"Behind the Sun" (Abril Despedaçado)

Synopsis

Behind the Sun is a simple yet powerful story of a young man caught in the midst of a generations-old feud between adjacent landowners in turn-of-the-century Brazil. The lead actor, Tonho (played by José Dumont), must pick between upholding a bloody tradition or following his heart and dishonoring the family. His younger bro, who has no name but is just called "Kid" for the first half of the movie, is figuratively touched by an angel when he has a chance encounter with a beautiful, young, but directionless woman called Clara. She presents him with a fairy tale book about a mermaid and sea creatures in return for directions to the nearby town.

The fairy tale transforms the kid into a playful reverie and he becomes one-kid improvising actor in his imaginary world of illiteracy. This bubbling forth of free energy inspires Tonho to take action. Tonho and the kid, both under the spell of Clara's beauty, transform 180 degrees into rebellious youth. Tonho trundles the kid off for a nocturnal outing to see the circus, in which Clara takes center stage. Next thing we know the kid has a name, Pacu - symbolic of his rebirth, or a bottom-dwelling river fish.

Clara's really, and literally, hot stuff, and the scenes with her blowing fire are not to be missed. Even more surprising than Pacu's rebirth (after all, boys will do anything for babes), is the fact that Clara likes what she sees in Tonho. Sure, Tonho is a major dude, but his acting kinda sucks - he doesn't have much to say and is relatively expressionless, but hey that 6 o'clock shadow does wonders. Clara, on the other hand, seethes with passion and a restless energy that gets under your skin in an all too erotic sort of way - her acting is definitely much more believable.

Anyway, tragedy must ensue, and Tonho has been marked to die for upholding the family honor and murdering the neighboring landowner who killed his older brother, and so on back for the past umpteen generations. One wonders why they aren't all dead already given the silly code of dueling that requires they wait until the blood on the shirt of the slain man turns yellow in the hot sun which is a measly month or so (assuming fair play). The male landowner would need a harem of 9 women each birthing every 9 months just to keep up with the dueling demands . . . .

The consummation of lust between Clara and Tonho is titillating, and Pacu's acting antics are cute and cast with such stark relief from the oppressive, unnatural, and loveless state of their parents labor of the land. It's a beautiful contrast. On the whole this is an altogether refreshing fairy-tale-esque movie, and while the plot is predictive, the movie is far from boring. The historic detail, rich symbolism, and beautiful photography are still mesmerizing not to mention the hunky Tonho and babe-licious Clara. - Patrick Halstead -

Technical Aspects

The  video quality on this disc is first rate. The night time scenes are a bit noisy, but it looks like noise from low light conditions during filming. There does not appear to be any filtering, which results in an extremely sharp image throughout the film. This is a good transfer that goes with a great film.

The MPEG flags changed from film to video 27 times. Every chapter break dropped to video except chapter 10. 22 of the drops lasted for 10 MPEG PICs (20 fields). The remaining 5 drops were short.

- Stacey Spears -

"The Royal Tenenbaums"

Synopsis

Plot Overview

A man drives his dysfunctional hyper-performing family to the brink of destruction leaving them to selfishly serve his own needs. Oddly enough, jealousy shows him the error of his ways and he more or less achieves redemption. It’s a ball of tragedy with a melty comic center.

Review

Alec Baldwin beautifully opens the film with his husky voiceover introducing us to the Tenenbaum family and their quirky abilities. The Tenenbaums are a family of geniuses of varying styles (financial, artistic/literary, and athletic) who have been emotionally tortured by their strangely distant upbringing by their father, Royal Tenenbaum [Gene Hackman]. With the prospect of losing his wife Etheline [Angelica Houston] who he hadn’t lived with in 20 years, he feigns illness to get back into his wife’s home bringing the family back together for a last ditch attempt of keep his wife from going off with another man, Henry [Danny Glover]. Royal was the puppet master who is desperately seeking to find the strings again.

