Elliott, Shawn

Beat Street

An aspiring dj from the south bronx and his best friend a promoter try to get into show business by exposing people to hip-hop music and culture. Studio: Tcfhe/mgm Release Date: 01/06/2009 Starring: Rae Dawn Chong Jon Chardiet Run time: 106 minutes Rating: Pg Director: Stan Lathan

A slightly dated but nonetheless fascinating snapshot of musical history, Beat Street is an urban musical detailing the roots of hip-hop. Set in early-1980s New York, the film focuses on the lives of a small group of young people setting their experiences against the larger backdrop of the city's burgeoning music scene. The story of up-and-coming DJ Kenny (Guy Davis) and his relationship with jazz musician Tracy (Rae Dawn Chong) may only be a device, but it's surprisingly effective, as is the ultimately tragic tale of graffiti artist Ramon (Jon Chardiet). The movie's real raison d'être, however, is to showcase the sounds of the street, so it's full of some of hip-hop's most influential names--Melle Mel, Doug E Fresh, Kool Moe Dee, the Rocksteady Crew, Jazzy Jeff, and Arthur Baker. And while the combination of electro and rapping may sound a little crude to modern ears, there can be no doubt that Beat Street is the sight and sound of history being made. --Phil Udell

Death in Small Doses

One night Nancy Lyon awakes in pain and dies shortly after - poisoned with arsenic. Her family immediately suspects her husband Richard, who left her temporarily the year before because of an affair. Especially Nancy's brother is keen on getting the children away from the suspected murderer. All evidence points against Richard, but in court Richard surprisingly presents proof that his wife had depressions and maybe killed herself - or are these proofs just fake? -- Depicts an authentic case.

Double Take

Studio: Buena Vista Home Video Release Date: 01/13/2004 Run time: 92 minutes Rating: Pg13

For reasons that are still fuzzy even by the time final credits roll for Double Take, Wall Street hotshot Daryl Chase (Orlando Jones), framed for both financial wrongdoings and murder, heads to Mexico after exchanging identities with fast-talking Freddie (Eddie Griffin), who is either the key to his freedom or the engineer of his demise. The incomprehensible and supposedly madcap twists and turns that follow make mindless buddy flicks like Rush Hour seem giants of brainy plotting in comparison. The film even features one of those unintentionally hysterical moments in which the villain stops to explain the entire charade to characters who supposedly already know what's going on--and it still doesn't make any sense. None of this would matter, of course, if everything was propelled by some sort of internal screwball logic that had it playfully bouncing over its plot holes. But writer-director George Gallo can't streamline his potential assets--Jones's suave likeability and Griffin's take-no-prisoners crassness--into something that moves. Some of the throwaway comic asides work ("You keep campaigning for this ass-whuppin', you gonna get elected"), but every single one of the extended bits is painfully strained and overdone. Griffin, in particular, becomes desperately obnoxious, and saddling him with clumsy comments on race and social status in a comedy that is ultimately about neither doesn't help. Try 48 Hours instead. --Steve Wiecking

Short Eyes

Though time and HBO's Oz have eclipsed its ground-breaking impact, Short Eyes remains a milestone of American independent film, and a vital entry in the prison-film genre. Adapted by Miguel Piñero from his acclaimed play, this gritty drama was filmed in Manhattan's infamous Men's House of Detention (better known as "the Tombs"), giving a rough, authentic edge to Piñero's unflinching portrait of men trapped in legal-system limbo. Inmate tensions intensify when an alleged pedophile ("Short Eyes" in prison slang, played by Bruce Davison) is dropped into detention, and instantly ostracized by white, Latino, and black inmates alike. Under the documentary-like direction of Robert M. Young, this claustrophobic, emotionally raw study of hopelessness was a real eye-opener for its time (1977), revealing depths of anguish, danger, and cruelty that had never before been dramatized on film. Paving the way for harsher prison dramas that followed, Short Eyes features Piñero in a supporting role, and look closely for Traffic's Luis Guzmán in his screen debut. --Jeff Shannon

Caught

The ever-underrated director Robert M. Young (Dominick and Eugene) made this tense variation on The Postman Always Rings Twice. Edward James Olmos and Maria Conchita Alonso star as a long-married couple who run a fish store. When a young drifter (Arie Verveen) enters their lives as an employee and inhabitant of their home, he and Alonso commence an affair made all the more dangerous when the couple's creepy son (Steven Schub) moves back in. The ensuing Oedipal competitiveness grows to an explosive finale, and while the mythic underpinnings of the story may be a bit obvious, the film moves as fluidly and is as involving as any of Young's fine work. Lots of suspense, a richly noiresque tone, and terrific acting on everyone's part, particularly Schub. --Tom Keogh

Blue Moon

A magical story about an older couple (Ben Gazzara and Rita Moreno) who try to rekindle their love one night in the Catskills.

Crossover Dreams

"Latin Music star Ruben Blades stars in CROSSOVER DREAMS, a brash and brassy story that does for salsa music roughly what THE HARDER THEY COME did for Reggae. Blades- compared by critics to Bruce Springsteen for his charismatic performing style, driving rhythm, complex lyrics, and political savvy plays Rudy Veloz, a Barrio singing star determined to jump the salsa circuit and aim for big-time success in the mainstream. The rise-and-fall-and-rise storyline takes Rudy on a bumpy ride through life in the fast lane: drugs, compromises, easy credit, easy women, broken promises, and shattered dreams. As in EL SUPER, director Ichaso displays a gift for low-key humor and offhand vignettes, the film's casual structure exploding in exhilarating bursts of lyricism and energy, keyed on flashy fluorescent colors and set to the pervasive Afro-Cuban rhythms provided by Blades and other Hispanic artists such as Conjunto Libre, Andy Gonzoles, Jerry Gonzales, Yomo Toro, Virginia Marti and Marco Rizo.

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Off Beat [Region 2]

Blue Moon

Crossover Dreams