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African-American Cinema DVDs

Nightjohn

Sales Rank:11730
List Price: $6.99
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Closed-captioned
Color
DVD-Video
Full Screen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Beau Bridges
Lorraine Toussaint

Studio: Platinum Disc Llc Release Date: 02/28/2006 Run time: 96 minutes Rating: Pg13

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Life (dvd)

Sales Rank:4023
List Price: $12.98
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Format:

Anamorphic
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Eddie Murphy
Martin Lawrence
Obba Babatundé
Nick Cassavetes
Anthony Anderson

Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy play it surprisingly straight in this film by director Ted Demme. Though there are laughs to be had, this is a story about perseverance in the face of a life of disappointment (yet the film was sold as a prison comedy). But Stir Crazy this isn't. Rather, Lawrence and Murphy play a couple of New Yorkers making a moonshine run from New York to Mississippi during the Prohibition who find themselves framed for murder and sentenced for life to a prison chain gang. As they age, the two become close friends, although the strait-laced Lawrence always resents the free-wheeling Murphy for getting him into the situation in the first place. Ultimately, these two men learn to find meaning where they can, taking value from friendship and their limited ability to affect the lives of others. At times preachy, it ends on an upbeat note; the film's biggest laughs are reserved for the final section, in which Lawrence and Murphy don age makeup and play octogenarians. --Marshall Fine

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Backstairs at the White House

Sales Rank:3856
List Price: $59.99
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Box set
Closed-captioned
Color
DVD-Video
Full Screen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Olivia Cole
Leslie Uggams
Louis Gossett Jr.
Robert Hooks
Leslie Nielsen

From the golden age of television miniseries comes this prestigious 1979 production based on Lillian Rogers Parks's memoir, My Thirty Years at the White House, a real-life American Upstairs/Downstairs that chronicles her family's tenure on the White House servant staff through eight presidential administrations. Emmy nominee Oliva Cole stars as Maggie, a proud matriarch with "indomitable spirit and unfailing spunk," and who is determined that her children "are not going to have street ways." She becomes the first colored maid on the presidential family floor, beginning with the William Howard Taft administration. Her polio-stricken daughter, Lillian (portrayed as an adult by Leslie Uggams) eventually joins her during Herbert Hoover's administration and likewise rises through the ranks to to become a trusted confidante of the First Families.

Backstairs at the White House works on several levels. It is the inspiring personal story of two extraordinary women who had a unique and privileged perspective of the people and events that shaped the first half of the 20th century. It also presents vivid snapshots of the presidents and their families in all their quirks (Mrs. Taft felt that bearded servants brought bad luck), failings, and greatness, as well as such now-obscure personages as New York critic Alexander Woolcott. The stellar cast is comprised of stage and screen veterans and TV favorites. Robert Vaughn (as Woodrow Wilson), Celeste Holm (as Florence Harding), and Ed Flanders (as Calvin Coolidge) were nominated for Emmys, as was Roots costar Louis Gossett Jr. as houseman Levi Mercer. Also notable are a pre-Airplane Leslie Nielsen as chief White House usher Ike Hoover, Cloris Leachman as the chilly supervising housekeeper Mrs. Jaffray, Victor Buono and Julie Harris as reluctant president William Howard Taft and his more formidable wife "Nellie," Eileen Heckart as energetic Eleanor Roosevelt, and Harry Morgan, giving 'em hell as Harry Truman. Backstairs at the White can be melodramatic ("You're not married to me, you're married to the White House," Lillian's estranged husband tells her at one point), but it never descends to soap opera. The Emmy-winning makeup is convincing, and the Emmy-nominated screenplay does an admirable job of compressing more than 50 years of history. "What is heard within the walls of the White House is to be forgotten," Maggie is instructed early in her employ. Luckily, daughter Lillian ignored this directive to create a compelling document that puts a human face on the occupants of the real West Wing. --Donald Liebenson

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Menace II Society

Sales Rank:7461
List Price: $14.96
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MPAA Rating: Unrated

Format:

AC-3
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Full Screen
Letterboxed
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Albert Hughes
Allen Hughes

Actor(s):

Tyrin Turner
Larenz Tate
June Kyoto Lu
Toshi Toda
Samuel L. Jackson

Tyrin Turner may not have broken out into stardom as was initially expected, but his work in Menace II Society is one of the more powerful cinematic debuts. The film, from the brother writer-director team of Allen and Albert Hughes, chronicles life in the Los Angeles 'hood. Similar territory was covered in the equally commanding Boyz N the Hood, but what makes this cautionary tale stand out is not only the Hughes brothers' forceful story, (written with their friend, Tyger Williams) and direction, but the naturalness of then-newcomer leads Turner as Caine, Larenz Tate as O-Dog, and Jada Pinkett as Ronnie. They are so credible--occasionally frighteningly so--that the repressive universe of violent ghetto life is captured effectively. Life as portrayed here--and no doubt accurately so--is both figuratively and literally narrow. As a very young boy, Caine witnesses his dad murdered over something inconsequential, and his mom OD. His is a world where respect comes from intimidation, power from violence. Despite his understanding of right and wrong (values passed on by a good friend, his kind grandparents, a caring teacher), his life and its entrapments are too much to overcome. --N.F. Mendoza

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Set It Off

Sales Rank:5178
List Price: $12.98
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Format:

Anamorphic
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DVD-Video
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Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Van Baum
Vincent Baum
Thomas Jefferson Byrd
Natalie Desselle
Dr. Dre

Even when it misses a dramatic opportunity in favor of generic action, Set It Off benefits from a sharp understanding of its well-drawn central characters. They're a quartet of young African American women in Los Angeles (Jada Pinkett, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, Kimberly Elise), all struggling against a system that seems designed to prevent them from realizing their dreams. The movie establishes their plight with credible attention to emotional detail, making their decision to rob banks believable enough to give the ensuing plot its inevitably tragic momentum. Cowritten by the screenwriter of What's Love Got to Do With It?, the film conveys genuine compassion for its characters, and the ensemble cast is uniformly strong--especially Queen Latifah as a brash lesbian whose fate is as certain as her forceful attitude.

