1950. Rural Alabama. Cotton harvest. It's a make-or-break weekend for the Honeydripper Lounge and its owner, piano player Tyrone "Pine Top" Purvis. Deep in debt to the liquor man, the ...
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A brief look into the South American family life, while showing the hardships surrounding adoption in South America; as six woman are forced to stay in the country while awaiting approval of adopting a baby.
Director:
John Sayles
Stars:
Daryl Hannah,
Maggie Gyllenhaal,
Mary Steenburgen
Fontayne is enlisted by Bernice - her estranged old friend and current parole officer - along with a disgraced cop to search for Bernice's son, who went missing on the Mexican border.
Director:
John Sayles
Stars:
LisaGay Hamilton,
Yolonda Ross,
Edward James Olmos
Humberto Fuentes is a wealthy doctor whose wife has recently died. In spite of the advice of his children, he takes a trip to visit his former students who now work in impoverished villages... See full summary »
Director:
John Sayles
Stars:
Federico Luppi,
Damián Delgado,
Dan Rivera González
A woman and her new husband returns to her hometown roots in coastal northern Florida, and must deal with family, business, and encroaching real estate development.
In an economically devastated Alaskan town, a fisherman with a troublesome past dates a woman whose young daughter does not approve of him. When he witnesses the murder of his shady brother, he, the woman and the kid run to the wilderness.
Director:
John Sayles
Stars:
David Strathairn,
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio,
Vanessa Martinez
After an accident leaves her a paraplegic, a former soap opera star struggles to recover both emotionally and mentally, until she meets her newest nurse, who has struggles of her own.
Director:
John Sayles
Stars:
Mary McDonnell,
Alfre Woodard,
Angela Bassett
A happily married woman comes to realize herself of being a repressed lesbian after she has an affair with a female college professor, and then tries to come to terms with her newfound lifestyle.
Director:
John Sayles
Stars:
Linda Griffiths,
Jane Hallaren,
Jon DeVries
Seven former college friends, along with a few new friends, gather for a weekend reunion at a summer house in New Hampshire to reminisce about the good old days, when they got arrested on the way to a protest in Washington, DC.
Director:
John Sayles
Stars:
Bruce MacDonald,
Maggie Renzi,
Adam LeFevre
1950. Rural Alabama. Cotton harvest. It's a make-or-break weekend for the Honeydripper Lounge and its owner, piano player Tyrone "Pine Top" Purvis. Deep in debt to the liquor man, the chicken man, and the landlord, Tyrone is desperate to lure the young cotton pickers and local Army base recruits into his juke joint, away from Touissant's, the rival joint across the way. His plan to hire a guitar legend go awry and Tyrone is forced to take drastic action in a final scheme to save the club.Written by
Anonymous
For the scenes in which Tyrone Purvis (Danny Glover) is playing the piano, the close-ups of his hands were performed by Henderson Huggins, a Tuscaloosa, Alabama-based pianist and piano tuner. Huggins, who has been blind since childhood due to glaucoma, got the job when the movie's director and producer team of John Sayles and Maggie Renzi received a tape of Huggins from the Alabama Blues Project, a Tuscaloosa organization dedicated to musical education and the preservation of the history of Alabama Blues. See more »
Goofs
Danny Glover is wearing invisible teeth braces throughout. See more »
Ty's Shadow
Written by Billy Novick & Mason Daring
Published by Daring Music
Administered by Universal Music Inc. (ASCAP)
Performed by The Aces of Spade See more »
User Reviews
A Welome Return by America's Great Independent Working Class Film Maker
This is not a great movie by any stretch, but it is a very GOOD one. My rating should be 7.8. IMDb, invest in some higher technology! John Sayles proves yet again what can be done when there is unity of vision on a film, and when everyone involved passionately believes in what they are doing. Any limitations this film has must surely be due to the budget (was there one?) rather than any creative lapses on Sayles' part.
In fact, the only problems I have with "Honeydripper" are technical: some of the shots are out of focus, some of the scenes drag, and there is not a lot of dramatic tension to carry the piece along. It is enough, though, for those of us who can handle something more relaxed than the kinetics of Michael Bey or Steven ("I'll do anything for an Oscar!") Spielberg.
"Honeydripper" is really a small character study of a working class man, surrounded by good people, who is trying do do right by them and himself. It is a romance for the nostalgia of the Deep South in 1950, a period where Jim Crow was on the cusp of yielding to John Kennedy.
It is also a romance for music, where Gospel and Blues was about to fuse and metamorphise into Rock 'n Roll. Sayles loves everything he is doing; you can feel the writer/director's respect and integrity through the camera and the screen.
Unusual for a Sayles film, Danny Glover anchors the piece as its central character, the axis upon which the story and all the characters revolve. All the characters are complete human beings, with only a few drawn as caricatures. I don't mind.
This would be a good film to show as a double bill with "The Great Debators". Several themes overlap, but "Honeydrippers" is the more mature film. Here, a man's biggest grievance is not being able to live in dignity as a man who pays his way. Sayles' characteristic character arcs provide us with many dignified men and women who achieve that dignity by finding ways to honestly pay their way. They do it with joy, love and creativity.
Another fine Working Class film from Cinema's Working Class Hero.
13 of 18 people found this review helpful.
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This is not a great movie by any stretch, but it is a very GOOD one. My rating should be 7.8. IMDb, invest in some higher technology! John Sayles proves yet again what can be done when there is unity of vision on a film, and when everyone involved passionately believes in what they are doing. Any limitations this film has must surely be due to the budget (was there one?) rather than any creative lapses on Sayles' part.
In fact, the only problems I have with "Honeydripper" are technical: some of the shots are out of focus, some of the scenes drag, and there is not a lot of dramatic tension to carry the piece along. It is enough, though, for those of us who can handle something more relaxed than the kinetics of Michael Bey or Steven ("I'll do anything for an Oscar!") Spielberg.
"Honeydripper" is really a small character study of a working class man, surrounded by good people, who is trying do do right by them and himself. It is a romance for the nostalgia of the Deep South in 1950, a period where Jim Crow was on the cusp of yielding to John Kennedy.
It is also a romance for music, where Gospel and Blues was about to fuse and metamorphise into Rock 'n Roll. Sayles loves everything he is doing; you can feel the writer/director's respect and integrity through the camera and the screen.
Unusual for a Sayles film, Danny Glover anchors the piece as its central character, the axis upon which the story and all the characters revolve. All the characters are complete human beings, with only a few drawn as caricatures. I don't mind.
This would be a good film to show as a double bill with "The Great Debators". Several themes overlap, but "Honeydrippers" is the more mature film. Here, a man's biggest grievance is not being able to live in dignity as a man who pays his way. Sayles' characteristic character arcs provide us with many dignified men and women who achieve that dignity by finding ways to honestly pay their way. They do it with joy, love and creativity.
Another fine Working Class film from Cinema's Working Class Hero.