Willard allen

Description:

Directors Allen and Albert Hughes (MENACE II SOCIETY) return for another stylish take on the crime element in DEAD PRESIDENTS. A young black man from Brooklyn leaves his girlfriend and his numbers-running mentor to fight in Vietnam in 1968 only to return three years later to find no welcome and little hope for him and his buddies. Unemployed and desperate, he plans and executes an armored car robbery to secure enough "dead presidents" (slang for cash) to give him a fresh start. A RAGE IN HARLEM starts out with brutal violence, proceeds into bawdy comedy, and somehow ends up a surprisingly touching love story. Forest Whitaker stars as Jackson, a naively pious accountant at a Harlem funeral parlor. When the sexy Imabelle, played to vamping perfection by Robin Givens, rolls into town with a trunk full of stolen gold, Jackson's world is turned upside down. But when the bad guys arrive--hot on Imabelle's heels--Jackson desperately turns to his estranged stepbrother, Goldy (Gregory Hines), the only person he knows who might have the street smarts to get them all out of trouble.

Description:

Writer Annabelle Gurwitch's book FIRED! is brought to the screen in this celebrity-packed testament to the benefits of losing your job. Gurwitch's impetus to look into the experience of getting fired came after Woody Allen gave her the boot from an off-Broadway play called WRITER'S BLOCK, and now she hands the baton to filmmakers Chris Bradley and Kyle LeBranche, who further her efforts by talking to a number of people about their dismissals. Stars such as David Cross (MR. SHOW), Sarah Silverman (JESUS IS MAGIC), Jeff Garlin (CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM), Fred Willard (BEST IN SHOW), and Harry Shearer (THIS IS SPINAL TAP) provide amusing anecdotes as the directors flash back and forth between their reminiscences and scenes from the stage play Gurwitch developed on the same subject. Non-famous people provide equally illuminating thoughts, even inducing memories of Michael Moore's 1989 documentary ROGER AND ME, as workers at a General Motors plant expound on their fears about potential job loss. But the film never dwells on serious matters for too long, and it soon becomes apparent that its disparate subjects are united in the feeling that getting fired isn't so bad as long as you hold on to your sense of humor--actor Tate Donovan even turns his experiences into a masterly piece of puppet theater. A witty and enjoyable film about a subject that, for most people, is anything but funny, FIRED! could be just the tonic any newly unemployed person needs.

Description:

Chris Rock stars in this rap version of THIS IS SPINAL TAP as Albert, a suburban wannabe rap star who, along with two friends, has tried everything to break into the music business. However, when Albert is mistakes for an undercover cop by a nasty thug named Murphy, he adopts the newly incarcerated Murphy's persona and christens his rap group CB4, after Murphy's cell block address. Vowing to glorify violence and disparage women, CB4 are quickly signed to a lucrative record contract. Soon, the band is selling out concerts, and attracts a nerdy documentary filmmaker (Elliott) to chronicle their rise to the top of the charts among the protests of outraged parents and politicians. Fitfully funny and possessing a fine cast of SNL alums as well as cameos from real life rappers like Flavor Flav, Ice Cube, and Ice-T, CB4 is an excellent spoof of the rap music industry.