Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

tostinati Cornbread, Earl and Me is a long way from a perfect film. Some of the characters are overdrawn, and some are cornily acted. But it is, as others say, truthful -- painfully so. And that's to it's eternal credit. At the center of the films' inevitable and staggering sequence is a very young Laurence Fishburn as the nominal "Me". I had heard the odd-sounding title of this film for decades without seeing it. When it came on THIS network, I settled in to give it a watch, expecting something poignant and earnest. It delivered. To snipe at the film unfairly, perhaps, I wish that the police hadn't been so corrupt by design. I wish that the investigators from central precinct hadn't been so fast to act like jerks. I guess I wanted the epically weepy, tragic vibe of the central scene to carry on for at least the middle third of the film. But in rapid succession after the death, we are presented things which turn our sadness to anger and then to militancy. At that point, even the most naive viewer will be aware of how heavily we are being manipulated by the film's makers. The danger of subconscious and then conscious satirical reaction and resulting camp "failed seriousness" is never far away in the last half of this film.I don't disagree with the politics. I don't disagree with the film's matter-of-fact assertion that police are often abusive of the privilege and power that their gun and authorization to use it gives them. I know this is true. But knowing it, that's the thing: I don't have to sit still to be told it and retold it for an hour and a half. Evoking a touching, bitterly poignant moment ... now that's something many and many a freshman film maker attempts, and achieves only clumsily or not at all. I have to give this director and writer kudos for lining up the awful moment where the two halves of the film, the pastoral and the horrific, collide and fracture the characters' world. It's heart-rending. But I think they made a mistake in not allowing the rare and beautiful chord they achieve -- The Truth, wound up in sorrow-- to sustain for a bit longer.The courtroom scenes and a lot else in the last half are rather amateurishly staged and acted. But, thank God, we will always have the first half of this film, with Laurence Fishburn's incredible breakdown, Rosiland Cash's terrible epiphany and the harrowing minutes after that. These moments would seem to guarantee the film immortality.A generous 7 of 10 stars. When this film is good, it wails. When it is bad, it is truly some of the worst "blaxploitation" footage I have ever sat through. If ever any film did, this one proves that a film's heart being in the right place will keep you on it's side, even as it wheels off it's axis and into the void.

leighabc123 It was funny seeing the great actor Laurence Fishburne as a 13 year old child in this movie. He could act back then.This movie had a whole lot of great actors who were guest stars in popular black sitcoms of the seventies. Rosalind Cash as Laurence Fishburne's character's mother. Moses Gunn. Antonio Fargas is type-casted with the same type of role in every movie that he is in. This movie was made in the early 1970s. A police shot an innocent black man. Fast forward to 2007 in Norfolk, Virginia. The same thing is happening here today, over 30 years later! Yes cops intimidate people just like they intimidated people in this movie.

bryanac625 I saw this film in the theater in 1975 when it came out. It bothered me a lot then, because I was a 10-year old, insecure black boy and I believed the things I saw on film. I was really sensitive to violent images on screen in those days (not that they mean nothing now, but I'm definitely more desensitized). Anyway, seeing an 18-year old black man shot and killed on screen really made me feel insecure about my own future.Anyway, I just watched this movie again for the first time in 30 years. This movie sucks!!! All of the black characters are like "Ohh, Lawd... we in de ghetto, sho nuff!" All the white characters are horribly racist and every time they open their mouths, no matter what they say, it seems to come out as "nigger!" I'm sure some will say, "Well, that's the way it was in 1975 and these blaxploitation film paved an importance on the way to current progress. Well, whatever. This movie is so bad it's more of a joke than Saturday Night Live.

hillari A kid witnesses the shooting death of the neighborhood basketball star. The basketball player had been mistaken by the police as a crime suspect. The kid is subjected to harrassment from the policement involved to keep quiet about what he knows. The cops even go so far as to intimidate his mother. This is an early film appearance of Lawrence Fishburne's. He was thirteen or fourteen when he did this movie. The always magnificent late Rosalind Cash plays his mother. The film makes a sharp comment about the conflicts people have with the very people who are supposed to be protecting them.