Charles Sammarco Movies
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Benjamin Bratt, Giancarlo Esposito, (more)
- 1997
This independent comedy-drama follows a stray dog as he wanders from one New York neighborhood to another, proving a link between the stories of a number of otherwise unrelated characters. The dog's chance acquaintances include a businessman who has skipped out of work and is trying to pick up a free-thinking woman he meets on the street; a guy with a bowling ball who thinks that it might be fun to toss it out of his apartment window; a man trying to make a delivery who is pursued by a pair of toughs; an artist deciding where the first brushstroke should go on his latest canvas; and a man who takes his much younger girlfriend to a bar as he works up the nerve to break up with her. One Dog Day marked the feature debut for writer and director John Hyams; the rock band Kilgore Trout contributed the film's original score. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
