THE HUMAN STAIN
RATING: R
STARRING: Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, and Gary Sinise
DIRECTOR: Robert Benton
PRODUCERS: Gary Lucchesi, Tom Rosenberg, and Scott Steindorff
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Ronald M. Bozman, Steve Hutensky, Eberhard Kayser, Andre Lamal, Micheal Ohoven, Rick Schwartz, Bob Weinstein, and Harvey Weinstein
WRITERS: Nicholas Meyer
BASED ON THE NOVEL BY: Philip Roth
DISTRIBUTOR: Miramax Films/Buena Vista/The Walt Disney Company
GENRE: Drama/Romance
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Adults
SUMMARY: The Human Stain stars Anthony Hopkins as Coleman Silk, a Jewish professor and dean of a small college. Soon, he is embroiled in a scandal over a supposed racial statement he made in classes. He resigns in anger. When he goes home to tell wife, she has a heart attack and dies. Coleman barges into the house of reclusive writer, Nathan Zuckerman, demanding that Nathan write a story of how the college practically murdered his wife. Zuckerman wisely refuses, but becomes a friend to Coleman. One day, Coleman comes to Zuckerman, glowing about Faunia, a new lady in his life who’s played by Nicole Kidman.
The Human Stain is a haunting, melancholy tale of one man’s hidden shame that leads him to make incredibly unwise decisions throughout his life. Despite superb performances, the movie is filled with sex, nudity, foul language, and despair. Ultimately, it’s just another film about the emptiness of life without God. Wise moviegoers probably will reject it.
CONTENT: Pagan worldview with hopeless, "just find someone to cry with" message, including depression, despair, suicide, and murder; about seven mild obscenities, 25 strong obscenities, two profanities; violence includes murder by running people off snowy road into lake and boxing violence with blood; sex includes four veiled sex scenes.
RADIO
RATING: PG
STARRING: Cuba Gooding, Jr., Ed Harris, Debra Winger, and Alfre Woodard
DIRECTOR: Mike Tollin
PRODUCERS: Mike Tollin, Brian Robbins, and Herbert W. Gains
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Todd Garner and Caitlin Scanlon
WRITER: Mike Rich
DISTRIBUTOR: Columbia Pictures/Sony
GENRE: Drama
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Teenagers and adults
SUMMARY: Radio is a true story which begins in 1976 in Anderson, South Carolina. Cuba Gooding, Jr., plays a mentally handicapped man nicknamed Radio who’s befriended by the coach of the local high school football team, Harold Jones, played by Ed Harris. When he catches a few of his star athletes harassing the retarded Radio, Coach Jones takes Radio under his care and makes a point of helping him, even when it puts stresses and strains on his job and his family.
Radio takes a while to get going. Halfway into the story, when the audience learns more about the motives of Coach Jones and more about Radio’s home life, the movie takes off. Suddenly, the audience starts to care about Coach Jones and about Radio and his mother. A bit more work on developing the story and the story’s strong Christian premise would have helped immensely. The audience needs to know where you’re going, or they may not want to get on the bus with you. Radio would be a Plus Four movie if it weren’t for a significant bout of foul language, something that would be easy to delete in the video release.
CONTENT: Very strong Christian worldview about being a Good Samaritan, including strong redemptive scenes of forgiveness and scene of people coming out of Christian church, plus several very strong moral elements throughout; 25 mild obscenities and one profanity; threats of violence and minor violence with retarded man being pushed around; no sex.
