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List Price: $9.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 16983
Released: June 20, 2000 |
| Our Price: $3.00 |
| Used Price: $0.01 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
The lives of residents of a baltimore suburb intersect with humor and heart. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 02/03/2004 Starring: Joe Mantegna Adrien Brody Run time: 128 minutes Rating: R Director: Barry Levinson
Description of Liberty Heights:
When he's not crafting lavish Hollywood features like Rain Man, Bugsy, or the misbegotten Sphere, Barry Levinson occasionally makes highly personal films (the so-called "Baltimore series" of Diner, Tin Men, Avalon, and Liberty Heights). The latter, a 1999 release that disappeared all too soon from theaters, finds the aging Levinson working in a vein of pure memory: lyrical, mystical, forgiving. Ben Foster and Adrien Brody star as the middle-class Jewish sons of a shrewd burlesque operator (Joe Mantegna) running a petty numbers racket on the side. Set in the mid-'50s, the story finds the boys restless within the confines of their tight-knit community and unwilling to be restrained or rejected by anti-Semitic barriers or other racial and class prejudices.
Before the film is over, the young men's pursuit of the unattainable will include a troubled WASP princess (Carolyn Murphy) to a remarkable African American girl (Rebekah Johnson) kept on her family's short tether. Levinson provides generous glimpses of a nation undergoing re-invention, from white discovery of rock & roll to racial integration in classrooms. There's lots of broad satire (Jewish shock at being fed something called "luncheon meat" by a Gentile friend), some delicate comedy of manners (a touchingly chaste relationship between two key characters), suspense (a kidnapping), and shattering passages of pure yearning. Levinson is in top form with Liberty Heights, his instincts acute, his skills at the service of beauty, his purpose clear. --Tom Keogh
Liberty Heights Reviews:
Part 4 of the Baltimore Trilogy 
2008-11-03 - It's hard to watch Liberty Heights without finding it a pastiche of Barry Levinson's previous three films about Baltimore and its engaging residents and neighborhoods. Liberty Heights has goofy young males, seemingly unattainable American princesses, flawed but loving families, a businessman (albeit a crooked one) caught on the cusp of societal change, an abiding love of big cars, and esoteric late night diner conversations. All those elements are found in one or more of Diner, Tin Men, and Avalon (and that perfect scene of fireworks bursting over the new immigrant's head, one of my favorite movie scenes ever.) Still, I was happy to watch these new riffs on some old themes because new elements keep getting added, in this case a more direct depiction of the barriers and prejudices of the era. Unappealing though some of them may be, you find yourself rooting for almost all of Levinson's characters, hoping they'll make it safely through to the other side of the enormous gap between the fifties and the late sixties. Liberty Heights also brings a fine performance from Adrian Brody and an even better one from the always quiet, but always pitch perfect Joe Mantegna.
An excellent film that is often overlooked 
2006-07-24 - A Barry Livingstone production, which is semi-autobiographical. The story centers on a Jewish family living in Baltimore at the height of anti-Semitism. Other racial issues emerge, such as the introduction of African American students into White schools. Despite the `weighty' content, this movie is actually a comedy, and there are several moments that are truly funny. Benefits from a great cast, including Adrian Brody - before his `mainstream' emergence.
Awesome!
2006-06-10 - A movie about a Jewish family in Baltimore, Maryland in the mid-1950s. One of my favorite movies.
Just barely got 4 stars -- here's why
2006-01-29 - Story: Joe Mantegna, Bebe Neuwirth, Adrien Brody, and Ben Foster portray the Kurtzmann family, a Jewish family, in the 1955 suburbs of Baltimore. As the father runs a burlesque show (the legitimate family business), he also runs a numbers racket. Meanwhile, the older son falls in love with a non-Jewish blonde, who is outwardly perfect but actually very troubled. The younger son, portrayed by Ben Foster, falls in love with a Black girl (Rebekah Johnson), who is in the first group of Black students integrated into their school. Then, the world begins to crumble when Orlando Jones wins big in the numbers racket, and Mr. Kurtzmann and Company don't have the cash to pay off.
Why I gave it four stars: Ben Foster and Rebekah Johnson are completely likeable, cute, funny, charming, and realistically wonderful. The story is replete with the cultural and ethnic clashes that were rife in that era, but none of it is overdone, underdone, or trivialized. Some of the music is very good, especially the scene near the end, as everything is falling apart for the elder Kurtzmann, while the burlesque tune "It's Over" plays.
Why it doesn't get the fifth star: This is a good character study, but it meanders and drifts quite a bit. For the first half of the movie, I kept expecting something to happen, and trying to figure out if the story was actually going anywhere at all. Also, from the other reviews, it appears that others found this film to be funnier than I did. There were two somewhat funny scenes (when Foster and his friends try to analyze an anti-Semetic and racist sign, instead of being incensed by it; when Foster and his friends very creatively protest the exclusion of Jews from a local beach). Oh, and Adrien Brody added nothing to this film, in my opinion.
Bottom line: This is a good, likeable film, weak on action but strong on characterizations. Ben Foster, Rebekah Jonhson, and Joe Mantegna were excellent.
Excellent film, valuable history lesson...
2005-04-10 - A lot of Americans---especially the younger generations---are breathtakingly ignorant of their own very recent history, and films like "Liberty Heights" are invaluable for reminding us that no, this country has never been a utopian paradise of freedom as current day simpletons (read: George W. Bush and all his right wing partisan prostitutes like Rush Limbaugh, etc.) would have us believe.
The idea is not to fixate on the past but to use it as a guidepost towards the future---the kind of racist and anti-semitic world that "Liberty Heights" portrays has abated on many fronts but is far from vanquished, and all this progress did not magically arise but was the fruit of the blood sweat and tears of many principled and brave individuals over the course of the last several decades. Many battles have been won but the war is not over by a long shot.
Aside from social history, Levinson's film is also stirring entertainment: he has assembled a very strong cast, with an excellent script and masterful camera direction. "Liberty Heights" does not have the grand epic sweep of "Avalon" but is deals more directly with racial and ethnic tensions in 1950s Baltimore without falling into the usual cliches and sensationalistic traps that such socially conscious films (see "Grand Canyon" or recent Spike Lee movies) often stoop to. This is no cheap Hollywood tear-jerker but an honest, balanced and very mature work---probably explains why it tanked at the box office.
