The Lena Baker Story (2008/Lionsgate) + Mama Flora’s Family (1998/Vivendi) + Neshoba – The Price Of Freedom (2010/First Run) + Soul Kittens Cabaret (2010/Image/DVDs)

 

Picture: C+ (Lena: C)     Sound: C+ (Kittens: C)     Extras: C/D/B/C     Main Programs: B-/C+/B/C

 

 

With Black History Month just around the corner, we have four new DVD releases that deal with African American discourse, three of which are about the past.  It is something that still at this time, these represent more of an alternate discourse than a main one, but it is one that is vital and a side of America that must never be ignored.

 

Ralph Wilcox’s The Lena Baker Story (2008) tells the tale of the title character, struggling in the early 1900s to survive with her mother, she eventually finds herself involved in prostitution and eventually finds herself in prison for an accidental murder, but the incident becomes politicized and she is not tried fairly.  She killed in self-defense and the dramatization shows us how lopsided this all became.  Tichina Arnold is very good as the adult Baker and though it did not work all the time, it was interesting, helped by a supporting cast that includes Beverly Todd, Peter Coyote and Michael Rooker.  Extras include stills and a behind the scenes featurette.

 

Mama Flora’s Family (1998) is the oldest program here and is a Peter Werner’s 3-hour adaptation of a book co-written by Alex Haley, Flora (Cicely Tyson) tells her life story to her granddaughter (Queen Latifah in another good performance) in order to help her and stop her from following a path of self-destructive behavior that could land up making her yet another statistic.  Though some would consider this clichéd, it is done well enough, yet following certain limits stop this from really taking off.  However, Blair Underwood, Shemar Moore and Mario Van Peebles are here (along with an odd turn by Della Reese), so this is at least ambitious.  There are no extras.

 

Neshoba – The Price Of Freedom (2010) is a documentary with amazing timing, dealing with a murder case in Mississippi where three civil rights workers were captured, tortured and killed.  What made the situation worse was that local authorities and the state did nothing about it for decades and when it was revealed it was three members of the Klu Klux Klan, they seemed to get more support than condemnation.  Worst of all, Haley Barbour, a longtime state politician who also did nothing about it, is in the running for President of the United States and said (as this was being issued) the Civil Rights Movement was not that bad and white nationalist organizations are the reason because they kept it from getting worse, as if they were allowed to exercise any kind of violent power to begin with!

 

Civil Rights workers James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Henry Schwerner disappeared on June 21, 1964 and when they’re bodies were found, they were unrecognizable.  Some of the footage here in this Micki Dickoff/Tony Pagano work is hard to watch, but it is solid journalism and if Mr. Barbour gets into the running, should be required viewing before the 2012 Election.  Extras include biographies, film notes, short Get On Board – Freedom Ride 2004 and courtroom testimony reenacted.

 

Soul Kittens Cabaret (2010) is a taping of Nicci Gilbert’s stage play about seven women who think they may find fame, but could all be in for disappointment as their character flaws follow them.  Trying to revive the title locale seems a doomed proposition, then we have the actual embodiments of Bad Conscience (Faith Evans) and Good Conscience (Fantasia Barrino), which turns this into an odd variant of a Tyler Perry play, which this will inevitably be compared to.  The problem is that this is just too stagy and never really takes off, though the material is also to blame for being obvious and never goes much of anywhere.  At least it is somewhat ambitious.  Extras include stills, a trailer and a behind the scenes featurette.

 

The 1.33 X 1 on Flora and Neshoba are problematic, but they somehow look not as soft as the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 on Baker, which seems like an older HD taping despite being a recent production.  Neshoba is a compilation of tape and some film, Kittens is a new HD taping and Flora seems filmed (16mm?) throughout.  All have Dolby Digital 2.0 sound, with Kittens and Baker in Stereo, but the sound is just about even all around.  They all have audio flaws (like dropouts, with Kittens having its own mixing problems) and other limits that reveal their low budgets, but all sound good enough and Flora is the most consistent, despite being the oldest and showing its age.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo