Loraine Velez Movies
- 2002
Rosatti, a New York contractor with mob connections, is found murdered in his own brownstone apartment. At first the killing seems to have been the end result of a botched robbery, but Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Green (Jesse L. Martin) have reason to believe that Rosatti died in a professional hit ordered by the victim's trophy wife Sherri (Gretchen Egolf) and her paramour Tony Darrow (Bobby Cannavale). Just when the noose seems to be tightening around the alleged perpetrators, ADA Southerlyn (Elisabeth Rohm) unearths a startling new piece of evidence. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Miguel Pinero became a leading figure in New York's art scene during the 1970s as a poet, actor, and playwright whose vibrant, often pointed, work spoke directly to the lower classes and to disenfranchised minorities. As a founder of the influential Nuyorican Poets Cafe, his poetry soon became recognized as a forerunner to rap and hip-hop music. TV screenwriter turned director Leon Ichaso spins this impressionistic biographical look at this artist. Raised in an abusive family, Pinero (Benjamin Bratt) turns to streets for solace. Soon he is engaging in petty crime, drug dealing, and addiction. When he finds himself in Sing-Sing, he turns his experiences in prison into the play Short Eyes, which eventually garners him seven Tony awards in 1974. Uncomfortable with his new fame, he clings to his girlfriend, Sugar (Talisa Soto), and his childhood buddy, Miguel Algarin (Giancarlo Esposito), who is a literature professor and who co-founded the Nuyorican Cafe. Though Pinero makes cameos on such shows as Kojak, his art begins to suffer as he starts to succumb to his drug addictions. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Benjamin Bratt, Giancarlo Esposito, (more)
