Takes itself way too seriously

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

LIBERTY HEIGHTS is a movie set in the mid 1950s. That was the post-war period of major and rapid transitions. Television (in its black and white "golden years") was replacing radio as the medium for soaps, dramas and comedies. Most movie theaters started featuring air conditioning as a major attraction, and room air conditioners were just beginning to pop up in windows throughout the America. After the war years, when all of manufacturing had been limited to the war effort, many new products and materials were available to consumers, including 45 and LP records and hi-fi stereo sets, home freezers and frozen food, plastics, and non-stop transcontinental air traffic. Levittown had just begun the era of planned communities and high-rise apartment building "projects" were being built in an effort to provide low rent urban housing. Popular singers such as Perry Como and Patti Page were being replaced by Elvis Presley and rock and roll music by black singers such as Bill Haley and then James Brown.It was the era in which the Supreme Court ruled on Brown vs Board of Education and Pres. Eisenhower sent troops to Arkansas to enforce school desegregation.This was really a pretty short era. The era ended with the social revolutions of the 1960s, after a new generation of Black intellectuals decided Dr. Martin Luther King's passive resistance approach was either not working or working too slowly, and was supplanted by Black Power militancy. The riots after Martin Luther King's assassination escalated the "white flight" and most urban Jewish communities are now either black or Hispanic communities.LIBERTY HEIGHTS follows coming of age stories of two brothers from a middle class Jewish community in Baltimore. One brother becomes involved with a rich girl and her boyfriend from a wealthy upper class WASP neighborhood; his brother with a black girl being bused into his high school. She is the daughter of a well-to-do upper middle class black family. At that time the people in these communities knew almost nothing about the people in the neighboring communities, with racial stereotypes and rumor substituting for truth and facts. A sign on a community swimming pool reads "No Jews, Dogs or Negroes allowed." The movie also follows the boys' father, who runs a burlesque theater as a front to launder the money he makes from the illegal numbers racket in the parts of Baltimore not controlled by Italian Mafia or by black criminals.Barry Levinson masterly wrote and directed LIBERTY HEIGHTS, using this Baltimore family's stories to show us a part of urban America and its race relations that no longer exist.The sound track is full of wonderful songs from the era that are now classics.

For me it was impossible not to compare Liberty Heights with Barry Levinson's previous Baltimore films (Diner, Tin Men, Avalon) and in every way it comes up short. There were just too many aspects of this film that bothered me, again in comparison with the other three films. The subplot, for example, about the local thug "Little Melvin" holding the teens hostage for ransom was ridiculous, especially since nobody seemed very stressed out, and the incident was never reported to the police. Somehow the casting of Montegna and Neuwirth as the parents never rang true. Adrien Brody and Ben Foster as brothers? Didn't seem authentic. Foster and his female "love interest" played by Rebekah Johnson were about the only two mildly interesting characters. I suppose the operative word is "bland", which is not to say someone who has never seen the earlier Baltimore films wouldn't enjoy this.

I love this movie. I just watched it last night. Thank God my library had a copy of it, because my local Blockbuster does not have a copy of it. It is an excellent movie, the acting, costumes, production, directing, script and directing. I love Ben Foster, he certainly did a great job in this movie, as he always does.Spoiler Alert!It surprised me that on Halloween night Ben Kurtzman, (Ben Foster) dresses up as Adolf Hitler being that the family is Jewish. I knew the parents would be appalled. A funny part is the scene in the kitchen when he was talking about the ass story that is in the Bible. Ha, Ha, Ha.

Liberty heights is a great movie, full of laughter. It gives you a sense of history, as well as providing for a good, well rounded film. The acting is good, the script is well read, and the depiction of events is carried out in a unique fashion. ( Warning, almost spoiler) One of my favorite scenes is where Ben ( mind you , he's Jewish) dresses up as Hitler on Halloween! I highly recommend this movie! P.S - and to the above comment by TxMike, Im well under 50 and I understood and appreciated this film very much. Don't assume that the older you are, the more you'll understand. Im 17, for your information.9/10 (Liberty Heights)