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DVD The Corner (HBO Miniseries)
The bleak reality of drug addiction is captured with unflinching authenticity in The Corner, an excellent, reality-based HBO miniseries. Having lived on the streets of West Baltimore, Maryland, where this compelling drama takes place, actor-director Charles S. Dutton knows the territory, physically, socially, and emotionally, and his compassionate approach is vital to the series' success. Dutton cares for his characters deeply enough to give them a realistic shred of hope, even when hope is consistently dashed by the ravages of addiction. This is, at its root, a family tragedy, focusing on errant father Gary (T.K. Carter, in a heartbreaking performance) a once-successful investor trapped in a tailspin of heroin dependency. His estranged wife Fran (Khandi Alexander) was the first to get hooked, and she's struggling to get clean, while their 15-year-old son DeAndre (Sean Nelson, from the indie hit Fresh) deals drugs, temporarily avoiding their deadly allure while facing the challenge of premature fatherhood.
Through revealing flashbacks and numerous local characters, we see the explicit fallout of addiction, and while violence occasionally erupts, its constant threat is secondary to Dutton's dramatic vision, which remains steadfastly alert to the humanity and neglected potential of these lost and searching souls. The Corner is, essentially, the civilian flipside of HBO's equally laudable series The Wire, which approaches a similar neighborhood from a police-squad perspective. Performances are uniformly superb, details are uncannily perfect, and for all of its human horror, The Corner is riveting, not depressing. A closing interview with the characters' real-life counterparts bears witness to the fact that these lives--with inevitable exceptions--need not be lost forever. --Jeff Shannon
As a certified Substance abuse counselor, I show THE CORNER once a year to the 70+ teenagers that I work with. In the three years I've been showing it I have not had a single teen who wasn't moved by and impressed with it. It's the only film i show that they want to see over and over again.
As a recovering addict I can attest to the film's accuracy. It's gritty, it's painful, it's the reality of many inner city neighborhoods and the real end result to addiction.
As a tool for working with substance using teens, this film provides a plethora of topics to process and discuss.
I cannot speak too highly of it.
Not Just Another Evil Dope Flick
I never seen this before geting the DVD, but had references through the DVD's and book on The Wire. As I started to watch the first eppisode I immeadiatly thought I made a mistake. I thought this was just going to be one of those same old formula flicks about drug addiction that just keep showing a person starting as an non addict and eventually falling so damn low and hard that I generally feel worse for seeing it than entertained. The Corner does show a lot of the ugliness that surrounds a community of drug addicts, but there's far more to it than that.
The creators of this mini series did an excellent job of showing the many sides surounding addiction. Primarilly they showed the addicts not as some no good for nothing scum that doesn't deseve a second look, but as real people living through daily situations like we all do, but with the proverbial "Monkey On Their Back" besides. The many layers of this mini series really makes this a work of art, and very entertaining to boot.
Excellent Movie!!
This movie was excellent! This is one of the best mini-series I seen since Queen (The Alex Haley movie series). The actors were outstanding and convincing. I really appreciate the authenticity of the movie. The entire movie was shot in the actually neighborhood from the book. I knew that a television series would come from this book (The Wire).
It hardly seems possible, but The Wire's second season is even better than the first. The "visual novel" concept of this masterful HBO series is taken even further in a rich, labyrinthine plot revolving around the longshoremen of Baltimore's struggling cargo docks, where corruption, smuggling, and murder draw the attention of detective McNulty (Dominic West). What follows is a series of events which at first seem unrelated (including 13 bodies found in a cargo container), and then the ongoing effort to topple the drug empire of "Stringer" Bell (Idris Elba) and the imprisoned Avon Barksdale (Wood Harris), whose business is suffering from short supply, high demand, and disruption of distribution. The dutiful diligence of a Marine Police Patrol Officer and the moral outrage of the... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Daniel Attias DVD Release Date: Released the 25 January 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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After one episode of The Wire you'll be hooked. After three, you'll be astonished by the precision of its storytelling. After viewing all 13 episodes of the HBO series' remarkable first season, you'll be cheering a bona-fide American masterpiece. Series creator David Simon was a veteran crime reporter from The Baltimore Sun who cowrote the book that inspired TV's Homicide, and cowriter Ed Burns was a Baltimore cop, lending impeccable street-cred to an inner-city Baltimore saga (and companion piece to The Corner) that Simon aptly describes as "a visual novel" and "a treatise on institutions and individuals" as opposed to a conventional good-vs.-evil police procedural. Owing a creative debt to the novels of Richard Price (especially Clockers), the series... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Daniel Attias DVD Release Date: Released the 12 October 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Dramatically speaking, the third season of The Shield is dysfunctional in the "best" sense of the word. Relationships fester in a quagmire of personal and professional conflict, and clashing agendas inspire some of finest episodes of this volatile series. Det. Mackey (Michael Chiklis) struggles to save his crumbling family (including two autistic children) while his strike team endures internal tensions over their secret stash of stolen drug money. Shane (Walton Goggins) clashes with teammate Tavon (Brian J. White) with near-fatal consequences, and his demanding fiancée tests his loyalty to Mackey. Capt. Aceveda (Benito Martinez) suffers unspeakable humiliation en route to city council promotion, engaging Wyms (CCH Pounder) in a battle of wills over proper command of "The... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 22 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The remarkable first season of Deadwood represents one of those periodic, wholesale reinventions of the Western that is as different from, say, Lonesome Dove as that miniseries is from Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo or the latter is from Anthony Mann's The Naked Spur. In many ways, HBO's Deadwood embraces the Western's unambiguous morality during the cinema's silent era through the 1930s while also blazing trails through a post-NYPD Blue, post-The West Wing television age exalting dense and customized dialogue. On top of that, Deadwood has managed an original look and texture for a familiar genre: gritty, chaotic, and surging with both dark and hopeful energy. Yet the show's creator, erstwhile NYPD Blue head writer David Milch,... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Davis Guggenheim - Michael Almereyda - Timothy Van Patten DVD Release Date: Released the 08 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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