Gene Hackman and Danny Glover have an entertaining relationship. Gene is jealous of his wife’s new love and their scenes together are strangely comic in the ways that Royal tries to get under Henry’s skin.

Gwyneth Paltrow is brilliant in this movie. She is the ultimate jaded emotionally controlled woman. She complicates the relationship with Royal and other family members by being an adopted child into this strangest of family dynamics. She is tortured but just below the surface. It’s really a delicate line to tread and she hits the mark.

Ben Stiller as the tightly wound financial genius is another wonderfully realized compulsive character. The lack of a proper childhood, competing with siblings for Royal’s attention, and the tragic loss of his wife has made him one quirky and overprotective parent to his two clone boys. His clone-sons become Royal’s experiment in real connected fatherhood that he never gave his own son (everything from shoplifting to riding a garbage truck to dog fighting).

Luke Wilson is the most tortured of the Tenenbaums. As a young star athlete, he almost reached greatness before collapsing under the pressure of a relationship he could not acknowledge.

For those wanting to keep score, I composed the following table:

Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson have created such amazingly unique characters. None of these people know how to interact with one another on a human level; it just never seemed to be necessary in the development of their intellect or ability.

Some might find the movie a bit slow, but I felt this pacing added to the emotional desolation of the “family.” If you liked Rushmore, you’ll love this film.

Extras

In keeping with the Criterion Collection tradition, this movie has many extras about art used during the film, cast interviews [the sensitivity they show toward their characters is fascinating], and an interesting documentary with the very detail oriented Wes Anderson.

The Peter Bradley Show is also included which is bizarre in its selection of actors to interview [none of whom had many lines or was involved in any major way with the production]. - Evan Upchurch -

Technical Aspects

The video quality has an oversaturated look, which is the films intent. Many of the whites appear to be crushed. Take a look at Pagoda's shirt at the beginning of chapter 4. You can also see the ship that Luke Wilson returns on almost blends into the background as the detail is gone because of the crushed whites. This is also during chapter 4 at 24 minutes and 52 seconds into the film. There is a minimal amount of edge enhancement.

Wes is my kind of guy, not only is the film 2.40:1, but he makes great use of that framing by filling it all in.

The MPEG flags dropped from film to video 45 times during the movie. There was a drop at every chapter break, which most lasted for 5 MPEG PICs (10 fields). The longest drop was for 75 MPEG PICs (150 fields or nearly 5 seconds.)

- Stacey Spears -

"Beneath Loch Ness"

Synopsis

Plot Overview

Gus Egan (Dick Stilwell), a university professor working for a cable nature channel, dies during an underwater earthquake in the loch while trying to prove his theory that the Loch was once a prehistoric breeding ground. Case Howell (Brain Wimmer), a former student of Egan’s, learns of his death and heads to the loch, from a dig in Afghanistan.

While setting out to try and locate the missing body of his professor, he and his crew stumble upon what might be the biggest discovery of the 20th century. Around the same time as they think they have seen old Nessie herself, a small group of Internet geeks, who are hosting a Loch Ness website, decide to try and cook some footage for their webpage to increase the number of hits. Because the local constable, who is played by Vernon Wells, learns of this stunt, he does not believe Howell or his team.

There is some tension between Howell and the rest of the team, as it appears Howell abandoned them a long time ago to go off on his own. The network representative who is sponsoring this little expedition happens to be none other than Howell’s ex-wife, who is played by Lysette Anthony.

Where do I begin? There are many holes in the film, and there are issues that never really get resolved. The hoax that the website geeks try and pull off is incomplete. We seem them set out to scare a local tour boat, but we never see the attack happen. We merely see the aftermath. Of course their wooden Nessie looks nothing like the real thing, so it is anyone’s guess why it would be mistaken for her.

The visual effects are pretty low quality too. The first time we scene Nessie, she is swimming underwater, and I have seen more polygon data used in current video games. There are a few shots underwater where we see her swim by, and her eye opens. It looks like the same footage is used over and over again.

