Eagle-Eye Cherry Movies

Part of The Blues documentary series on PBS, The Soul of a Man is written and directed by Wim Wenders and narrated by Laurence Fishburne. This installment explores the work of the filmmaker's personal musical heroes: Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson, and J.B. Lenoir. Through reenactments and archive footage, Wenders tells the personal stories of these highly influential and often underappreciated artists. Their musical legacy is interpreted through live performances by contemporary musicians like Bonnie Raitt, Cassandra Wilson, Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Lucinda Williams, Beck, and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. He also incorporates rare clips from two 16 mm films shot during the '60s by Steve and Rönnog Seaberg. The Soul of a Man was originally broadcast by PBS on September 29, 2003. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Contrary to expectations, The Hit Man is not about a mob torpedo but instead deals with a Spielberg-style moviemaker, played by Dennis Boutsikaris. The villain is a loan shark (Nick Pryor) who's been reducing honest folks to penury. Utilizing the special-effects trickery at his disposal, Boutsikaris arranges a major sting to thwart the bad guy (F/X, anyone?) The Hit Man's crew is a lovable polyglot of misfits, the sort that would make excellent "regulars" were this TV movie a weekly series. Could this have been what the producers of Hit Man had in mind? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of a two-part story (originally telecast as a single one-hour special), Slide (Mushond Lee) is pressuring Pam (Erika Alexander) to prove her love by having sex with him: "We both know how we feel about each other, now's the time we did something about it." In his efforts to prove that "everybody's doing it," Slide gets his friend Lance (Allen Payne) in hot water; it seems that Lance has been bragging about sleeping with his own girlfriend Charmaine (Karen Malina White)--which is news to her! Back at the Huxtable household, Cliff (Bill Cosby) and Clair (Phylicia Rashad) try to keep their cool while counseling Pam, but are unable to hide their shock and dismay when she asks permission to take birth-control pills. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second of three films by co-writer/director Oliver Stone to explore the effects of the Vietnam War (Platoon and Heaven and Earth are the others), Born On The Fourth Of July tells the true story of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), a patriotic, All-American small town athlete who shocks his family by enlisting with the Marines to fight in the Vietnam War. Once he is overseas, however, Kovic's gung-ho enthusiasm turns to horror and confusion when he accidentally kills one of his own men in a firefight. His downfall is furthered by a bullet wound that leaves him paralyzed from the chest down. He returns home, spends an appalling, nightmarish stint in a veterans' hospital, and follows an increasingly disillusioned and fragmented path that ultimately leaves him drunk and dissolute in Mexico. However, Kovic somehow turns himself around and pulls his life together, becoming an outspoken anti-war activist in the process. The film is long but emotionally powerful; many consider it Stone's best work and Cruise's best performance. Both were nominated for Oscars, as was the film itself, but only Stone, who co-wrote the film with Kovic from the latter's book, won for Best Director. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide