Author Archive: Elaine Hegwood Bowen
Elaine Hegwood Bowen is an editor, writer and film critic in Chicago. She is the proud parent of "the smart rapper"--chemist-turned-rapper, Psalm One!
42
42 is a film that is drenched in history regarding the first black player to play major league baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers—Jackie Robinson, who wore number 42 for the team in 1947, when he integrated the sport. This integration was deliberate, as baseball club owner Branch Rickey, who was a man of great faith [...]
The Sweeney
Tearing up the streets of London, The Sweeney is a stylish and exhilarating action thriller proving sometimes you have to act like a criminal to catch a criminal. The Sweeney is directed by Nick Love and based on the popular 1970s U.K. television show of the same name. This movie from the beginning to the [...]
Polish Bar
Polish Bar is a story of faith, loyalty and family. Vincent Piazza plays Reuben, a young, middle-class Jew who is fed up with the family jewelry business. He looks for respect by trying to prove himself as a Hip Hop DJ and working for Polish criminals at the local strip club. In a world of [...]
CONNECTED: an autobiography about love, death & technology
CONNECTED: an autobiography about love, death & technology is a fast-paced, eye opening film by Tiffany Shlain that explores the impact of technology and the world’s connectiveness to the Internet and other media that serves to make us more independent, when we should certainly be more interdependent on each other to solve the world’s problem. [...]
Yelling to the Sky
Yelling to the Sky is a bad girl movie that brings together two biracial sisters, one of whom catches hell at home from her white father and also at school, as she is bullied on a daily basis. Their mother, played by Yolonda Ross, also is verbally and physically abused by the father played by [...]
Django Unchained
I am having a hard time with Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, the latest movie by the famed director starring Jamie Foxx as Django, Kerry Washington, Christoph Waltz , Leonard DiCaprio and, of course, Samuel L. Jackson. I am trying to view it as a love story, set in slavery times. But the movie is so [...]
The Central Park Five
A new documentary from award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns is now playing in limited release. The Central Park Five chronicles the events of April 19, 1989, in New York when five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem (Raymond Santana, 14, Kevin Richardson, 14, Steve Lopez, 15, Antron McCray, 15, Yusef Salaam, 15, and Kharey Wise, 16) were arrested [...]
Celebrity Trials in the Media
Celebrity Trials in the Media analyzes famous trials of the last few decades, or at least trials that were made famous by the media frenzy surrounding them. One case covered is the 2004 Kobe Bryant sexual assault trial, which ended after 14 months with no trial at all—the trial was dismissed because the woman involved [...]
The Heart of Christmas
The Heart of Christmas is an uplifting story about a family who is facing the worst condition imaginable—their young son has been diagnosed with cancer. As they look for help, they find much support in other families faced with the same circumstances at the hospital where they have sought treatment. They also have found a [...]
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