Hope Clarke Movies
Mad Matthewz makes his feature debut as a writer/director with Men Without Jobs. Ish (Ishmael Butler, formerly of the jazz-influenced rap group Digable Planets) and Oz (Bonz Malone of Slam) are roommates scrounging by in Brooklyn, barely scraping the rent together each month, and ignoring their bills. They spend their days hanging out, smoking, drinking, and playing video games. Ish wants to make it in the music biz, while Oz watches daytime cooking shows and puts his culinary skills to work impressing the grandmother of his young daughter, in hopes that his little girl will eventually come to live with him. Occasionally they visit their favorite record store, where Ish plans to buy rare R&B records when he gets some money, and peppers the proprietor with potential band names. Their pal Junie (Andre Royo of HBO's The Wire) frequently pops by, begging to be in their as yet unformed band, bragging about his beats, and lying about meetings with famous producers. Ish makes regular visits to his parents' house, but only when they aren't home. He raids the fridge and borrows his dad's (Reg E. Cathey) old records. One day, Ish meets Veronica (Anita Kopacz), a pretty young woman who shares his interest in graffiti and music. Veronica encourages Ish's creative ambitions, but his reluctance to take the next step -- to actually follow through on his dreams -- threatens their relationship. Oz, meanwhile, gambles his way into trouble with some local thugs. When he goes on the run, Ish and Veronica decide to go with him. Men Without Jobs had its world premiere at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ishmael Butler, Bonz Malone, (more)
- 2002
While celebrating his most recent courtroom victory, in which an accused cop killer was set free, a prominent attorney is gunned down. Though Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Green (Jesse L. Martin) are none too unhappy that the lawyer is out of commission, they dutifully investigate the murder, following the trail of evidence to an out-of-town white supremacist organization. While preparing his case for court, ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) stumbles across a disturbing piece of evidence that may very well destroy the career of his longtime friendly adversary, defense attorney Danielle Melnick (Tovah Feldshuh). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
While twin sisters Tia Mowry and Tamera Mowry gained fame playing twin sisters on the sitcom Sister Sister, this comic fantasy finds them stretching their talents by playing grandmother and granddaughter. When the Donovan family moves from California to Connecticut, 17-year-old Sydney (Tia Mowry) finds it's not easy being in a new town away from her old friends, but her 12-year-old genius brother Willie (Tahj Mowry) is happy as long as he can tinker in his lab with his increasingly complex experiments. Willie is convinced he can defeat the aging process, and while devising an experimental anti-aging formula, he accidentally spills some on a bar of soap. When his grandmother Cat (Hope Clarke) mistakenly uses the tainted soap, she's transformed into a 17-year-old (Tamera Mowry). Her husband Gene (Robert Hooks) follows suit, and is also returned to his teenaged self (Mark Taylor). Cat and Gene are having a fine time reliving their youth and enjoying the thrill of teenage romance, but there's a fly in the ointment -- Willie learns his formula could have deadly side effects, and now he must discover an antidote to return his grandparents to their older but healthy bodies. Seventeen Again also features an appearance by popular vocal group Boyz II Men; one of the group's singers, Shawn Stockman, served as executive producer for the project. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tia Mowry, Tamera Mowry, (more)
Andy Warhol was a phenomenon who warrants a lot of explaining: a completely colorless mega-star celebrity, and a kind of LaBrea Tarpit for a vivid and talented collection of oddballs in the New York scene. He fostered their continued degeneration into weird lifestyles and heavy drug use; and at the same time acted as their mentor, agent, and sponsor. One artist who came to be part of Warhol's "scene" was Jean Michel Basquiat, an antisocial street-bum who went from writing graffiti on alley walls to being the toast of New York City's art world. This film biography chronicles the progression of Basquiat (Jeffrey Wright) and his progression from living in cardboard boxes to penthouses, his romances, his drug use, and his death in 1988 at age 27. Along the way, he never stopped detesting the rich, including art agent Bruno Bischofberger (Dennis Hopper), and he never lost his naivete. Warhol (David Bowie) picks up some of the pieces as Basquiat lurches through the art scene. Cameo appearances by Tatum O'Neal and Courtney Love add spice to this interesting film. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeffrey Wright, Michael Wincott, (more)
- 1996
A black student is murdered, and the main suspect claims that she had been previously drugged and raped by the dead man. The parents of the victim insist that the girl is lying and demand that the DA's office prosecute the case to the fullest extent of the law. The outcome hinges upon two mutually dependent "airtight" alibis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The time is the 1950s: seedy Brooklyn private eye Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) is hired by shady Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) to locate a pop singer who reneged on a debt. Harry ventures into Harlem, the first step of a Heart of Darkness-inspired odyssey. Each time Harry makes contact with someone who might know the singer's whereabouts, he or she is killed in a horrible, ritualistic fashion; a Satanic cult seems to be at the bottom of all the carnage. Harry solves the mystery, all right. He just didn't know that he had the answer all along -- even before Louis entered his office. Also available in the "unrated" video version, Angel Heart is best known as the film that nearly got an X-rating due to a no-holds-barred sex scene involving Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, (more)
Filled with enough cameos to keep film buffs entertained, this otherwise routine action-comedy by John Landis boasts Michelle Pfeiffer as one of its major attractions. She plays Diana, a woman prone to having affairs with some very dangerous men, and Jeff Goldblum is Ed Okin, an aerospace engineer whose lot is thrown in with Diana's when the woman is caught in a bind at the airport. The beautiful Diana is an airhead on the scale of the Hindenberg, her only concerns are clothes and men -- which she either most attractively wears or wears out, depending. While Ed is at the airport one day trying to sort out his life, Diana arrives with six smuggled emeralds in tow and is immediately welcomed by several hired assassins. Fear and expediency propel her into Ed's car, and the two are off on a series of narrow escapes that has them pursued by everyone from Iranians to baddies played by well-known international directors (Roger Vadim) or singers (David Bowie) or comedians (Dan Aykroyd). ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer, (more)
