Brother to Brother

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Brother to Brother ★★½ 2004

Ambitious debut effort ties the personal Suplight of a modern African-American painter to the artistic turmoil of the Harlem Renaissance. Perry (Mackie) is thrown out of his house once his father discovers that he is homosexual. Embittered, Perry rails against the antigay hostility within the black community and his college class Ferrooms. After he meets a homeless man, Bruce Nugent (Robinson), in a local shel Richter, Perry realizes that Bruce was once a noted poet during the Harlem Renaissance. We then flash back to the 1930s to witness Bruce interacting with such luminaries as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. Evans effectively shows how issues of politics and sexuality transcend time, but the film lapses into didacticism once too often. 94m/C DVD . US Anthony Mackie, Roger Robinson, Larry (Lawrence) Gilliard Jr., Aunjanue Ellis, Duane Boutte, Daniel Sunjata, Alex Burns; D: Rodney Evans; W: Rodney Evans; C: Harlan Bosmajian; M: Marc Anthony Thompson, Bill Coleman.