A Raisin in the Sun

A Raisin in the Sun
by Kenny Leon

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DVD details

Actor: Audra McDonald, Justin Martin, Phylicia Rashad, Sanaa Lathan, Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs
Director: Kenny Leon
Brand: COMBS,SEAN
Producer: Brian Savelson
Producer: Carl Rumbaugh
Producer: Craig Zadan
Producer: David Binder
Producer: John M. Eckert
Writer: Lorraine Hansberry
Writer: Paris Qualles
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 131 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-05-13
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Sony Pictures

DVD Reviews of A Raisin in the Sun

DVD Review: Amazon Rocks !!
Summary: 5 Stars

Amazon.com is great. I have been ordering from them for at least 5 years. I have not been disappointed.

DVD Review: Excellent Movie!
Summary: 5 Stars

I have not seen the older version (Sidney Portier), but this version was excellent! The acting was superb, and you could feel what each person in the movie was feeling. I was very impressed and will definitely add this version to my collection of DVDs.

DVD Review: Pretty Good
Summary: 5 Stars

I"m glad this has been remade and think the actors selected are, for the most part, pretty talented. Coombs performance is a bit...lackluster at times, but it is great to be able to show the comparison to the old movie and the text. Wish the hair cutting scenes were still in but neither movie left them in...too bad.

DVD Review: A Dream Transferred
Summary: 5 Stars

I watched this movie last night and the effects it had on me are still lingering through this morning. Not only is it a wonderful film production and acting performance of a classic and timeless story written for the stage by Lorraine Hansberry, but its also a much needed reminder of what it takes to keep our dreams alive while staying true to the moral and religious values that helped carry generations before us through tougher times.

My mother took us to see this play in NYC back in the 70's when I was about 10 year old. I remember not understanding the different reactions of the grown-ups, I was more captivated by the experience of my first Broadway play and being inside a huge ornately decorated theatre. Watching the movie last night I now understand what all the sorrow, laughter, disappointment and triumph I saw on stage and throughout its audience of years past was all about. I now know why my mother was teary eyed afterwords.

This story is simply about the passing of the torch from one generation to the next. The torch comes with all the emotions of the past (both good and bad) as well as its hopes and dreams. Any people who've been immigrants to or experienced oppression in a land will relate to this story.

I learned from watching this movie last night that what touched my mother so much in this story is that it represented her and my father's story, or any parent's story for that matter; for their children to attain all the dreams and hopes of their parents and generations past, dreams that have now become the children's dreams. I also realized in watching that the obstacles and frustrations I've had to overcome are similar to those of my parents, maybe even inherited.

So Now it is I who carry the torch and will someday, with teary eyes of joy, pass all the hopes, dreams, sacrifices and struggles to my children when the time is ripe.

The message is clarified in this updated movie production. For if we don't pass on to the next generation our hopes and dreams along with the spiritual wisdom and moral guidance of past generations, all of it can simply "dry up like a raisin in the sun, or fester like a sore and run."

A Must Watch!

And for those reviewers who I feel are unjustly criticizing the acting of Sean Combs, try to remember, its not about the messenger as much as the message. Don't be deferred, he delivers the message brilliantly. The question becomes, are you ready to receive it?

DVD Review: Good New Version
Summary: 5 Stars

I've been teaching A Raisin in the Sun for 13 years. While I love the Sidney Poitier version, my students were less than thrilled. I purchased this dvd with little hope that it would be very good, but I thought it was well done. I read some reviews about it not being good, some really picky things about whether or not a character would do something, added scenes, etc., but I really felt that this cast did a good job. My students were interested to see how "P. Diddy" would do as an actor and they and I were impressed.

Description of A Raisin in the Sun

Based on the play that inspired a generation, A Raisin in the Sun tells the story of a family living and struggling on Chicago's South Side in the 1950s. A fiercely moving portrait of people whose hopes and dreams are constantly deferred, A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. The classic, still-relevant story now will be showcased in this totally new television movie adaptation.

Sean Combs reprises the role which brought him critical acclaim in the highly anticipated, special three-hour television movie adaptation of the award-winning Broadway revival. Joining him is the cast of the award-winning production, including Emmy and Tony Award winner Phylicia Rashad, four-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald, Tony Award nominee Sanaa Lathan, plus ER star John Stamos.

Pride and poverty collide in this excellent television movie of the classic play A Raisin in the Sun. When Walter Younger (Sean Combs, a.k.a. P. Diddy), his wife Ruth (Audra McDonald, Private Practice), and his sister Beneatha (Sanaa Lathan, Something New) learn that their deceased father has left their mother Lena (Phylicia Rashad, The Cosby Show) with $10,000 in life insurance, their separate ideas of how to spend it threaten to pull the family apart. Lorraine Hansberry's passionate play ranks in the same tier as Death of a Salesman and Long Day's Journey Into Night. This version is taken from an acclaimed stage production, but the actors have expertly re-pitched their performances for the intimacy of the camera and the script has been subtly but effectively opened up to allow scenes to take place at multiple locations. Lathan, McDonald, and Rashad all deliver rich, multilayered performances; the casting of rapper Combs could have been a mere stunt, but though he lacks the chops of the powerhouse women, he acquits himself decently. Excellent supporting performances from Bill Nunn (Do the Right Thing) and John Stamos round out the cast. All in all, a rewarding adaptation of a play that continues to resonate with America's ongoing struggle with race. --Bret Fetzer

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