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Juice , a review by samuelrichardscott

Juice (1992) R2 UK

Shortened Review:
Films about inner city life, and in particular, street 'thugs' or gangs, can go one of two ways. You get the good ones; gritty, close to the bone with violence shot in a certain way and with a story that can be quite deep about anything from revenge to sticking together. And then you get the bad ones; usually low budget knock-offs that use inner city violence and strong language with a formulaic story and a big name to sell discs whilst the film itself will generally have no real 'meaning' (Snitch'd being a great example). Usually, one thing both of these genre types have in common, is the appearance of a rap star, be it Ice Cube, Eminem (8 Mile), Snoop Dogg, Treach or Sticky Fingaz. Juice, has Tupac.

Tupac plays Bishop, one of four friends from the harsh streets of Harlem who spend their days in a local pool hall (ran by Samuel L. Jackson) hustling, playing truant from school, fighting and shoplifting. Although they take part in lower end criminal activity, they run away from anything more. However, hungry for power and happiness (which they refer to as 'the juice'), they decide to rob a local convenience store where Bishop shoots dead the owner. As things spiral out of control, their lives are changed forever.

Omar Epps (TV's House), Tupac Shakur (Poetic Justice), Jermaine Hopkins (Lean On Me) and Khalil Kain (TV's Girlfriends) play the four friends; Q, Bishop, Steel and Raheem well and their characters gel together perfectly. The characters themselves are developed throughout the film enough to get you to know their personality strengths and weaknesses fast, especially in the opening few scenes. We also get cameos from Samuel L. Jackson (Jackie Brown) as the owner of the local pool hall/arcade where the kids hang out when cutting school and from Queen Latifah as the owner of the club holding the Mixxmaster competition that Q enters. Both Jackson and Latifah appear a couple of times and although their screentime is short they are both welcome additions.

Director Ernest R. Dickinson, who was cinematographer on Spike Lee's early films, made a good first impression for his first feature length movie, working well with cinematographer Larry Banks to give the film that gritty, dark feel. As he also co-wrote the screenplay with Gerard Brown, it is obvious he achieved the look and feel he was aiming for.

As far as the story goes, it isn't the most original, however the character development, above average cast and gritty feel make this one of the better films based around inner-city life and what people feel they must do for respect of the nineties.

Full Review:
http://www.dvdcompare.net/review.php?rid=2503

Released 3rd October 2011.

(From Never Ending Movie Marathon (short reviews) on August 19th, 2011)

Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India, a review by dfmorgan

Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India

Year: 2001
Director: Ashutosh Gowariker
Cast: Aamir Khan, Gracy Singh, Rachel Shelley, Paul Blackthorne

OverviewWatched: 11th. Aug 2010
My Thoughts: An enjoyable film. I thought that maybe I had seen it before but was pleased to find that I hadn't. An over-bearing boorish English army officer, Captain Russell (Paul Blackthorne), takes pleasure in belittleing the locals. The local villages are in the middle of a long drought and Captain Russell decides to double the taxes (Lagaan). When challenged by the local villagers, led by Bhuvan (Aamir Khan), he decides to play them in a game of cricket with an important condition, the penalty being triple taxes if the Army win and no taxes for 3 years if the locals win. There is also a sort of love triangle for Bhuvan between Elizabeth (Rachel Shelley), the sister of the Captain, and Gauri (Gracy Singh) a local village girl.

My Rating: A very enjoyable 4

Dave

(From Dave's DVD/Blu-ray Reviews on August 11th, 2010)

Tom's TV Pilots marathon, a review by Tom

Berlin, Berlin: Complete Series (2002/Germany) IMDb | Wikipedia Universum Film, Das Erste (Germany) Length: 2150 min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78 Audio: German: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Subtitles:

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Berlin, Berlin
Season 1.01 Landflucht
Writer: David Safier (Writer)
Director: Franziska Meyer Price
Cast: Felicitas Woll (Lolle), Sandra Borgmann, Jan Sosniok, Matthias Klimsa, Maverick Quek, Charlotte Schwab, Jürgen Mai, Andi Slawinski, Kai Lentrodt, Alexa Wiegandt, Fabio Beyer, Sandra Keller, Kaspar Eichel

This series is often compared to "Mein Leben und ich" (a German TV series I enjoyed watching), but I never saw an episode before. Recently I saw the complete series set cheap on Amazon and decided to take a shot at it. And if the rest of the series is as good as the pilot episode, I won't regret this decision.
So far it really is similar to "Mein Leben und ich" (which in turn is based on the US series "My So-Called Life"), except that here the main protagonist isn't a high school girl, but has just finished school and is moving to the big city (Berlin) by herself.
So far I only know the main star Felicitas Woll from the movie "Liebe Mauer", which I also enjoyed. Though I learned now, that she also replaced Wolke (the main star in "Mein Leben und ich") in the comedy series "Die Camper", after they exchanged the complete main cast after the first season. Quite fitting.

Rating:

(From Tom's TV Pilots marathon on August 12th, 2012)