Interesteg
What makes it different from others?
SoTrumpBelieve
Must See Movie...
PiraBit
if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.
Siflutter
It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
happipuppi13
Bill Cosby stars in this very serious drama about a working class man,his wife and their young boy. Cosby's father character (nicknamed "Blue") is trying to get his family out of the ghetto & into a house. The couple discover that their son has sickle-cell anemia, leaving Cosby's character with the difficult & harsh task of telling his son the truth about his chances & mortality.This is a $1 DVD,the film is straight from a VHS copy,the sound is awful (turn up TV almost all the way) and almost all the color is gone.It's so old looking,it almost looks like the old educational films I used to see in school in that decade. Still,if you pay attention,you can see the good in the movie's storyline. Some of the dialog is a bit daunting and irrelevant but this and the fact that this should be cleaned up and put on a professional DVD,are my only complaints. Otherwise,it's a great look at an very realistic struggling African-American family in that era. (END)
tavm
Having mainly seen Dr. Cosby (I refer him as such because of his PHD) in "Fat Albert", "The Cosby Show", his movies with Sidney Poitier, and his guest appearances in various '70s variety shows (as well as starring in his own short-lived ABC show), I was wonderfully surprised to see him playing a dramatic role in this TV movie from his own idea about a ghetto man who works various jobs in order to save enough money to buy a home for his maid working/nurse training wife and his teenage son. Because he doesn't let his son out much, there is some animosity between them. Cosby does a good job in fleshing his character's background to his son during many of the walks and drives that are well staged by director Gilbert Gates (Oh, God! Book II, The Academy Awards). Gloria Foster (The Matrix I and II) is fine as the wife. The son (Dennis Hines) later gets a disease that is common for blacks so we also get some lessons about Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow People that leads to a very touching denouement. The $1 DVD I got is double-billed with The Black Brigade with Richard Pryor and Billy Dee Williams. Worth checking out for any Cosby fans.
drtturner
To all my friends at the shore conjures up all kinds of images of People sailing, which as one comedienne said is not so popular with the brothers after our ancestors first boat trip, Frank Sinatra singing at the casino which is by the shore, Dinah Shore and an odd assortment of other things, none of which would be popular in the inner city. This gritty and well done movie needed a better title. I can not think of a movie thats title did it such an injustice. The title comes from the final words that Cosby says to his son in jest...and it was not even an accurate exact quote. There are topics of Sickle Cell Anemia, Man and Boy (he already took that title) and ghetto that are never alluded to by such an inept title. At least the weak Taxi Driver title actually was named after the star's profession. This older film surprisingly has Cosby moments where he educates his family on the deadly disease and when he schools his son on yesterday, today and tomorrow people which is both poetic and theoretical. I'll leave it to the ladies to comment, but Cosby is leading man Denzel-like in a time that predates that icon. He is fit and trim with a wardrobe that fluctuates from a youthful jeans and muscle sweatshirt to a white collar and tie, hinting at the sense of style he would later show on his hit show.
CineTigers
I received this movie in the "50 all-star movie" collection box for $16.99, now avail as low as $10. (20 cents per movie!) A lot of little gems like this one, made for TV on TV budgets in the 1970's. Wonderful time-capsules to show our children and remember ourselves, that otherwise would be locked away.We have a straightforward plot and characters, and Cosby's were very reminiscent of my grandparents that went through the depression and saved aluminum foil, rubber bands, and Christmas bows to reuse later. Good stories establish believable characters then have them resolve a conflict, but Cosby (the writer) may have pushed too hard in defining archetypes of the goal driven father, the status quo father, the torn mother, and frustrated son. I found the father's repeated gruffness irritating, but was guessing Cosby was playing a caricature of someone from memory. The son's illness may have been a little melodramatic, but the response and resolution in the last 30 minutes (which I won't spoil) was sweet without being saccharine and seemed to me somehow special yet reasonable for the man we had come to know.This movie would not have won an Oscar, but I enjoyed it just the same.