Dead Presidents (Hughes Brothers, 1995)

[King Prendergast]

Can anyone defend this film's inclusion in the collection back in the laserdisc days?

[CSM126]

Should we have to? Alright. It's well written and directed, has some excellent performances and tackles an important issue (soldiers neglected by the government upon returning from war). It's a compassionate and moving piece from a talented filmmaking duo that deserve some respect for making two very hard but important films about the black experience (the other being Menace II Society, also a Criterion laserdisc). It's good.

Of course these things are entirely subjective, but what else would you expect? You may as well ask someone to defend any movie being in the collection. They all have their supporters and their detractors, reasons why they should and shouldn't be there. I suppose, if you really wanted to, you could ask the almighty Mulvaney for reasons, but they'd probably come down to "We liked it. And we thought we could make money off of it", which is probably the same answer you'd get for anything they release.

[bunuelian]

Probably dead presidents.

[s.j. bagley]

Should we have to? Alright. It's well written and directed, has some excellent performances and tackles an important issue (soldiers neglected by the government upon returning from war). It's a compassionate and moving piece from a talented filmmaking duo that deserve some respect for making two very hard but important films about the black experience (the other being Menace II Society, also a Criterion laserdisc). It's good.

Of course these things are entirely subjective, but what else would you expect? You may as well ask someone to defend any movie being in the collection. They all have their supporters and their detractors, reasons why they should and shouldn't be there. I suppose, if you really wanted to, you could ask the almighty Mulvaney for reasons, but they'd probably come down to "We liked it. And we thought we could make money off of it", which is probably the same answer you'd get for anything they release.

i pretty much agree with all of this.
hell, i think this film is a lot more justifiable than a few that have made it to cc dvd.