Malcolm X
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DVD details
Actor: Al Freeman Jr., Albert Hall, Angela Bassett, O.L. Duke, Sonny Jim GainesBrand: Warner Brothers
Primary Contributor: Angela Bassett
Primary Contributor: Washington, Denzel
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, HiFi Sound, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 202 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-01-18
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of Malcolm X
DVD Review: wonderful rendition of an emblematic American life
Summary: 5 Stars
I grew up in the civil rights era, whose public face for us (in the suburbs) was the reasonable MLKing. The other side - the violence and militancy, the hate that hate produced - was only dimly heard, seemingly much farther away. It was a great shock for me to read Haley's autobio, but utterly fascinating and important to understand who we Americans are.
Spike Lee has taken the Haley version and grafted almost all of the important incidents into a single long film. In my viewing, it is almost completely successful in evoking an extraordinary life. You get the factual outline, and better yet the feeling for what it was like in X's times.
From the opening, when he is swaggering in a zoot suit with Shorty, to his seething rage at the memory of how his family was dissolved by race hatred and lynching. It is superlatively acted by Washington, who is one of the greatest actors alive. You then follow X into crime, a dissolute life style, prison, redemption, the acceptance of fundamentalist mind programming, to a final stage of questioning it all. I completely believed the portrait of how he grew into all of these roles with extraordinary ease as well as the mercurial energy of a genius.
Lee succeeds in making X a near archetype for the American experience for blacks but also for the entire society, which we must admit to ourselves is intimately inter-related. These are deep questions, and Lee is content to provoke, in my viewing, leaving the audience vexed and interested in finding out more. It is positively Brechtian in ambition, and here it truly works here. And there is a raft of extraordinary personalities who appear and re-appear, enabling us to see where they were able to go and what they could do.
There are a few things that mar with the simplifications of the film medium. For example, there is the fate of the girl Laura, who is in the Haley book. While in real life she disappears from view though we learn what happened to her, you see X walk by her in his Moslem guise as she is about to service a client in a doorway. Other incidents are too succinct, such as his dismissal of the idealistic white girl who asked how she might help (which he later pointedly regretted), but then Lee had only 3 hours and there is so much to tell.
Warmly recommended. X tells us all a lot about who we are as Americans and even as humans. I believe he continues to fascinate because he died at a moment when he was ripe with potential to change. This film made me weep, once again, as I did in my youth with the book.
DVD Review: educational standpoint
Summary: 5 Stars
For history and English, I use this dvd to supplement my lessons. As a high-school teacher for English foundations and/or American History for resource students, I must utilize movies as a visual aide supplement to help them connect with the characters, setting, dialogue... I strongly recommend using this dvd to support your curriculum to teach on all levels of student learning (auditory, kinesthetic, visual). DVD Review: A Great masterpiece of American Cinema
Summary: 5 Stars
I would show this film in any history class if I taught history. Washington's portrayal of Malcolm X was, is and will always be stunning. It speaks volumes about the most misunderstood aspects in American History. Its an important film that no one should miss. I cannot wait until Blu-ray.DVD Review: Amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
I say this quite often about movies, but very rarely say it with as much conviction as when I'm referring to Malcolm X. This is, without a doubt the best movie I've seen in my entire lifetime, and if you haven't seen it, then it will become the best movie you will ever see. I'm actually shocked by some of the 1 star reviews, especially the one calling it a dangerous movie. For one, this movie keeps very loyal to the events and people talked about in his autobiography written by Alex Haley. To call it a dangerous film because it chronicles the life of Malcolm X, would be to call history dangerous. It accurately documents the rise and fall of Malcolm X and accurately displays the reasons for that rise and fall. If a man converted to Islam and became a militant because of this movie, then simply, he didn't get this movie, or at least he didn't watch it all the way through. This isn't anti-Islamic, nor can it be claimed that this in any way can incite militant or extremist behaviour as this exposes the consequences of such behaviours.
Malcolm X was a man who possibly equally responsible for the civil rights movement of African-Americans, yet accomplished it in a completely different way. When I first read "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Haley some 5 years ago, it changed my life. The story of the mans religious beliefs and strong heart was inspiring and a story that showed you can really achieve anything if you set your mind to it. Of course, it's clich? but life is full of clich?s and that one is about the only clich? you can associate with Malcolm X. He was a man not afraid to speak the truth about the segregation of Afro-Americans, especially in the North where it was believed the black man was much more equal than in the south. Spike Lee in some ways is a lot like Malcolm X, he's a man not afraid to speak out against lifes atrocities and lies by putting them up on screen.
