babygeniusesvseightcrazynights

We might as well start referring to Sean Levert as the 21st century's Sidney Poitier. My boy can *act*. From the deadpan delivery of one-liner's like "as long as they still drugs, we sell 'em." to two eye-blinks and a head-shake after told of his mother's death, Hollywood needs to put an APB on this modern-day ghetto-thespian! To the casual viewer, the story may seem to be just another "black youth with star athlete potential gets involved with drugs and gangs and screws over his and his family's future" flick, but if one digs deeper a clear parallel (hommage?) to Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew" can be drawn easily.

Also, one may wonder if the writer was quite familiar with the literary works of Thomas Pynchon, because there are two scenes (the hot-tub, open-mouth, sloppy tongue-kiss scene, and the scene in which Coolio is taunting Devon in the bar and purposefully mispronouncing his name) that are direct references to certain parts of "Gravity's Rainbow".

In short, this is a masterful commentary on the plight of poor black youths in the late 1980s. It goes without saying that, when one looks past the misprints and misspellings on the DVD case and the horrible lighting and camcorder-quality cinematography and absolutely horrible sound, much care and flawless craft went into this production.

BOOYAH!

This 1943 Hitchcock film is really like nothing I've ever seen. It is devoid of twists or needlessly flashy film-making—it just tells a story from beginning to the end, and all the while keeps you very entertained with great acting, dialog and various indescribable nuances.

The story revolves around a family in a small California town (interesting note: the movie was made in 1943 yet there's no mention of the war. I think this helps preserve the feeling of small town isolation). The oldest daughter named Charlie is bored with her family's ho-hum life. Then, UNCLE Charlie comes to town (played magnificently by Joseph Cotton) because he wants "to settle down", but to the viewer it seems like he's running away from something. He has a lot of cash and wants to open a bank account. Two men have been carefully following him since the beginning of the film. I'm not going to give away any more because it's pretty cool.

What was so stunning about this movie is that we as modern movie enthusiasts expect a good movie to have something hidden, something up its sleeve. Well, this one doesn't, which is a fresh change for us modern types. A remake would be impossible--modern audiences would consider it "tame". However, the story excels within the confines of its time. Any remake would be a joke.

The family is very interesting to observe. The little girl Anne almost steals the show. She's literate and unintentionally snobby—like a nine-year-old Ayn Rand. The father is kind of aloof and simple—he and his neighbor friend are constantly talking about the "science" of committing murders, which serves as a great backdrop to the suspense going on right under their noses.

Thornton Wilder wrote it. This may have something to do with the story and dialog being so engaging.