I am not sure if there was a single Scottish actor in the film. There was also a scene directly out of "Jaws" in which Howell warns the local constable that there is something in the water and he must close off the Loch. Of course he refuses to do so, and you know what happens next.

Technical Aspects

Every time there is an exterior shot overlooking the mountains, you can see the distinct outline that follows, known as edge enhancement. The film was also a bit grainy and soft.

The soundtrack was Dolby Digital 2.0, so I played it back using Pro Logic II decoding. The majority of the soundtrack was center channel based. The only thing that stands out is some audible distortion near the end of the film, during the underwater communications.

When looking at the MPEG flags, we found 22 occurrences when the encoding changed from film to video. All but two drops were for 5 MPEG PICs (10 video fields.) Every chapter stop had a drop. There was also 1 drop for 1 PIC (2 video fields) and 1 drop for 3 PICs. (6 video fields.)

- Stacey Spears -

"Chat Room"

Synopsis

Plot Overview

Five high school teammates place a $50 bet before graduation on who will bring the hottest date to their 10 year reunion. The $50 was invested and has turned into $50,000 in the 10 years that have passed.

Max (Brian Hooks), Drew (Darryl Brunson), and Jelly Roll (Christopher Richards) decide to team up and split the winnings by devising a plan to beat J-Ron. (Troy Winbush) The fifth, Crazy Larry, was burned in a smoking accident so he was out of the running.

Enter Afro Chat, the on-line service where the three of them plan to find their hot date to win the bet. Mind you if J-Ron had never showed up outside of Ray Ray’s ribs, they would have forgotten the bet and this film could have been avoided. So the three setup multiple blind dates on their laptop computers. Sure, none of them own a car, but laptops are not a problem.

They all learn from their first attempt that you really should ask for a photo before you decide to hook-up, because we all know how superficial we, men, really are. Well, their first dates don’t go as well as they had hoped, so they decide to try again. Overall their dates were then much better, thanks in part to the photo screening process, but still not perfect. If at first you don’t succeed, try try again. Third time's a charm right? Well, as luck goes, the third time is not a charm for our three heroes’ and they all end up in jail. BTW, how does a crack ho' get Internet access?

While the boys are out searching for their hot date, the homely waitress Wendy (Deya Simone) is all over Max. Of course, Max can’t see that Wendy is very attractive under those huge birth-control glasses in a “She’s the One” kind of way.

There are a set of outtakes on the disc, which actually includes a scene with Ray Ray, the owner of the rib joint where the three spend so much time.

Technical Aspects

The DVD is in the full frame format (P&S). The image is soft with a lot of background noise that may be a result of compression artifacts. The audio is only 2-channel, so I played back with Pro Logic II. The audio was mainly dialog focused.

The MPEG flags on the disc are 100% video. While there is a 3-2 cadence within the film, the flags on the DVD contain none. If you plan to watch in progressive-scan, you will need a DVD player that analyzes the picture cadence and does not rely on the flags to make the progressive image. We were also getting some errors with our flag tool, errors that we have not seen before. We plan to investigate this disc further to find out what is happening.

This is the first disc that we have found that does not store as MPEG frames. It actually stores each field as its own MPEG PIC. This is not very efficient but it is legal.

- Stacey Spears -

"K-9:P.I."

Synopsis

Plot Overview

Belushi is back in the role of Thomas Dooley with his side kick Jerry Lee (King) for the third installment in the K-9 series. It is Belushi’s last day on the job, so his co-workers throw him a surprise retirement party. He gets plastered, and his buddies dump him in the car to sleep it off. On their way home, they happen to run out of gas near a crime in progress, and what are the odds of that? Thomas and Jerry (or Tom and Jerry for short) attempt to thwart the crime.

As luck would have it, the FBI believes that Thomas was somehow involved with the crime, so they block his pension check and they decide to keep a close eye on him by living outside his house in a van.

