Music Within (2007)

Music Within is one of those stand up and cheer films based on a true story. The real life hero is Richard Pimentel, a colorful speaker that took a circuitous route to where he ended up in life.

Pimentel is ably played by Ron Livingston. As a young man, while he doesn't have the money for college, he is a gifted speaker. He auditions up at the university for Ben Padrow (the ever present, but consistently good Hector Elizondo) the toughest speech professor since mine back in college. While the speeches that Pimentel gives for the audition are nothing short of impressive, Padrow suggests that Pimentel get some "real life experience" so he actually has something to talk about. Well, that goal for some experience leads Pimentel to Vietnam, where needless to say he gets more than he bargains for. After completing a heroic mission, meriting a personal thank you from his CO, as he plays cards with some buddies he ends up deaf from an incoming projectile.

The Army's answer is to discharge him, send him his disability check, and they don't think it's worth even putting the money into him to send him to college (enlightened thinking of the 70's). Pimentel teaches himself to read lips, befriends another disabled person, Art Honeyman (Michael Sheen), and soon gets a job where he is overpaid and underworked at an insurance company where they don't even know he's deaf. Now most guys out there would have rested on their laurels at that point, right? Not Pimentel who then leaves the cushy insurance job to help his fellow vets, and ends up being one of the key players in the Americans with Disabilities Act decades later.

Music Within has an amazing background story. Telling the story of Richard Pimentel, not exactly a household name, and what he achieved in the face of adversity should have made for a compelling movie. However, unlike films such as Freedom Writers, or The Ron Clark Story I just didn't feel the heroic part as much. Maybe I just didn't know where this was going for most of the film, but I was quite surprised at the end to hear that this guy had anything to do that was on the national stage. Maybe for too much of the film, Music Within just feels like a second tier affair, which is too bad given its subject matter. It's more of a "sit up and smile" than a "stand up and cheer" film, but still, I've seen worse. This is the point at which fellow Armchair Critic reviewer JB often says something like "it's not that it's a bad film, it's just that it's not a very good one" and that pretty much sums up what we have here.

Overall Grade: B-

Reviewed by Jonas

Cane, CBS, Season One, 2007

Probably the most anticipated show this season (I use that term carefully because I've heard that phrase on several networks, all for different shows!) is CBS' "Cane." This show is an hour long weekly drama that is a continuing series. In my view, CBS has needed a good continuing drama since "Dallas" went off in the 80's. With "The Sopranos" finally coming to an end, of some sort, the time was ripe for them to offer something to fill the void.

The plotline revolves around a Cuban family, the Duque's, that have sugar fields (hence the title), which they manufacture into rum. With our increasingly Hispanic demographic, and the success of the show "Ugly Betty, " it makes sense for the show to be so culturally rich with a Latino bent. The setting is in Southern Florida, with the clubs of South Beach, Miami already figuring into scenes. I could also picture a side trip or two into Havana, Cuba before the series concludes.

In the series opener, the family's patriarch, Pancho, played by Hector Elizondo, is told that he has six months left to live. He decides to step down from running the company to enjoy the time he has left. He has three children: Frank, Isabel, and Henry.

Frank, the eldest, wants to follow in his father's steps, and to focus on the more lucrative rum business. Unfortunately, with his playboy lifestyle, he is less than focused to run the family business.

Isabel is not directly involved in the day to day family business, but her husband, Alex Vega is. Alex is a Cuban immigrant who was brought to the states as an orphan. He is resourceful, and appears to have a Machiavellian philosophy of life, and the Tony Soprano/JR Ewing rulebook. In a surprise move, Alex is made the CEO of the company, passing over Frank. Can we see the seeds being sown for a conflict?

The youngest child is Henry. He has little interest in sugar, but much in running the family nightclub in Miami. He has more ambition than business sense, but there will be plenty of storylines as he learns the ropes of the family business. I relate him to Cousin Christopher of the Sopranos, or Bobby Ewing of Dallas.

My one criticism of the show, is that I recorded it, but on the playback, I had some issues understanding what they were saying. Maybe it was my machine, but I hope that the sound editing was good, because several of the scenes were in Spanish, or heavily accented English. It's good to get the flavor in, but I shouldn't have to struggle to understand what's going on. Then again, maybe it was my new recording device.

After watching the series opener of "Cane," I will say that I'm hooked, and this is probably the best new drama of the Fall season. I think that while the drama is formulaic, there are enough timeless themes like family and power to keep viewers engaged for at least a few seasons. I'm predicting that "Cane" will do very well in the ratings, so join in at 10 pm on CBS on Tuesdays, or online.

Preliminary Grade: B+

--Jonas