Set It Off expresses a real sense that these women have been close friends for years, and that gives the film additional impact, even when their transition to crime and violence feels somewhat forced and superficial. A romantic subplot involving Pinkett and a social-climbing banker (Blair Underwood) is too contrived to be convincing, and director F. Gary Gray (Friday) tries too hard to combine hard-hitting action with social relevance (a weakness shared by Gray's following film, The Negotiator). Still, Set It Off effectively avoids passing judgment; its emotional complexity transcends simple notions of right and wrong, injecting vitality--and a kind of renegade integrity--into the traditions of a familiar plot. --Jeff Shannon

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Stomp the Yard (Widescreen Edition)

Sales Rank:4638
List Price: $14.94
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

AC-3
Closed-captioned
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Dolby
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Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Columbus Short
Meagan Good
Ne-Yo
Darrin Dewitt Henson
Brian J. White

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Amistad

Sales Rank:4548
List Price: $9.98
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Format:

Anamorphic
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Director(s):

Actor(s):

Djimon Hounsou
Matthew McConaughey
Anthony Hopkins
Morgan Freeman
Nigel Hawthorne

Steven Spielberg's most simplistic, sanitized history lesson, Amistad, explores the symbolic 1840s trials of 53 West Africans following their bloody rebellion aboard a slave ship. For most of Schindler's List (and, later, Saving Private Ryan) Spielberg restrains himself from the sweeping narrative and technical flourishes that make him one of our most entertaining and manipulative directors. Here, he doesn't even bother trying, succumbing to his driving need to entertain with beautiful images and contrived emotion. He cheapens his grandiose motives and simplifies slavery, treating it as cut- and-dry genre piece. Characters are easy Hollywood stereotypes--"villains" like the Spanish sailors or zealous abolitionists are drawn one-dimensionally and sneered upon. And Spielberg can't suppress his gifted eye, undercutting normally ugly sequences, such as the terrifying slave passage, which is shot as a gorgeous, well-lit composition. At its core, Amistad is a traditional courtroom drama, centered by a tired, clichéd narrative: a struggling, idealistic young lawyer (Matthew McConaughey) fighting the crooked political system and saving helpless victims. Worse yet, Spielberg actually takes the underlying premise of his childhood fantasy, E.T. and repackages it for slavery. Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), the leader of the West African rebellion, is presented much like the adorable alien: lost, lacking a common language, and trying to find his way home. McConaughey is a grown-up Elliot who tries communicating complicated ideas such as geography by drawing pictures in the sand or language by having Cinque mimic his facial expressions. Such stuff was effective for a sci-fi fantasy about the communication barriers between a boy and a lost alien; here, it seems like a naive view of real, complex history. --Dave McCoy

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Malcolm X (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Sales Rank:3605
List Price: $26.98
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

AC-3
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Special Edition
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Angela Bassett
O.L. Duke
Al Freeman Jr.
Sonny Jim Gaines
Albert Hall

Just as Do the Right Thing was the capstone of Spike Lee's earlier career, Malcolm X marked the next milestone in the filmmaker's artistic maturity. It seemed everything Lee had done up to that point was to prepare him for this epic biography of America's 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 Malcolm's 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 Malcolm's 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 Malcolm's wife, Betty Shabazz. --Jim Emerson

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Pootie Tang

Sales Rank:6006
List Price: $9.98
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Closed-captioned
Color
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DVD-Video
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Tristan Armoogan
Chris Rock
Lance Crouther
J.B. Smoove
Jennifer Coolidge

Pootie Tang pushes blaxploitation to the point of surrealism. The title character--who first appeared on The Chris Rock Show--speaks a kind of slang on steroids, an incomprehensible stream of nonsense syllables that nonetheless makes him irresistible to women and a threat to evildoers everywhere. Pootie is part movie star, part superhero, righting wrongs with the slap of his daddy's belt. But when an evil corporation uses a super-ho named Ireenie (Jennifer Coolidge from Best in Show and Legally Blonde) to steal this magic belt, Pootie must find himself again. In the title role, Lance Crouther glides through the movie like Isaac Hayes's skinny younger brother, while Chris Rock lends his trademark bark to multiple roles, including Pootie's father. Crazed editing and a great soundtrack give Pootie Tang a little extra oomph. A bizarre comedy, likely to develop a cult following. Cameos by Missy Elliot and Bob Costas. --Bret Fetzer

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Juice

Sales Rank:5058
List Price: $9.98
Lowest New Price: $4.51
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Format:

Anamorphic
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Omar Epps
Tupac Shakur
Jermaine 'Huggy' Hopkins
Khalil Kain
Cindy Herron

Spike Lee's longtime cinematographer, Ernest R. Dickerson, made his directorial debut with this violent story about four Harlem teens whose lives are changed when a store robbery goes wrong. The film has been likened to an urban The Wild Bunch, but it is far too artificial for that. With Dickerson's eye, Juice understandably looks great, but at the end of the day it is only a slightly better version of the heavily clichéd crime movies that have artificially dominated perceptions of black cinema in the U.S. in the '90s. Rap fans might enjoy seeing some familiar stars on board, including Queen Latifah and Tupac Shakur. --Tom Keogh

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African-American Cinema DVDs

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