Word: squalorous
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Amidst this squalor, he smiles...
...check, letting them loose in small, startling bursts. Sanaa Lathan is winning and funny as Walter's headstrong sister. Former Cosby Show star Phylicia Rashad, dumpy and nearly unrecognizable as Walter's mother, breaks through the cliches to create an unsentimental portrait of moral strength in the midst of squalor. But nearly every detail (from the mellow jazz musical interludes to a 10-year-old boy's wince in pain as his mama pulls a comb through his hair) seems exactly right in Kenny Leon's finely wrought production...
...dynamics of the military are merely extensions of politics, the film is an indictment of the general social situation it depicts as well. Kubrick's camerawork brilliantly expresses the varying cultural vacuums in which his characters trek, from the vertiginous ballrooms of the military elite to the squat squalor of the trenches. And the acting he evokes from a cast largely composed of has-beens and second-rates is exemplary...
...dynamics of the military are merely extensions of politics, the film is an indictment of the general social situation it depicts as well. Kubrick's camerawork brilliantly expresses the varying cultural vacuums in which his characters trek, from the vertiginous ballrooms of the military elite to the squat squalor of the trenches. And the acting he evokes from a cast largely composed of has-beens and second-rates is exemplary...
...overtly feel-good movie. Johnny has an angry, explosive side. And his wife has a sad watchfulness about her that, in Morton's performance, embraces something more than the hard facts of her life. It is their girls who enchantingly center the film. What looks like squalor to us looks like a wonderland to them, a place to be explored and embraced. They're eager and innocent and unfrightened--especially when they reach out to "the Screaming Man" who lives downstairs. His real name is Mateo, he is played by Djimon Hounsou (Amistad), and he's a reclusive, angry artist...