Spinning Into Butter

Sarah Jessica Parker steps away from her Carrie Bradshaw character and plays a Dean of Students at a small liberal arts college in Vermont. The film has an all star cast including Beau Bridges and Miranda Richardson as the other deans. James Rebhorn is always welcome on screen as the President of the College. Mykelti Williamson plays a local reporter. The story about a racism incident at the college creates a stir among the faculty and students. Parker's Dean character faces her own issues about race and her history in Chicago at a largely African American college, Lancaster College. In this film, Parker does a decent job but the script is weak and poorly adapted from the stage. Parker has her best moments when she confronts her racist views and feelings. While the cast is all star, the script weakens the film. To me, not much happens at all.

Nah, didn't like this one at all. Political correctness on campus is the subject. There was some decent moments but there were many more ridiculous ones.The guy that is gonna be given a 10,000 dollar scholarship comes to mind. The scholarship is especially for minorities, and hes practically already been given it but he's got to write in his ethnicity on the form - he says 'new yorican' or something like that. Teacher says write hispanic or Porto rican. He doesn't want to. She talks him into it - I mean, come on man, you're gonna get 10 grand - Anyway, he agrees on Porto rican...But then he comes back again and again with the same problem - wants his ethnicity to be written as new yorican. The scene seemed ridiculous the first time... but to have the same scene come up 2 more times made me want to cry.

I didn't feel anything for any of the characters - Bad script, bad acting - All a bunch of cardboard cut outs. On the whole, a poor film, poor plot.Only watch if there's eff all else on the box.

Greetings again from the darkness. Rainy days are always a good time to take a flyer on a movie for which not much is known. I should have just stood in the rain for 90 minutes. An award winning play from Rebecca Gilman, this one is turned into an amateur production by first time director Mark Brokaw. Even the abrasive Sarah Jessica Parker deserves better.

A decent cast with SJP, Miranda Richardson, Beau Bridges and Mykelti Williamson (Bubba from Forrest Gump) can't come close to saving this one. This is a failed attempt at having us analyze our own prejudices and views on racism and political correctness. I can tell you where my prejudices lay ... on lousy, exploitive film-making.

There are hundreds of films that bring more depth and reality to the topic so don't waste a nickel on this one at the theatre or even NetFlix.

Sarah Daniels teaches in a Lancaster School, which is predominantly occupied by minorities, especially blacks. She soon develops a deep hatred and prejudice, even fear, against blacks, and avoids them even in public transportation. When she finds out about a vacancy in Belmont College in Vermont, she re-locates there. But her past will be put to the test when she is ironically labeled a liaison person for the minorities, as well as asked to prepare a 10 point list to resolve racism, after an African American student, Simon Black, becomes a victim of hate crime.

She will also realize that before she was hired, the Management expected her to be black.

Subsequently, she herself will question her prejudice as well as the Management's 'lip service' response to the hate crime amidst heavy media presence, and growing restlessness and hatred amongst the student body.

Quite frankly, one can only laugh out loud at the naivety shown by the school management in asking a lecturer to prepare a document titled 'how to resolve racism'.

For generations, judiciary, and human rights commissions have turned a nelson's eye on this issue, and that's precisely the reason why it continues on undeterred.

One must often wonder as to why most people on one hand are contemptuous of lawyers, but respectful of judges - who at one time were themselves lawyers. Many lawyers are appointed to the judiciary by politicians - thus issues never get addressed and get even more complex in the long run. This is why people take to the streets and there is violence when concerns and issues are left unaddressed.

A thought provoking movie, and a must-watch for all.

This movie's concept is thought-provoking, however the execution of the point it is trying to make gets lost somehow. In some way I think it is the actors chosen for this film -- maybe it would've worked better if they were mostly unknowns. Because what the viewer needs here is the ability to understand that the characters depicted in the story are not stereotypes. And yet they are portrayed as such to a great extent and it just didn't add up to the kind of depth that ought to be there to sufficiently address racism. Anyway the movie felt stunted, and for some reason I found it hard to believe that the actors themselves, for the most part, believed what the characters they portrayed were saying. Yes, there was the attempt to portray how hypocritical the college professors and professionals were and how sensitive the minority students were to prejudicial slights. I just got the impression that something more intrinsic to the entire situation was missing.

Interestingly Sarah Jessica Parker did eventually come across as believable. Everyone else i thought was on another planet and it all felt disjointed.

This film is not bad per se -- the story itself is intriguing in that it does try to depict racism. I found it hard to believe on some level that a college would react so oddly.