The Long Walk Home (1990)

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The Long Walk Home is a movie principally geared for those who want to see a perspective of US history in the mid 19950s whereby Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. School children, 9 years and up, should see it with an adult. The movie's pace is slow and deliberate. Yet, it takes the time to work out the characters' thoughts and feeling about the bus issue. Rosa Parks in my mind has always been a hero for this action. For a woman of her age to perform a righteous act in lieu of an unrighteous law is something to admire. We are all equal in the eyes of God and the law. This is what Rosa Parks was trying to establish in her own way. The movie held my attention and truly discusses differing viewpoints of the time. Sissy Spacek and Whoopi Goldberg are always good to watch, together awesome. This is a movie best watched in the afternoons or late at night. Primetime movies are better for non-serious entertainment. No popcorn here. Serious attention and thought for this movie only.

Just rewatched this movie on YouTube. Taking place during the bus boycott of 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, maid Odessa Cotter (Whoopi Goldberg) resolves to walk but her employer Miriam Thompson (Sissy Spacek) decides to drive her for at least a couple of days of the week to her house. I'll stop there and just say this was quite an inspiring, if intense, drama about how oppressive it could be during that time if you were not only the wrong color but also the wrong gender, that is, if you weren't a white male. I mean, the way Miriam's husband Norman (Dwight Schultz) and his younger brother Tunker (Dylan Baker) felt threatened by the whole thing makes one wonder. And the way Odessa's teen kids, Selma (Erika Alexander) and Theodore (Richard Habersham) were almost completely defeated by those white teen boys definitely gave me a pause. Not to mention how openly bigoted Miriam's mother (Gleaves Azar) said her opinion in front of the help was so blatantly appalling to see. What gives one hope is not only the way Miriam and Odessa communicate with each other, but also the way the narration of the grown Thompson daughter Mary Catherine (voice of Mary Steenburgen, Lexi Randall as a child) assures us how poignantly inspiring the whole time was. So on that note, The Long Walk Home gets a high recommendation from me. P.S. Ving Rhames-several years before his star-making turn in Pulp Fiction-portrays Odessa's husband Herbert with hair. Richard Habersham was Eddie in Do the Right Thing the year before. Younger brother Franklin was played by Jason Weaver who would later be the singing voice of Young Simba in The Lion King. He's also, like me, a Chicago native. And Erika Alexander would become Cousin Pam on "The Cosby Show" after making this.

Blacks in the South during the 1950s start a strife-riddled boycott against the transit system after Rosa Parks is disciplined for not giving up her seat to a white person on the bus. Subject matter is well worth exploring, but director Richard Pearce approaches this story too dutifully, as if he were teaching a course in towing the line. The white folk are all nasty bigots, except maid Whoopi Goldberg's proprietress--a saintly Sissy Spacek--who takes up the black community's cause. It's Convenient Script-Writing 101, and without much of an edge it never has a chance to accumulate any heart--or any vitality. ** from ****

I teach in a small town where the majority of the students are Caucasian. After watching the Long Walk Home for the first time, I began a search to buy it for my personal collection. I use this movie every year after the unit on the Civil Rights Movement. This movie shows students what can be accomplished if everyone is willing to make the necessary sacrifices and work together.It also shows them that this was not an easy task. It was more than just giving a speech or refusing to sit in the back of the bus. It was making the commitment to walk to work, the store, everywhere.. regardless of the number of blisters on the feet or how early the walk had to begin.I am a big fan of Whoopi's, and while they did not seem to be two of her more popular movies, The Long Walk Home and Sarafina were two of her best. While I was out on disability, my movie, The Long Walk Home, disappeared. If anyone knows where I can get a replacement of her movie, I would definitely appreciate hearing from them.