In order to pay his bills, he decides to try and stud out Jerry Lee. After a long exhaustive search for another dog to breed with Jerry Lee, he happens to find one with an owner he has an interest in. Thomas uses the money from the breeding to start a P.I. business to pay the bills until he can get his pension checks. Shortly after starting the business, he is approached by someone who is looking for her fiancé.

Jerry Lee starts to act funny, so off to the vet they go. It turns out Jerry is constipated because of something he swallowed. Thomas concocts a sure fire way to help jerry with his bowel movement problems. Jerry swallowed a piece of what was stolen and Thomas knows the crooks will come looking for it.

I never saw the first two K9 films, so I was not sure what to expect. But, I found Belushi to be funny. The film itself was pretty predictable, but I think the kids will have a good time with this one.

Technical Aspects

Overall, the video quality was pretty good. There was minor edge enhancement, but nothing too objectionable. I was pleasantly surprised at the active use of the surrounds, especially during the gunfight scenes.

The MPEG flags dropped from film to video 13 times during the movie. 11 of the times were for 5 MPEG PICs (10 video fields), and 1 time was for 2 MPEG PICs. (4 video fields) There was a pretty major drop to video starting around 50 minutes into the film. It stayed as video until a little over 7 minutes later, when it finally went back to film flags.

- Stacey Spears -

"New Best Friend"

Synopsis

Plot Overview

The film opens with deputy sheriff Artie Bonner (Taye Diggs) talking with the school dean about the recent drug overdose of Alicia Glazer (Mia Kirshner). From here on out, the story is told in flashbacks and we start from the beginning.

Alicia is in her senior year and comes from the other side of the tracks. She needs to do well in order to get a scholarship to go on to grad school so she can become a lawyer. She is partnered up with one Hadley Weston, a spoiled rich sorority girl. Alicia needs the help of Hadley in order to graduate, and the problem is that Alicia and Hadley don’t exactly get along.

The rest of the film has Bonner trying to put the pieces together and understand why Alicia overdosed. We get everyone’s side of the story except for Alicia because she is in a coma. Some people remember Alicia as being this nice young woman, while others tell the tale of an avid party girl.

Kirshner did a good job playing the naive Alicia, and this was a role I had not seen her play before. She also did her usual great performance as the more experienced and seductive Alica, after spending lots of time with Hadley and her elite circle of friends.

There is strong sexual and drug abuse in this film, but surprisingly little nudity and only then if you looked real hard for it. While I don’t believe it is at the same guilty pleasure level as "Cruel Intentions", I did enjoy it.

Technical Aspects

The disc contains both a full screen and widescreen version on the single side of a dual layer DVD. While I did find the film to be a little on the soft side, there was noticeable edge enhancement or halos.

This is another dialog driven film with surrounds only being noticeable during the party sequences. When I say the surrounds were noticeable, I do not mean they are distracting.

The MPEG flags changed from film to video around 40 times during the movie. There was one at every chapter break for 5 MPEG PICs (10 video fields), except for two which lasted for 11 MPEG PICs (22 video fields) There were also another 7 drops that lasted for 2 seconds each. (120 video fields)

- Stacey Spears -

"Zig Zag"

Synopsis

Plot Overview

When an autistic boy nicknamed Zigzag (Sam Jones III) is tormented by his abusive father (Wesley Snipes), he ends up stealing money from his difficult boss (Oliver Platt) in order to pay his father rent money. Zigzag’s father Fletcher ends up stealing all of the money from him in order to pay off a local loan shark named Cadillac Jones. (Luke Goss)

The only one looking out for Zigzag is his youth program big brother Singer (John Leguizamo). In order to help Zigzag out, Singer turns to Jones for a loan so that they can return the money to Zigzag's boss Toad. When Singer ends up in a hospital due to an illness, Zigzag befriends a prostitute named Jenna (Natasha Lyonne).

