Product Details

• Actors: Hallie A Brown; Tambay A Obenson
• Directors: Tambay A Obenson
• Format: NTSC
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: Voyager Film Company Inc
• DVD Release Date: January 9, 2007
• Run Time: 86 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000NQDG48
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #136,297 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Review

By Deesha Philyaw (3blackchicks.com) Boy meets girl. Boy discovers girl is the introspective struggling actress to his dedicated struggling filmmaker. Boy embarks upon a romance with girl, and a voyeur's-eye view of their relationship is captured in Beautiful Things, independent filmmaker Tambay Obenson's debut feature film. Shot with impressive results on a budget of less than $5,000, Beautiful Things chronicles the everyday moments of love, the simple highs and the frustrating lows, between two twenty-somethings, Schola and Gabriel, each searching for meaning and purpose in their own lives. Shot mostly in black and white, Beautiful Things is a realistic rendering of the anatomy of a relationship from Schola and Gabe's chance meeting on a New York City subway and the quiet euphoria of the early days of romance to the inevitable doldrums and clash of personalities and priorities. Schola and Gabe's is Everyrelationship; the film will strike a resonant chord with anyone who has ever navigated the rough waters of coupledom. At times, however, Beautiful Things feels a little more like Schola's personal story than the story of her relationship with Gabe. In a way, this is fitting because Schola appears to be the one who is most dependent on the relationship for sustenance. This is an uncomfortable truth for those who prefer their female characters to be more independent and less in angst but a truth nonetheless: some women do risk losing themselves in relationships. But to Schola's (and filmmaker Obenson's) credit, she is also resilient and is determined to be an equal partner in the relationship. Schola, like Gabe like all of us are works in progress. Schola's restlessness and Gabe's uncertainty contribute to the film's realism. Interspersed throughout the film, we see the couple in a postscript of sorts (shot in color) discussing the state of their nearly-two-year-old relationship with an unseen interviewer. These segments of the couple's sometimes-awkward, --http://www.3blackchicks.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=681&Itemid=30

Product Description

Disc Extras: Director's Commentary, 2 short films by Tambay A Obenson

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love is rarely portrayed so honestly - black love rarely portrayed so beautifully, March 6, 2007

By	UK Afro Chic (London, UK) - See all my reviews

With its judicious use of black and white, New York, and a cool jazz score, this at times puts me in mind of early John Cassavetes and, with it's improv/unscripted feel, it's like you're actually privy to the intimate details of a real young couple's relationship - from its fledgling flirty stage, through its angst ridden, flailing progress, to its uncertain demise...

Despite the odd Spike Lee reference too many (really not the best way to get a girl to have sex), this is an absolute gem of a movie!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Love - A Beautifully Brutal Thing...!, April 22, 2007

By	Tambay A. Obenson (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

At that Black Man Film Festival in Atlanta, 2006, this movie was billed as a documentary - it isn't, but that's how real it feels.

It's an involving tale of two people trying to make sense of their lives and, whilst struggling with fledgling creative careers, trying to find validation through their relationship with each other, as so many of us tend to do.

It's interesting and well observed how the female lead, Schola, needs more and more from her relationship as her world outside of it fails to offer her the validation she craves - as an actress, as a black woman, as a success... While the male lead, Gabe, gradually extricates himself emotionally from the relationship in order to focus and try to make strides in his elusive film-making career. What they end up with is a strained sexual relationship and a gradual refusal of the very thing they both sought of each other in the beginning of their relationship - affection, admiration, adulation... Affirmation.

It's refreshing to see black actors in roles that don't require playing "up" being black. The characters are not overly funny, overly cool, overly rhythmic, overly "black..." They're simply human, with all the beauty and flaws that being human entails.

It's also a refreshingly realistic look at love and its pitfalls and, like the director's use of New York as a backdrop, does not rely on glossy images and hackneyed ideas of romance and idealism where everything inevitably ends up happily ever after.

Instead, "Beautiful Things" reflects the anxieties, the joys, the fears, and the uncertainties that we generally encounter in our romantic liaisons and is a perfect example of art imitating life - to the extent that, despite it's naïve beauty, it makes you forget that it's art at all.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A nice little tale about falling in love., March 8, 2007

By	The Secret of My Success. "TSOMS." (Canada) - See all my reviews

Beyond the black and white, this is a quiet, absorbing tale about 2 people who meet and fall in love. The excitement of first contact is eventually transformed into the boredom of familiarity. The characters have to dig down really deep into their souls- each has to decide for themselves if the relationship is worth saving. And in a sense perhaps they can then figure out what true love may be all about. Love as intangible as it might be, is the real star of this movie.