Film Reviews by SB

Sidney Poitier made his debut directing this film produced by both him and Harry Belafonte. Based on the true story of the Exoduster Movement as "freed" slaves headed west to try to carve out a better life for themselves, it tells an important tale of American history.

It was one of the first mainstream movies to feature African-American actors as the leads and was progressive for its time. In other areas, you will notice that the Native American characters are played by actors who are either white or Hispanic, which is more typical for the era.

The story tells some hard truths, but the tone never quite settles, with most actors evoking subtle tragedy or stoicism, but a few coming close to caricature.

The twangy soundtrack, familiar from Spaghetti Westerns, sometimes seems at odds for the tale you are seeing on screen.

While not an essential film these days, it is worth a watch if you are interested in film history and it is a solid western for its time.

As this is a Criterion release, there are five extra mini-documentaries featuring interviews from the time and retrospective thoughts from the modern day.

No option to watch with the original Cantonese audio and subtitles. The only option is the awful US dub.

Very disappointing.

I gave this a try as I enjoyed Leverage from the same team, but for me, this didn't seem to work as well.

The cast are likeable, but the plots are paper thin and the visual effects are severely limited by budget.

It would be fine for some light-weight family viewing if they hadn't botched the DVD mastering so badly.

Disc 1 contains episodes 1, 2 & 3

Disc 2 contains episode 3 (again) and then 8 & 7

Disc 3 contains episodes 7 & 8 (again)

Disc 4 contains episodes 5 (again) & 10

It's not Cinema Paradiso's fault. If you head over to Amazon, you'll see the same issue reported there.

All in all, it was a disappointing experience.