Wesley Snipes is very convincing as the abusive father. Not since "New Jack City" has he portrayed someone so evil. Sure he was bad in "Demolition Man", but not like this. Oliver Platt also has a good performance as a racist. He is mean and insulting to everyone, including the police investigating the robbery.

John Leguizamo is supposed to be the big brother, but sometimes he comes off as being very naive. The way he approaches the loan shark makes you think he may need a big brother of his own. I guess he just expects people to be honest. Natasha Lyonne had a fairly small but important role in the film.

Technical Aspects

I was really surprised to learn that the film was not 16:9 enhanced. I don’t recall the last time Columbia Tristar released a DVD this way. I pretty much look to Columbia Tristar to set the standard. Even though it is not 16:9 enhanced, the image quality is good.

There is very little surround use, and the film is mainly dialog driven. I did not hear any audible distortions with the soundtrack.

The MPEG flags changed from film to video 19 times during the movie. 18 of these were on the chapter breaks and the last drop was the last 2 MPEG PICs on the disc. Each of the 18 drops lasted for 5 MPEG PICs (10 video fields.)

- Stacey Spears -

"Bully"

Synopsis

Plot Overview

“The Hitman needs a ride.”

Teenagers, drugs, sex, violence, violent sex, and a bully pretty much sum up what you will see in this disturbingly brilliant piece of filmmaking from director Larry Clark based on real life story of high school students who decide to murder a bully.

This is the tormented story of Marty (Brad Renfro) who spent most of his life dealing with a bully. But unlike most bullies, Bobby (Nick Stahl) is Marty’s best friend since childhood, and since that childhood; he has humiliated and abused him.

Marty is actually a talented surfer that everyone seems to like, but he dropped out of high school. Bobby’s father dislikes Marty because of this and tells Bobby he needs to stay away from him. Marty's girlfriend Lisa has very little self esteem and hooks onto Marty after she finds out she is pregnant.

Lisa (Rachel Miner) hates Bobby not only for abusing Marty, but for raping her and her friend Ali (Bijou Phillips). So she suggests to Marty that killing him would solve everyone’s problems. Lisa brings in her cousin Derek (Daniel Franzese) to help, and Ali also enlists the help of her boy friend Donny (Michael Pitt) and girlfriend Heather (Kelli Garner). They also bring in who they believe to be a mafia hitman played by Leo Fitzpatrick.

Bobby is just plain mean. He abuses Marty in front of everyone all the time. He hauls off and hits Marty in the face while Marty is driving down the road. Bobby appears to be more interested in guys than girls, but that does not stop him from hitting and raping both Lisa and Ali. Bobby also verbally abuses anyone he meets.

I can tell you that my high school years were nothing like this, but the film feels real. When Bobby is hitting Marty, it looks and feels real. Some of the violence in the film is difficult to watch, especially the murder scene. It is a strong emotional scene as some of the kids actually crack under the pressure.

The sex scenes are fairly graphic and while they are acting, it feels more realistic than an adult film, if that makes any sense at all. There is also strong drug abuse portrayed in this film.

On one level there are many people who might not be able to handle the graphic nature of this film, but if you are a film lover and want to see great filmmaking, this is one worth watching. I saw the theatrical version of the film, which received an R rating. There is supposed to be a directors cut of the film, but I can’t image what Larry left out.

There is a complete set of interviews with Larry Clark and the entire cast. All too often when you watch making of features and cast interviews on DVD, people have nothing but nice things to say about each other. I about fell out of my chair when I first heard Bijou talk about how she landed her role in this film. From there on each cast member told of a similar experience. It was funny and refreshing to hear answers like that.

The disc also includes a photo of each real person that the actors were portraying.

Technical Aspects

I found the overall image quality a little on the soft side. The film itself has a gritty look that is actually intentional. I did not see any excessive use of edge enhancement and overall found it to be a good transfer being an independent film. This is another dialog driven film. There were a few scenes were the dialog was a bit muffled.