Jon Chardiet plays a Puerto Rican youth who targets subway walls for his graffiti renderings. For a while, it looks as though Chardiet's problems will carry the plotline, but before long the film's true raison d'etre comes to the surface. Rap-music deejay Guy Davis, in tandem with such like-minded individuals as music student Rae Dawn Chong, endeavor to stage a huge breakdancing presentation, featuring several musical artistes of the period. Harry Belafonte served as coproducer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rae Dawn Chong, Guy Davis, (more)
A medical student decides to enter the world of boxing and dives into a life of superficial values and corruption in this remake of the 1947 classic. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leon Isaac Kennedy, Jayne Kennedy, (more)
- 1979
Apparently weary of playing victim-of-the-week, Elizabeth Montgomery goes the Joan Crawford route playing a fabulously wealthy and stupendously bored matron who is about to be divorced by her wealthy husband. Hubby conveniently expires while dallying with his mistress. The upshot is that Ms. Montgomery is made executive vice president of the boat-building business that she'd helped her husband establish. Moral: Marry well, ladies, and you too can become a CEO. Basically a very slight TV movie, Jennifer: A Woman's Story is bloated way beyond its worth into a Ross Hunter-type sudser; the British TV series upon which it was based, The Foundation, was more austere, and frankly more enjoyable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1978
Violet (Marilyn Coleman), the terrifying wife of the Evanses' usurious landlord, Nathan Bookman (Johnny Brown), becomes convinced that her husband is cheating on her. Thanks to circumstantial evidence -- namely, what transpires before her very own eyes -- Violet grimly determines the identity of the "other woman." Given the title of this episode, need anyone wonder about the identity of the supposed (but entirely innocent) homewrecker? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1977
It may be the Christmas season -- and the first wedding anniversary of Lionel and Jenny Jefferson (Damon Evans, Berlinda Tolbert) -- but Lionel's mom, Louise (Isabel Sanford), isn't in a festive mood. She wants to know why her husband, George (Sherman Hemsley), has been sneaking out at odd hours, and she intends to find out by following him. The trail leads to Harlem, an old apartment building -- and a big and chastening surprise for the suspicious Louise. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sherman Hemsley, Isabel Sanford, (more)
Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier, co-stars of the comic capers Uptown Saturday Night and Let's Do It Again, team up again for this socially conscious comedy-adventure. This time out, Poitier and Cosby play Manny Durrell and Dave Anderson, Windy City con artists with a long history of cheating crooks who rip off the poor. They are blackmailed by retired cop Joshua Burke (James Earl Jones) into "giving back to the community." Manny and Dave soon find themselves posing as career counselors for a group of surly inner-city youths at a local community center. Despite the efforts of such unruly kids as class clown Gerald (Eric Laneuville) and bitter Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph), Manny actually begins to take pride in the help he's giving to his students. Soon, though, he's forced to deal with two additional obstacles: the arrival of his girlfriend's obnoxious parents (Gammy Burdett and Wonderful Smith) and the attentions of a local mobster (Titos Vandis) upset that he's been had. As with his previous Cosby collaborations, Poitier directed A Piece of the Action, whose cast also includes Denise Nicholas as a community center leader, Tracy Reed as Manny's girlfriend, Nikki, and Ja'net DuBois as Nikki's tipsy aunt, Nellie. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hope Clarke, Bill Cosby, (more)
Raymond St. Jacques both directs and stars in The Book of Numbers. St. Jacques and Philip Thomas play depression-era African Americans, barely making out an existence as waiters in a deep-south community. Both men decide that there's more money to be had on the shadier side of the law, so they set up a successful rural numbers racket. All goes well until the operation attracts the attention of white crime boss Gilbert Greene. Though no one is particularly admirable in The Book of Numbers, the audience remains firmly on the side of the black characters, if only by default. The film was based on a novel by Robert Dean Phaar. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1971
- PG
Robert Mitchum delivers a top-notch performance as Harry Graham, a lonely and tender lout of a father who, released from prison after having killed his wife many years ago, has to start anew but must deal with his embittered teenage son Jimmy (Jan-Michael Vincent). Jimmy, seeking vengeance upon his father, tracks him from the prison where he was incarcerated to the run-down seashore community where Harry is now eking out a living in a trailer park with his girlfriend Jenny (Brenda Vaccaro). When Jimmy at last confronts his father face to face, he finds he has to deal with many unresolved emotional barriers in their relationship. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Brenda Vaccaro, (more)
- 1969
- R
A married couple struggles to adjust when the husband's brain is transplanted into the skull of a black man. David Rowe (Raymond St. Jacques) is the white district attorney who must now live life as a black man. His wife Margaret (Susan Oliver) tries to deal with the transformation of her husband's appearance as David feels the stings of racial prejudice for the first time. Sheriff Webb (Leslie Nielsen) is the local lawman who resents the district attorney, but after the sheriff kills his own black mistress, he must rely on David for his legal defense. Margaret has trouble being intimate with the man she knows is still her husband. David investigates the murder of the young black woman as his superiors, friends and family treat him differently. Although the premise is implausible, excellent acting helps make things more believable. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Raymond St. Jacques, Susan Oliver, (more)
