Inside Moves

Let me start out first with a bit of a disclaimer: I am disabled, so I was either going to love this movie or hate it, depending on how real things seemed to me. So my comments have to be seen in that light. Here goes:

This is a very good film, with a good cast, some excellent performances and I love the script. But the thing that impresses me the most about this film is its portrayal of the disabled. They come across as average, normal people-sometimes they're jerks, like most people and sometimes they're nice folks, like most people. There is nothing inherently heroic about being disabled. Conversely, the disabled should not be hermetically sealed off from society for their protection (or yours). All too often, peole make assumptions about people and far too many are made about the disabled. End of sermon.

The other thing I like about this film, although it is admittedly a bit too pat, is the ending of a couple of plot threads. Suffice it to say that Several of the characters get what they deserve, good and bad. I love the poetic justice (or karma, if you prefer) at the end, in the basketball arena. Most recommended.

This is one of my favorites. Read the other comments because they accurately reflect what is great about this movie. With the jarring beginning and all the ugly snapshots of inner city life, this movie makes me want to go back to this believable place that has been created. It makes you believe there is really a place called Max's... a place with diversity and all the complexities of humankind... and that there is hope for mankind! Some of my favorite lines that I repeat constantly (probably wrong): "He'll come back. He just wants to spend some time with his dream." "You've got it backwards. First you get crippled, then you try to commit suicide". Of course... "I'm big, BIG, bigger than you...but that's not hard to be Jerry ... that's not hard to be!" (BTW, does anyone know what Roary (that's how Rory spells it) says after that?... it sounds like "Oh, my hiney" Let me know. My wife and I have played it back 100 times. John Savage has many great lines throughout this. I could never figure out why he didn't win an award. Finally,I think the often-called hokey/corny ending is necessary to bring us back from a hard smack on a Buick. "Hey Roary!"

I don't remember a lot from this movie, but I do remember that a main character played for the Golden State Warriors, part of it was filmed at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum arena, and that some of the Warriors on the team at that time appeared in the movie. It also looked like it was filmed in the Oakland/Berkeley area (I wonder if the bar in the movie is in that area today It was cool to see a movie that had a real team back then, rather than the Pittsburgh Pipers, NY Knights, North Dallas Bulls, etc. It is also cool that it was not not a popular team like the Bulls, Lakers, Cowboys, Yankees and whatnot. I hope I can catch it on cable some time for I doubt that is available on DVD.

This is a movie about the kind of people most of us spend our lives trying to avoid: drunks, whores and cripples of every description. The setting is seamy, mostly taking place in an old neighborhood bar; no ferns here, no clever reparte between beautiful people. The is a story of loneliness and not a little darkness, leavened with gentle, often self-effacing humor.

The miracle here is the degree to which you wind up truly caring about what happens to these folks. The action in the movie is simple. The people are not, and it is a remarkable feat of storytelling to bring this ensemble to such rich, moving life.

This is truly a sleeper, Steinbeckian in its evocation of the common humanity in us all.

"Inside Moves" was marketed in Japan as "San Francisco Monogatari"

which means "San Francisco Story." ("To Kill a Mockingbird" is known

in Japan as "Alabama Monogatari".) "Inside Moves" is another little

movie that when I saw it in a cheap theater in Japan, I thought,

"Great. I am going to enjoy seeing this many times"; only to find

myself waiting for decades for it to resurface. It's a film which

examines the essence of humanity: heart, mind, and body. It's about

finding yourself through helping others; something that in the Thai

language is called, "Nam Jai" which means "water from the heart."

Sometimes we find it and sometimes we lose it. My favorite line is

John Savage's, "You don't have to come around anymore. We don't need

your kind of cripple" to indicate the sorry lot of those who have lost

the joy of giving and the value of camaraderie. But "Inside Moves"

gives it back again.