There are numerous MPEG errors on this disc. The first 9 seconds of the disc are encoded as video instead of film, and then when it switches back to film, we get half a second of 3-3 pulldown instead of 3-2 pulldown. This is all taking place during the Lions Gate logo, so it is not a big deal. There are several times during the film where it switches from a 3-2 to a 3-3 cadence. On average the 3-3 would last for up to 3 seconds. Many of these happened just after a drop to video. With the exception of chapters 6, 8, 21, and 23, all chapter breaks dropped to video. The amount of MPEG PICs on those dropped bounced between 6, 11, and 16 MPEG PICs. I have include an example of where you can see the drop to video (in red) and the 3-3 cadence (in blue.)

- Stacey Spears -

"Chasing Holden"

Synopsis

Plot Overview

Our story begins with Neil Lawrence (D.J. Qualls) returning home from a mental institution after a long term visit do to a tragic event that took place a couple of years prior. Shortly after arriving home, Neil says hello to dad and is then whisked off to a boarding school where he must make up for the years lost. Oh, did I mention that Neil’s father is the governor of New York?

Shortly after arriving at school and dealing with a minor bully issue, Neil meets T.J. (Rachel Blanchard) and immediately falls for her. Being forced to choose an elective, Neil remembers T.J. mentioning drama class, so Neil decides that is the path to choose. After arriving in drama class, Neil partners up with T.J. for a class assignment and then the pair is chosen to do a quick improv on stage in front of the class on flirtation. Things go well for them, but what the class does not realize is that they were not really acting on stage.

Meanwhile, Neil’s class is given a writing assignment. They are to write a conclusion to the J.D. Salinger novel, “Catcher in the Rye.” This just so happens to be the book that Neil read over and over again while inside the institution. In fact, Neil had written Mr. Salinger several times but never received a response. Neil once more tries to write his hero in hopes for helping him to complete the assignment.

After Neil learns that his father is unable to spend Christmas with him, Neil decides to run away from school and head out looking for Salinger himself. He asks T.J. to join him on this adventure. Mind you, she has no idea who his father is. She has had a long time dream of seeing the city, so the two hit the road and start hitchhiking.

Neil really is obsessed with Salinger, and it begins to get on T.J.’s nerves, so she has to remind him that he is not Holden Caulfield. In fact, his obsession puts a serious strain on their relationship.

This is a more serious role for D.J. Qualls. His break-out role was in "Road Trip"; in fact Rachel was also in that movie. The other recent film with D.J. was "The New Guy". Both of these films were comedies, so seeing D.J. in a more serious role was an adventure all on its own. It is good to see him branching out so that he is not stereotyped as the goofy guy. Personally I thought Rachel was the best part of this film, as she fell right into character as free spirited T.J.

I enjoyed this film a lot, but I must warn you that it is depressing.

Technical Aspects

I found the picture quality to be quite good for an independent film. Very little edge enhancement but overall a little on the soft side. This is another dialog driven film.

Chasing Holden has an MPEG encoding error I have not seen in awhile. It has the alternating progressive_frame flag that such films as "Titanic" and "Austin Powers" have. This is a common error that happens with a specific Minerva MPEG encoder. In the example above, you see that in one PIC, the P is there but not in the next. It alternates like this for the entire film.

- Stacey Spears -

"Dragonfly"

Synopsis

Plot Overview

Joe Darrow (Kevin Costner) and his wife Emily (Susanna Thompson) are both successful doctors, but when a tragic bus accident in Venezuela takes the life of Emily, Joe’s life spirals out of control. This directly affects his work at the hospital. In one scene early on, we see Joe pass a suicide patient off to another doctor because he only wants to help people who are interested in living.

Since the accident, Joe has stopped living his own life and spends every waking minute at the hospital. When strange events start to occur, Joe is not sure if it is the exhaustion from overworking or Emily trying to contact him from beyond. He becomes obsessed with near-death experiences after he believes Emily is trying to communicate with him through her former oncology patients.

