Straight Out of Brooklyn

Directed by Matty Rich:

88 minutes;

rated R, 1991.

The Thomas Crown Affair

Directed by Norman

Jewison; 102 minutes;

rated R; 1968.

The Revenge of the Pink Panther

Directed by Blake

Edwards: 113 minutes;

rates G; 1975.

The video store is the modern library. Actually, it's a kind of combination library-and-sweet-shop-candyland, since, as we all know, it is more exciting to be surrounded by hundreds of movies than by hundreds of books. Each visit to the store brings back the hope that upon exiting you will have chosen the perfect film, one which you have never seen and have always wanted to see. Of course, if it's not any good, the whole experience is extremely dispiriting, but that's not important. The actual viewing has been reduced in importance relative to the process of selecting the movie in the neighborhood store. And there is nothing worse than choosing the old standard, sticking with what you know and picking Star Wars or Coming to America, Heathers or another such film which is always rented. So, each week in this space, we will offer you some fine films which tend to be overlooked by the average video renter. Hopefully, you will both like the movies and, above all, avoid the obvious and the tedious.

Straight Out of Brooklyn--Nineteen-year-old Matty Rich's directing debut delves into the life of a Black family in Red Hook, a Brooklyn housing complex. The movie examines the fate of the young generation in urban New York City. The viewer sympathizes with the plight of the son. Dennis Brown, who looks down on his father, an abusive gas-pumper. But Brown has no patience to work his way out of Brooklyn and is determined to rob a drug dealer. Both the father and son emerge as the victims and not the villains of society.

While Straight Out of Brooklyn was not a box-office smash, it is more realistic than New Jack City and more moving than Boyz in the Hood. The movie avoids the glamour of the drug culture and instead focuses on the dilemma facing ambitious Black youths.