A big, stylish, booming story about three young girls, a Supremes-like band The Dreamettes, singing their way to superstardom. Undoubtedly a nod to the meteoric rise of the ‘Three Degrees', or could it just be any Motown band?, Dreamgirls is a smooth well performed pseudo biog and Jennifer Hudson is truly hypnotic in her Oscar (best support actress) winning performance.
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FAVELLA RISING (2005)
Certification12 Our Rating
Favela Rising documents a man and a movement, a city divided and a favela (Brazilian squatter settlement) united. Haunted by the murders of his family and many of his friends, Anderson Sá, a former drug-dealer, turns social revolutionary in one of Rio de Janeiro's most feared slums. Through music, the rhythms of the street and Afro-Brazilian dance he rallies his community to counteract the violent life offered by the drug armies and sustained by corrupt police. But even as liberation looms trage
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GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN' (2007)
Certification15 Our Rating
Marcus, once an orphaned street kid, always knew he was going to be a rapper. However, when his mother is murdered, his life begins to spiral out of control. It's only a matter of time before he's hustlin' and selling drugs to pay the rent. Only his music keeps him alive, as he madly scribbles the lyrics that fly around his troubled mind. Only when another tragedy strikes does Marcus begin to change his life. 'Fiddy' makes his motion picture debut in Get Rich Or Die Tryin'!, by Oscar-nominated d
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GREEN BOOK (2018)
Certification15 Our Rating
A working-class Italian-American bouncer becomes the driver of an African-American classical pianist on a tour of venues through the 1960s American South.
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HONEYDRIPPER (2007)
CertificationPG Our Rating
1950, rural Alabama; times are hard for 'The Honeydripper' a club where traditional blues music doesn't pull the crowds, the young cotton pickers and army boys prefering a rival bar with its juke-box, but help may arrive in the help of handsome young Sonny, his electric guitar and rock'n'roll. A lovely piece of independent cinema from the maestro John Sayles; a movie about myth, about family, about change and, above all, about music.
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HUSTLE AND FLOW (2005)
Certification15 Our Rating
Djay is a small time pimp listlessly hustling his main girl Nola and dreaming of a less ugly existence. When DJay meets an old school friend he is immediately smitten by the opportunity for escape� the chance to make his name as a rapper. With the imminent arrival of an urban music producer DJay knows his one way out is to do what he does best�make the hustle. Hustle And Flow is not an original tale but it's elevated by some tight, spare, unsentimental direction and an Oscar nominated perfor
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NOTORIOUS (B.I.G) (2009)
Certification15 Our Rating
A generic, but nevertheless, reasonably good warts and all biopic of Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls, aka The Notorious B.I.G., from a drug dealing chilhood in a Brooklyn ghetto, through arrest, prison, his relationship problems, basic criminality and on to his success as a rap artist before his 1997 murder.
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OUTKAST - THE VIDEOS (2003)
Certification12 Our Rating
The inspired vids that go with the great songs from the slightly schizophrenic Outkast.
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RAMPAGE (2006)
Certification15 Our Rating
During the making of "Soundtrack to War" director Gittoes asks soldier Elliot Lovett how it feels to be in Iraq getting shot at, Elliot replies "man, I get shot at less here in Baghdad than at home in Miami". Amazed and intrigued by the statement Gittoes heads to Brownsville Miami to find out what is so bad about ‘Brown Sub'. What Gittoes finds stands testament to an America at odds with its own lofty values, a world few want to acknowledge and none want to experience first hand.
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RAY (2004)
Certification15 Our Rating
A mesmerising dramatisation of one of the kings, Ray Charles. Unsurprisingly the soundtrack is pure bliss, but it is Jamie Foxx in the title role that pulls everything together, an hypnotic performance of a music legend, through all his highs and lows, and one of those increasingly rare examples of a leading actor Oscar that actually makes sense.
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