Slam
by Marc Levin
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DVD details
Actor: Beau Sia, Bonz Malone, Lawrence Wilson, Saul Williams, Sonja SohnDirector: Marc Levin
Brand: LION'S GATE ENTERTAINMENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 103 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-03-09
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
DVD Reviews of Slam
DVD Review: Never Received
Summary: 1 Stars
I ordered this product over a month ago, And have yet to receive it. I E-mailed the company and got no response and Am very upset. It was a small amount of money, but it is the principle of the matter. DVD Review: This was great buy.
Summary: 5 Stars
This was and still is a great movie it's timeless. In fact the first time I seen the film was when I was a teenager and now I showing it to my soon to be teenage son.This is a great film and it show a person that there's a diffrent way of living no matter your enviorment. I would suggest you buy it and try it out for yourself.It will show you what happen when you make the wrong choices in life, and have to pay for them with thing's you do not want to do.DVD Review: Sham
Summary: 2 Stars
Poetry is the apotheosis of all literary forms; clarity and emotional honesty chiseled into words with incredible discipline, worked and reworked tirelessly until they communicate with elegance and precision. The relentless clanging of A/B rhyme portrayed in Slam bears as much resemblance to poetry as female mud wrestling in Berlin nightclubs bears to ballet.
But that's part of this film's larger tragedy. Raymond Joshua, Saul Williams, seems like the highly intelligent, sensitive kid who, in a better world, could really go places. But in his milieu rap is de rigueur, so his talents are wasted there, stifled by the astonishing limitations of the idiom. (How many rhymes for MF are there?) This said, Ray seems stunningly naive for a kid who grew up in the projects, his "dream" argument with Lauren, Sonja Sohn, late in the film, reflects worldly innocence a 12-year old might envy. This "man-child" theme, worked overly hard, is in jarring juxtaposition to the gritty realism of the film's first half, a stark look inside prison life.
No one in the film technically qualifies as an actor, and it shows. (Marion Barry's legendary impersonation of a Mayor comes closest.) This glaring deficiency is most evident when a prison guard delivers the movie's only memorable moment. He is clearly untrained, but manages to summon what no one else can, conviction, authenticity, and passion. In clearly defined terms, using a mathematical formula, he explains to Ray why he's so angry. It's all about the number of young black men in his prison, and how disproportionate that number is when compared to Washington's overall demographic. He breaks it down, and then expresses his pain felt witnessing the self-destructive cycle of drugs and street crime. It is a sharp moment that neatly punctuates all the gassy, preachy speeches characterizing most of this film.
What little chance the movie had of succeeding is lost completely in the third act, a bizarre blend of goopy love story and poetry slam funfest. The poetry slam is especially poor, the poetry itself is shabby and the crowd seems to have been bussed in from another movie set. Williams and Sohn are likeable, and do well considering their obvious lack of experience. The fault here lies with the script and the director. If Levin had played his cards right, he could have made one coherent, well structured lousy movie. Instead, what he managed to do was chop together unrelated sections of three lousy movies. The subject matter is serious and certainly deserved better than this.
DVD Review: Watch this movie
Summary: 5 Stars
Great story line makes me fall in love with Saul Williams all over again. DVD Review: Slam (1998)
Summary: 5 Stars
Great movie and extremely powerful and motivational. I am a 42 year old African American male military war veteran (single parent)with a BA in Social Science and a ThM in Theology. I have coached, taught and ministered to my people; African Americans. Only to become discouraged in the fight and caught in the same traps; sex, drugs, anger, remorse, unforgiveness, hate, regret, shame, mental pain etc. I fought so hard for others of my race not to placate to; even to the point of using drugs. But GLORY has come! This movie has given me new strenght to continue to advocate, fight and defend (help) my enslaved (physical or mental)people. I am also ordering extra copies for all individuals I am lead to help by the anointing, gifts and Spirit in me. Thank you God for this anointed message and gift; SLAM (1998). "What an encouragement."
Description of Slam
In a bleak and violent future humanity is on the verge of extinction. Our survival is in the hands of a ruthless corporation bent on controlling what's left of the population. In its darkest hour humankind's greatest hope lies with one man Norman Scott but even he can't live forever.System Requirements: Running Time 103Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:?DRAMA Rating:?R UPC:?031398697336 Manufacturer No:?VM6973DA darling of the 1998 festival circuit, Marc Levin's Slam won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance as well as the Camera d'Or (best first film) at Cannes. Despite its shortcomings, the film merits these awards--Slam offers a strong cast and compelling subject matter, a perfect setting with a killer soundtrack, and over-the-top rap poetry.
The film opens with an exterior shot of the protagonist, Raymond Joshua (played by real-life poet Saul Williams), walking away from the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The image of a young black man turning his back on this symbol of government scant minutes before he's popped on a chump-change drug charge is poignant and disturbing--not easily forgotten by anyone aware of the immense contradictions inherent in the demographics of the nation's capital.
Slam depicts Raymond's fall from relative innocence, and his apparent redemption. As a small-time dope dealer and street poet, his arrest thrusts him into an unfamiliar world--the violence of life in the slammer is palpable and altogether frightening. Incarceration, however, awakens the slumbering power of Raymond's poetry; eventually, its strength keeps him alive. In a prison yard scene when he's about to get whomped, Raymond gives free rein to his words, choosing poetry in motion over violence. Hearing Raymond's impassioned words, the hardened cons let him walk. One of them even covers his bail, and Raymond hits the streets, eager to check out Lauren (Sonja Sohn), the creative-writing teacher he met behind bars.
Although the third act dilutes the credibility established by Levin's in-your-face v?rit? style, Slam is relentlessly passionate, unswerving in its conviction that there's an alternative to the violence that decimates North America's inner cities. Indeed, for all the film's preachiness, we cheer Raymond on, fueling his poetry, hoping, somehow, that it can transform those around him. Peace is the word. --Stephan Magcosta
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