and rapes to the forced separation of spouses and families Nothing like this had ever confronted so many mainstream Americans when the series was originally broadcast and the extent to which the country was nudged a degree or two toward enlightenment was instantly obvious Roots still has that ability to open ones eyes and engage an audience in a sweeping memorable drama at the same time --Tom Keogh Jazz - A Film by Ken Burns [VHS] Pbs Home Video The story sound and soul of a nation come together in the most American of art forms Jazz Ken Burns who riveted the nation with The Civil War and Baseball celebrates the musics soaring achievements from its origins in blues and ragtime through swing bebop and fusion Six years in the making this soundbreaking series blends 75 interviews more than 500 pieces of music 2 400 still photographs and over 2 000 rare and archival film clips The 10-part musical journey spotlights many of Americas most original creative--and tragic--figures including Louis Armstrong Jelly Roll Morton Duke Ellington Benny Goodman Billie Holiday Charlie Parker and Miles Davis Accompanied by a menagerie of products Ken Burnss expansive 10-episode paean Jazz completes his trilogy on American culture following The Civil War and Baseball Spanning more than 19 hours Jazz is of course about a lot more than what many have called Americas classical music--especially in episodes 1 through 7 Its here that Burns unearths precious visual images of jazz musicians and hangs historical narratives around the music with convincing authority Time can stand still as images float past to the sound of grainy vintage jazz and the drama of a phonograph needle being placed on Louis Armstrongs celestial West End Blues is nearly sublime The film is also potent in arguing that the history of race in the 20th-century U S is at jazzs heart But a few problems arise First is Burnss reliance on Wynton Marsalis as his chief musical commentator Marsalis might be charming and musically expert but hes no historian For the film to devote three of its episodes to the 1930s one expects a bit more historical substance Also Jazz condenses the period of 1961 to the present into one episode glossing over some of the musics giant steps Burns has said repeatedly that he didnt know much about jazz when he began this project So perhaps Jazz for all its glory would better be called Jazz What Ive Learned Since I Started Listening And I Havent Gotten Much Past 1961 For those who are already passionate about jazz the film will stoke debate and some derision together with some reluctant praise But for everyone else it will amaze and entertain and kindle a flame for some of the greatest music ever dreamed --Andrew Bartlett Jackie Brown [VHS] Miramax Films The curiosity of Quentin Tarantinos Jackie Brown is Robert Forsters worldly wise bail bondsman Max Cherry the most alive character in this adaptation of Elmore Leonards Rum Punch The Academy Awards saw it the same way giving Forster the films only nomination The film is more rum than punch and will certainly disappoint those who are looking for Tarantinos trademark style This movie is a slow decaffeinated story of six characters glued to a half million dollars brought illegally into the country The money belongs to Ordell Samuel L Jackson a gunrunner just bright enough to control his universe and do his own dirty work His just-paroled friend--a loose term with Ordell--Louis Robert De Niro is just taking up space and could be interested in the money However his loyalties are in question between his old partner and Ordells doped-up girl Bridget Fonda Certainly Fed Ray Nicolette Michael Keaton wants to arrest Ordell with the illegal money The key is the title character a late-40s-ish flight attendant Pam Grier who can pull her own weight and soon has both sides believing shes working for them The end result is rarely in doubt and what is left is two hours of Tarantinos expert dialogue as he moves his characters around town Tarantino changed the race of Jackie and Ordell a move that means little except that it allows Tarantino to heap on black culture and language something he has a gift and passion for He said this film is for an older audience although the language and drug use may put them off The film is not a salute to Griers blaxploitation films beyond the musical score Unexpectedly the most fascinating scenes are between Grier and Forster two neo-stars glowing in the limelight of their first major Hollywood film after decades of work --Doug Thomas Miss Evers Boys [VHS] Hbo Home Video Laurence Fishburne helped shepherd this Emmy Award-winning expos from American medical history books to the small screen Anchored in the 1973 Senate inquiry into the infamous Tuskegee Study the film uses a flashback structure to