There's very little reason for anyone younger than a boomer to see "Liberty Heights" (except for those doing historical research on what it was like to grow up in the '50's). The audience coming in after me was all senior citizens.
The best part is how music is used to indicate different demographics (though not strictly accurate -- Tom Waits for burlesque? James Brown in 1954 -- shouldn't that have been Little Richard or Jackie Wilson?)
While I'm a bit younger than the time portrayed, I grew up near Newark and it seems to have some similarities with Baltimore. I had similar experiences first discovering R & B on the NYC's old WWRL other than, as one character puts it in the film "regular radio," and in general had similar experiences with ethnic and racial de facto segregation (it was my Irish Catholic neighbor from parochial school who introduced me to racy Redd Fox and Moms Mabley records in her basement).
Yes, I got carried away because the movie evokes nostalgia rather than cinematic reviews, because that's all it is --- a nostalgia bath.
More coming-of-age Jewish princes lusting after schicksas and we do not get the Jewish woman's view point AT ALL. Don't we get enough of that from Woody Allen movies? At least the Jewish Mom is less stereotypical, being Bebe Neuwirth, getting to play a non-Lilith (as in "Frasier") Jewish mother, so she's sexy. Like with "A Walk on the Moon" last year the Yiddishe grandma is very similar to mine, so more nostalgia.
It's well done for what it is.
(originally written 12/19/1999)
The best part is how music is used to indicate different demographics (though not strictly accurate -- Tom Waits for burlesque? James Brown in 1954 -- shouldn't that have been Little Richard or Jackie Wilson?)
While I'm a bit younger than the time portrayed, I grew up near Newark and it seems to have some similarities with Baltimore. I had similar experiences first discovering R & B on the NYC's old WWRL other than, as one character puts it in the film "regular radio," and in general had similar experiences with ethnic and racial de facto segregation (it was my Irish Catholic neighbor from parochial school who introduced me to racy Redd Fox and Moms Mabley records in her basement).
Yes, I got carried away because the movie evokes nostalgia rather than cinematic reviews, because that's all it is --- a nostalgia bath.
More coming-of-age Jewish princes lusting after schicksas and we do not get the Jewish woman's view point AT ALL. Don't we get enough of that from Woody Allen movies? At least the Jewish Mom is less stereotypical, being Bebe Neuwirth, getting to play a non-Lilith (as in "Frasier") Jewish mother, so she's sexy. Like with "A Walk on the Moon" last year the Yiddishe grandma is very similar to mine, so more nostalgia.
It's well done for what it is.
(originally written 12/19/1999)