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A Raisin in the Sun

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A Raisin in the Sun (2008)

February. 25,2008
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6.6
| Drama
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Dreams can make a life worth living, but they can also be dashed by bad decisions. This is the crossroads whare the Younger family find themselves when their father passes away and leaves them with $10,000 in life insurance money. Should they buy a new home for the family? Perhaps a liquor store? While no choice is easy, life on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s is even harder.

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Reviews

Cathardincu
2008/02/25

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

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Smartorhypo
2008/02/26

Highly Overrated But Still Good

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ShangLuda
2008/02/27

Admirable film.

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StyleSk8r
2008/02/28

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

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shandee_salinas
2008/02/29

So I think this movie was bad because of the way Walter,Beneatha, and George Murchison acted.When George and Beneatha were at the club dancing,George made it look like he wasn't trying.Walter really didn't show the way he acted like in the book.Beneatha didn't act so strong as a woman, she acted like a normal person in the real life,it's not like the book.The book made it more explosive and very interesting.

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BlackRoseShelli
2008/03/01

After watching the original, I had to watch the 2008 remake with Sean Combs and Phylicia Rashad. There were additional scenes that weren't in the original, but for the most part it was nearly word for word, which was surprising for a remake. I also thought some of it was better than the original, but a few scenes weren't as good, either. I thought Phylicia Rashad did a better job at Lena than Claudia McNeil did. And Ruby Dee in the original did a better job at Ruth than Audra McDonald did. The part of Beneatha was well played by both actresses.Overall, if this were the only version I'd ever seen, I'd say they did a fantastic job!

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bkoganbing
2008/03/02

Although this version of A Raisin In The Sun doesn't come up to the first film version which contained many of the original Broadway cast, the 2008 reenactment can certainly stand on its own. Wisely the producers left the time as it was in the late Fifties on the cutting edge of the Civil Rights movement.I doubt you could do a modern version of A Raisin In The Sun with the election of Barack Obama. But that fact lends a certain poignancy to this production. One only wishes that Lorraine Hansberry had lived to see Election Day of 2008. Her work now inherits the mantle of history.Some things haven't changed though. The Younger family if they were around today would still be experiencing some of the same economic issues. And making the big family decision about what to do with the $10,000.00 in insurance money that the recently departed Walter Lee Younger Sr. provided for his family.The conflict centers around Sean Combs as Walter Lee Younger, Jr. and his mother Phylicia Rashad. Combs sees an opportunity in a liquor store with two partners and Rashad wants a move to the suburbs and out of the Southside of Chicago. The family does come together however when a neighborhood association as represented by John Stamos offers to buy them out of moving to his lily white neighborhood. In the original play and film version the part John Stamos plays was done by John Fiedler. Talk about radical casting change.This is not as good as the first film version, but it does hold its own and well.

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les6969
2008/03/03

This film start slowly and at times is a little dull but this is mainly due to the lacklustre performance of Mr Combes, P Diddy, Puffy whatever. Every other performance is superb and this is what carries the film, however as others have already commented, what could have been an excellent film, with someone else in the lead role, becomes just a good film and I would still recommend it for anyone to watch. Combes performance is just not believable, sure he is moody and unlikeable but you get the feeling that he struggles to move away from his real persona and slips too easily back into being a 90s rapper rather than a black man struggling in 1950s America. It might be worth noting that if you hate the modern trend for films to be littered with foul language, sex and violence then you will love this film because it stays true to the original play in this regard and has resisted the mistake many remakes have made of modernising it and alienating the family audience. So for many reasons I would recommend this film and just think it is a shame another, much better lead actor was not chosen for the main male role.

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