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 Recent history: Some other excellent choices from the past 10 years Friday, February 02, 2001 By Barbara Vancheri, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
It's impossible to list every movie that might make a good Black History Month rental. Why, Denzel Washington films could consume an entire list. So could Spike Lee, Morgan Freeman or Sidney Poitier movies, and PG columnist Tony Norman already wrote this week about one of my favorites, "To Sir, With Love." (I still know all the song lyrics, by the way.)
But here are some other videos to consider, all from the '90s except the first title:
"Love & Basketball," 2000 -- This is a basketball movie that doesn't come out of the 'hood, it comes out of the upper-middle class. It has appealing leads in Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps, a well-rounded portrait of their family life and a look at the rigors of the game.
"The Hurricane," 1999 -- Although the movie was flawed -- it combined or invented some characters and fictionalized some incidents -- Denzel Washington does his usual brilliant work as boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter.
"The Best Man," 1999 -- Writer-director Malcolm Lee, cousin of Spike, directs this romantic comedy about a writer (Taye Diggs) whose steamy new novel, a thinly disguised narrative of his friends' lives, is about to hit bookstores.
"Introducing Dorothy Dandridge," 1999 -- Halle Berry earned an armful of awards, including an Emmy, for her portrayal of the actress-singer-dancer whose talent eclipsed Hollywood's racist reaction to her.
"Our Friend, Martin," 1999 -- This animated feature is about a pair of 12-year-old boys, one white and one black, who magically travel back in time to meet the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at various points in his life. Animation is interspersed with historical footage of events such as the "I Have a Dream" speech.
"Pleasantville," 1998 -- A very sly backup pick, from Derek C. Riley. On the surface, it's about siblings who get sucked into a TV set and transformed into characters on the 1950s set of "Pleasantville." But color begins to creep into everyone's lives, changing everything. As Riley says, "If you watch that film, there are definite messages there about being different and acceptance."
"4 Little Girls," 1997 -- Spike Lee's Oscar-nominated documentary revisits the 1963 Birmingham, Ala., church bombing that claimed four young lives. Relatives, friends and witnesses recall how the tragedy galvanized the civil rights movement.
"Eve's Bayou," 1997 -- At the Telluride festival years ago, this was the only film to receive a standing ovation. It's a drama set in the Louisiana bayou's black high society and with an excellent cast that includes Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield and Debbi Morgan.
"Rosewood," 1997 -- Director John Singleton recounts the horrible events in the title Florida town, a prosperous African-American community destroyed in 1923 by a mob of angry whites. Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle and Jon Voight lead the cast.
"Get on the Bus," 1996 -- Lee puts his signature stamp on the Million Man March with this look at a fictional group traveling to Washington, D.C. A cross-country trip turns into a journey of the heart, with some help from Ossie Davis, Andre Braugher, Charles Dutton and others.
"Devil in a Blue Dress," 1995 -- Denzel Washington is Easy Rawlins, an unemployed World War II hero who finds trouble in this stylish mystery set in the late 1940s and based on a Walter Mosley novel. Also starring Cheadle, now shining in the excellent ensemble that is "Traffic."
"The Tuskegee Airmen," 1995 -- Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Braugher lead the cast in this HBO drama about the "Fighting 99th" squadron in World War II.
"Angels in the Outfield," 1994 -- Danny Glover, a gruff team manager, evolves into a father figure for two baseball-loving boys in this remake of the 1951 fantasy about heavenly help for bumbling ballplayers. The story's been moved from Pittsburgh's long-gone Forbes Field to California.
"Crooklyn," 1994 -- Lee's semiautobiographical film about a black family in Brooklyn in the '70s, views life filtered through the eyes of a 10-year-old girl.
"Fear of a Black Hat," 1994 -- Pittsburgh native Rusty Cundieff directed and stars in this sendup of gangsta rap. It traces the rise and fall of a trio of South Central-based rappers whose history bears an uncanny resemblance to a real-life group from the late '80s.
"Drop Squad," 1994 -- When an advertising man on the fast track, played by "ER" star Eriq La Salle, is seen as sacrificing his family and neighborhood relationships to get ahead, the squad is summoned. It's a secret militant organization that kidnaps and deprograms African-American men and women who supposedly have sold out.
"Daughters of the Dust," 1992 -- Julie Dash focuses on the women of the Peazant family who make the difficult decision to migrate from the secluded Sea Islands off the South Carolina-Georgia coast to the American mainland. A poetic film.
"The Long Walk Home," 1991 -- The Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott of the mid-1950s is seen through the eyes of two women: Sissy Spacek and Whoopi Goldberg. One's a homemaker and the other's her maid and both actresses are terrific.
"Boyz N the Hood," 1991 -- When Columbia Pictures wanted to buy John Singleton's script, he insisted on guiding it to screen. "I wasn't going to let some fool from Idaho or Encino direct a movie about living in my neighborhood," he reportedly said. The 23-year-old proved himself right by earning Oscar nominations for directing and writing.
Later this month, look for: "Ruby Bridges," the 1998 TV movie about the first black child to enroll at an all-white school in New Orleans. The real Ruby Bridges spoke to nearly 1,000 people at East Liberty Presbyterian Church last month. (If you can't find it to rent, you could order it since it should be reasonably priced.)
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