Denzel Washington is possibly the best casting choice for a movie I've ever witnessed and this casting. Not only does he look like Malcolm, but his personality and charisma match that of the legendary figure. The start of this film is Malcolm (Denzel) delivering one of his infamous speeches which sends the electricity down your spine. What's special is even the delivery is akin to that of Malcolm. After that speech we're reverted back to Malcolms beginnings in Harlem as a drug pusher and pimp, and he's telling the story of his early childhood which presents us with numerous flashbacks of his Fathers murder and his Mothers descension into insanity. Because of this, you sort of become aware of how he ends up being the man he is at the start of the movie by going through all these tragedies. After a robbery with his best friend Shorty goes wrong, he's sent to jail where he finds the Nation of Islam and is visited by an apparition of the Prophet Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm has his eyes opened by the atrocious treatment of the African American by the white man. The NOI even today are fighting to have a state designated solely for the Black American, where they can govern themselves and look after their own interests. Malcolm eventually becomes a minister for the Nation and opens it up to a much wider audience, much to the displeasure or the Nation of Islam.
If you're familiar with Minister Malcolm, then you're familiar with what happens next as a result of his joining the Nation. The spectacular life events of such a man are just un-imaginable and it's hard to believe that a man, although he'll disagree, when he was a member of the Nation of Islam was such a segregationist managed to be an influence on so many people. Making such high profile friends such as film star Ossie Davis and working with other, more integarationist activists like Martin Luther King, he managed to truly change the world and is probably one of the main reasons as to why America now has a black man in the White House. Depending on how you look at it, you can either determine that the Islam religion was what made Malcolm such a hero, or whether it was the original manipulation of the Nation of Islam. Either way, I think all will agree that the man was taken away from us all too early.
Looking at articles about Malcolm and his wife Betty X, I found out something truly heart wrenching. Betty X, Malcolms wife, died just over 10 years ago in a fire caused by Malcolm X's grandson. I'm not sure whether the fire was lit to deliberately kill his grandmother, but he was arrested and sentenced to 18 months in Juvenile detention for manslaughter. The reason I brought this up is in the film you will be shown a lot of Betty X and you will come to realise when a great mother and wife she was. She was just as strong an influence on the life and times of Malcolm, as the blight of the black American was. She held the Shabazz family together through the times they left the Nation of Islam and were basically being tortured by them. I applaud her and minister Malcolm for their effect on the world and equal rights.
Minister Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz) May 19 1925 - February 21 1965
Dr. Betty Shabazz May 28 1936 - June 23 1997
May they both Rest in Peace.
DVD Review: Malcolm Xcellent
Summary: 4 Stars
I could easily have given this movie five stars on the acting alone. But I had to take out one star for a few inaccuracies in the movie plus the movie left out certain elements in his life that I felt were important(like his speech to the Africans in Africa that the blacks in America had the same struggle that they had) but dont mistake my tone because I still recommend it flaws and all.
Malcolm X details the life of the controversial yet charismatic figure that sought to deal with the injustices that African people suffered in America. It details how he came up from being a petty street hustler to the Nation Of Islam most outspoken character. It also deals with the events that lead to his assassination.
Denzel Washington's best performance was here and what does he win an award for? Training Day. Now do you see why they say these awards mean nothing? Denzel role as Malcolm X is just as flawless as Will Smith's role of Muhammed Ali. I still get goosebumps when I hear him speak and Ive seen a lot of Malcolm X's actual speeches. Angela Bassett did a great job as his wife and the supporting actors and actresses were great too. My gripe is the certain inaccuracies in the movie and the idea that the Nation Of Islam has something to do with his death is debatable. As far as I'm concerned those guys were flunkies for those people in high places. If not by signature then by nature. At any rate I would still recommend this movie, flaws and all, to anybody that is interested but first read up on his life before you watch this movie. Kudos to Spike Lee for doing his best with the information he was given.
Rest in Peace Malcolm X.
Description of Malcolm X
Feared and revered malcom x crystallized the hopes and dreams of blacks demanding human rights for african americans during the racially tumultuous and divisive decades of this 1950s and 60s until his 1965 assassination in new york at the age of thirty nine. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/30/2008 Starring: Denzel Washington Angela Bassett Run time: 201 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Spike LeeJust as Do the Right Thing was the capstone of Spike Lee's earlier career, Malcolm X marked the next milestone in the filmmaker's artistic maturity. It seemed everything Lee had done up to that point was to prepare him for this epic biography of America's fiery civil-rights leader, who is superbly played by Oscar-nominated Denzel Washington, from his early days as a zoot-suited hustler known as "Detroit Red" to his spiritual maturity after his pilgrimage to Mecca, as a Black Muslim by the name of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz. Do the Right Thing climaxed with the photographic images of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King engulfed by flames of rage; Malcolm X explores the genesis and evolution of that rage over Malcolm's lifetime, and how these two great figures--held up to the public as polar-opposites within the African American human rights movement (King for nonviolent civil disobedience, Malcolm for achieving equality "by any means necessary")--were each essential to the agenda of the other. Lee careens from the hedonistic ebullience of Malcolm's early days to the stark despair of prison, from his life-changing conversion to Islam to his emergence as a dynamic political leader--all with an epic sweep and vitality that illuminates personal details as well as political ideology. Angela Bassett is also terrific as Malcolm's wife, Betty Shabazz. --Jim Emerson
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