This obsession has his friends and family worried. He is forced to take a break from the hospital so that he can grieve. As time goes by, these strange events happen more frequently and with more intensity. Emily was into Dragonflies and even had a birthmark that resembled the insect. Joe begins to see these bugs everywhere.

I did not feel any emotion over Emily’s death because we never really got a chance to know who she was. There are a couple of flashback sequences, but not enough for any real character development. There are also just a couple of scenes with Joe’s family and college friends, but again, we don’t get to know any of them so they don’t really go anywhere. Surprisingly, the only person we really get to know anything about is Joe’s neighbor Miriam (Kathy Bates), but she is underused and just goes along with Joe. There is also a brief encounter with Sister Madeline (Linda Hunt) on afterlife, but it is really another dead end in the story.

I did like the way the film comes together at the finale, but I felt it took the long road to get there with a bunch of unnecessary stops.

There are several deleted scenes and I recommend you avoid them until after you have seen the film. A couple of the deleted scenes were foreshadowing what’s to come and could be considered spoilers. Many of the other deleted scenes are also in the trailer.

Technical Aspects

The video quality is very good. There is minor edge enhancement, but not distracting at all. The film is mainly dialog driven with well implemented surround ambience that adds to the eeriness of the film.

There were 15 times during the film that the MPEG flags changed from film to video. 10 of those were for 5 MPEG PICs (10 video fields.) There was one drop that lasted for 33 MPEG PICs (66 video fields) and on that lasted for 180 MPEG PICs (360 Video fields or 6 seconds.) This last drop was at the very end of the film, so it happened during the last 6 seconds of the credits, which is not really a big deal. There were no drops at all during chapter breaks, which is a good sign.

- Stacey Spears -

"Piñero"

Synopsis

Plot Overview

“Are you alone? No, I am with myself.”

Benjamin Bratt gives an amazing performance as Miguel Piñero, a famous Latino poet, playwright, actor, drug addict, and ex-con in the film "Piñero".

Piñero was the oldest sibling in his family and was also sexually abused as a child by his father. He turned to writing while serving time in prison for petty theft and drug dealing. He wrote the Tony Award winning play entitled "Short Eyes", which was later turned into a film.

On opening night of "Short Eyes", instead of being onstage to introduce the play, like he was expected, we see Piñero on the streets getting high and robbing a couple of women of their fur coats. In fact, Piñero is pretty much getting high throughout the movie. He believes he is most creative under these conditions.

During the story, we are introduced to people who had an impact on his life. Once we see a new character, the film does a flashback on how they became friends, and then we are back to the current time. Several of Piñero’s poems are read by Bratt throughout the film. While it only brushed on it in the film, Piñero also wrote an early Miami Vice episode “Smugglers Blue’s”, and he also starred in a couple more episodes, along with roles in other films like "Fort Apache the Bronx" and "Short Eyes".

The film is very stylistic. It contains many fast cuts and pans like a music video, and it is always alternating between color and black & white footage. While there is not a lot of physical violence in the film, there is strong drug use and language.

It is sometimes difficult to tell exactly where we are in time, as the film jumps around a lot. We are given the year a couple of times through captions, but the rest is just a guess. If you know the story if his life, you might better follow the film.

There is a small making of feature and the theatrical trailer on the DVD. I want to note that the DVD does not start off on the main menu. You must actually select main menu before you can get to the film.

Technical Aspects

There is a mixture of good and bad footage. Some of the scenes are very clean and free from any type of edge enhancement, while other scenes contain pretty severe edge enhancement. Some of this enhancement may be intentional, but it is difficult to know for sure.

There are 30 times during the film where the MPEG flags change from film to video. Each occurrence lasts for 5 MPEG PICs (10 video fields). There is one of these on every chapter break.

- Stacey Spears -