Popular reviews

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★★ 9

  DISCLAIMER: Just to address the elephant on the room, I just released a bunch of reviews from Sundance as you can see I was holding onto and was looking to drop them all and move on to other backlog stuff I have for March like Oscar stuff. So I just took a hail mary and posted all at once. So yeah apologize for the spamming.

  Now to regular schedule....

  Probably one of the most underrated coming-of-age and period dramas, though that may be a stretch given its historical relevance; but, in general, it is one that is seems rarely being discussed.

  The authenticity of the acting and the pacing of the film are two aspects that stick out right away.…

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  Review by Sam ★★★½ 13

  Sounder is the one of the only non-romance films that I’ve seen that is thoroughly about love. The saying “it was a labor of love” really reminds me of this film. It tells the story of an African-American family of farmers or sharecroppers living in Louisiana in the 1930s. After the father Nathan (Paul Winfield) is accused of committing a crime, he gets sent away to prison and eventually a labor camp. While he is away from the family, the mother named Rebecca (Cicely Tyson) and the son named David (Kevin Hooks) feel empty and as if they need to be with Nathan. After looking and finding out where Nathan exactly was, Rebecca sends David to go find his father…

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  Review by Jesse Snoddon ★★★½

  "Son, don't ever let yourself get caught in a place like this"

  A black family struggles to make ends meet as sharecroppers during the depression. Nathan (Paul Winfield) can only take seeing his family hungry for so long until one day he breaks and steals some food for them. He's quickly caught and sentenced to a year of hard labour, leaving his wife Rebecca (Cicely Tyson) and three young children on their own to work the land and keep paying their debts while he is away. 

  That description likely has you bracing for a tragedy that slowly grinds our characters out while we helplessly watch. But it's actually more of a heartwarming family drama. The film does draw attention to…

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  Review by Vince The Cinephile ★★★½

  In honor of Ms. Cicely Tyson’s passing, I have decided to look back on her only Oscar-nominated role as Rebecca Morgan in Martin Ritt’s modestly scaled American pastoral drama Sounder. The film follows a poverty-stricken sharecropping Black family during the Great Depression. When their patriarch got arrested for stealing food, Rebecca and her children are left with the burden to survive while eagerly waiting for his return. Ritt (a White director) focuses the Morgan family in such unsentimental and profound outlook where there are no traces of easy morality servings or melodrama.

  It is a socially conscious, unassuming, and respectful of the people it observes, and this attention clearly serves the actors by bringing their own respective depths to the…

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  Review by chavel ★★★★½ 5

  To get the obvious symbolism out of the way, the dog demonstrates a certain devotion, unforeseen handicap and faithfulness that one of the human characters will mirror later on in the story.

  As for the opening of Sounder, a father, his son, and the titular dog chase a raccoon through the wilderness at night. Why are they chasing the raccoon? For its’ meat. This family needs to eat, and eat anything. The gun jams. Looks as if the family will be out of luck the next day. Miraculously and unexpectedly, there is meat on the table in the morning with the likelihood that it came from a store. Something tells us that the father Nathan Lee Morgan (Paul Winfield) did…

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  Review by 🐱Andrew Chrzanowski🐱 ★★★★ 3

  ☆"You lose some of the time what you always go after, but you lose all of the time what you don't go after."☆

  This is why I record movies and make sure to find them, buried deep within the sinews of my stressed-out DVR, during special celebrations of cultures and peoples, as this Black History Month I've stumbled on some real gems. Count 1972's Sounder as another big win for representation and storytelling of a long underseen and seldom heard group, a multi-Oscar nominee that many have not seen but would do right to before the end of February.

  In 1933 Louisiana, deep in the throes of the Great Depression, an African-American family (and their beloved bloodhound, Sounder) of sharecroppers…

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  Review by claira curtis ★★★★½ 2

  Remarkable in its story centered on both family survival and generational growth, Sounder’s heart lies within its celebration of love within the family. 

  Written incredibly well, it’s no surprise the film nabbed a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination from the Academy (the very first film with a Black writer to be nominated in the category!). The dialogue and actions of the characters feel very realistic, providing the film with a sensation grounded in believability. As such, it’s extremely easy to be pulled into the emotional feelings of the film and to root wholeheartedly for the Morgan family. 

  A truly wonderful watch of a film that I thoroughly believe more people should be taking the time to see. 

  Watch 12/29 of my Black Cinema Challenge

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  Review by Taylor Leverage ★★★½

  Cops have been trying to shoot dogs ever since they've had something to shoot with, apparently.

  Sounder is a refreshingly honest and straightforward story about race relations and hardship in the Jim Crow-era South. The script could have taken the relatively easy outrage route by showing off some of the unvarnished hate and the injustices against black people in the era, but if anything it uses a somewhat light touch in that regard; there's less frothy-mouthed shouting, more institutionalized discrimination that makes overcoming adversity seem impossible. Instead, there are kind sympathizers mixed in that recognize a loving family looking to survive in the kind of world that is trying to slowly suffocate them. Through it all, close bonds are what…

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  Review by Jake Alda Coffey ★★★★ 1

  Ugh Cicely Tyson is just so so good in this

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  Review by Todd Hill ★★★

  It's about a family, the members of which all love each other. And that's ... about it. There's nothing wrong with simple stories, but it's remarkable how little happens in this movie, about a black share-cropping family in 1930s Louisiana. The father gets arrested for stealing some food and is sent off to a labor camp somewhere. The oldest boy sets off on foot to find him, I guess so he can just say hi, but doesn't find him and comes back home. A few days later the father is released and comes home too, and everybody is happy. Then the oldest boy goes off to school. That's it.

  The movie is named after the family's dog, which follows the…

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★

  Ritt treats the material with careful restraint, he avoids the easier sentimental traps childhood memory films can fall into while careful sidestepping the prestige showboating that can come with it. Sounder can feel a bit too guarded on those efforts, the work of very tasteful artists that pushes the family journey into a narrow lane. It is a hard balance that the movie doesn’t always win, but allow for some well earned moving moments. Beyond anything else, Tyson and Winfield performances are very good, whatever the movie risks faulting, they are there to pick things up.

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  Review by Michael501 📺 ★★

  1972 In Review - September
  #8

  The oldest son of a loving and strong family of black sharecroppers comes of age in the Depression-era South after his father is imprisoned for stealing food.

  Sounder is a slice-of-life drama about a black family of sharecroppers in Louisiana in the 1930s. It's a quiet tale about the loving bond of a family with no action (except one shooting scene) or dazzling special effects. The film was nominated for several awards in that years Oscars. Sounder is the name of the dog that the family have, now I haven’t read the book that the film is based on, but I did find it a little strange that the film is named after a dog that barely features in the film.