take us back 40 years as Nurse Eunice Evers played with honest conviction by Alfre Woodard who also earned an acting Emmy for her powerful performance describes how a program designed to treat syphilis among blacks in the South was twisted into an inhuman study Everss conscience is torn between leaving her position on principle or remaining to give the dying men what comfort she can while they are systematically refused life-saving medicine at every turn Fishburne costars as Caleb a easygoing but ambitious young fieldhand who discovers the cold reality of the study while courting Miss Evers Adapted by Walter Bernstein from a play by David Feldshuh the film rises above the TV Movie of the Week mold with a complex moral structure that eschews if youll pardon the expression black and white polarities for shades of gray as the doctors initial compromises become a lifetime of lies Ultimately that tone becomes the most disturbing facet of the drama doctors and nurses so enmeshed in what is tantamount to a conspiracy they can find no way out and a government that searches for scapegoats for its own cold-blooded research --Sean Axmaker Malcolm X (2pc) [VHS] Warner Home Video Just as Do the Right Thing was the capstone of Spike Lees earlier career Malcolm X marked the next milestone in the filmmakers artistic maturity It seemed everything Lee had done up to that point was to prepare him for this epic biography of Americas fiery civil-rights leader who is superbly played by Oscar-nominated Denzel Washington from his early days as a zoot-suited hustler known as Detroit Red to his spiritual maturity after his pilgrimage to Mecca as a Black Muslim by the name of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz Do the Right Thing climaxed with the photographic images of Malcolm X and Dr Martin Luther King engulfed by flames of rage Malcolm X explores the genesis and evolution of that rage over Malcolms lifetime and how these two great figures--held up to the public as polar-opposites within the African American human rights movement King for nonviolent civil disobedience Malcolm for achieving equality by any means necessary --were each essential to the agenda of the other Lee careens from the hedonistic ebullience of Malcolms early days to the stark despair of prison from his life-changing conversion to Islam to his emergence as a dynamic political leader--all with an epic sweep and vitality that illuminates personal details as well as political ideology Angela Bassett is also terrific as Malcolms wife Betty Shabazz --Jim Emerson The Civil War - A Film by Ken Burns (Boxed Set) [VHS] Pbs Home Video Hailed as a documentary masterpiece without parallel Ken Burns filmed chronicle of Americas most terrible and destructive conflict will hold you in thrall as it portrays the strategies and action of the wars famous battles and tells the stories of illustrious generals and ordinary field soldiers politicians and rogues heroes and a beleaguered President Winner of two Emmy Awards the series begins by looking at the fateful causes of the war that led to the firing on Fort Sumter to the devastating battles of Shiloh Antietam and Gettysburg climaxing with Lees surrender and the assassination of President Lincoln Vivid photographic imagery and narration by many of todays most acclaimed performers highlight this epic program Titles are The Cause of 1862 A Very Bloody Affair 1862 Forever Free 1862 Simply Murder 1863 The Universe of Battle 1863 Valley of the Shadow of Death 1864 Most Hallowed Ground 1864 War Is All Hell 1865 and The Better Angles of Our Nature 1865 The most successful public-television miniseries in American history the 11-hour Civil War didnt just captivate a nation reteaching to us our history in narrative terms it actually also invented a new film language taken from its creator When people describe documentaries using the Ken Burns approach its style is understood voice-over narrators reading letters and documents dramatically and stating the writers name at their conclusion fresh live footage of places juxtaposed with still images photographs paintings maps prints anecdotal interviews and romantic musical scores taken from the era he depicts The Civil War uses all of these devices to evoke atmosphere and resurrect an event that many knew only from stale history books While Burns is a historian a researcher and a documentarian hes above all a gifted storyteller and its his narrative powers that give this chronicle its beauty overwhelming emotion and devastating horror Using the words of old letters eloquently read by a variety of celebrities the stories of historians like Shelby Foote and rare stained photos Burns allows us not only to relearn and finally understand our history but also to feel and experience it --Dave McCoy