| View Larger Image | Against the Wall: Quality of Life | DVDStarring: Lane Garrison, Brian Burnam, Luis Saguar, Mackenzie Firgens, Andrew A. Rolfes
Directed By: Benjamin Morgan
| List Price: | $5.98 | | | Available: | Usually ships in 1 to 2 days |
| | Binding: | DVD | | Rating: |  | | Run Time: | 84 minutes | | Format: | Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC | | Studio: | Screen Media | | Number of Discs: | 1 | | Aspect Ratio: | 1.78:1 | | Release Date: | June 13, 2006 | | Sales Rank: | 84,720th |
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FEATURES | - This HBO telefilm takes its inspiration from a real-life event -- the notorious takeover of New York's Attica State Prison by inmates angry at their poor treatment. After authorities ignore constant complaints by the prisoners, two convicts incite a riot to protest the terrible conditions in the Attica correctional facility. Soon guards have become hostages, and the entire world is waiting
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
CELEGRATED GRAFFITI ARTISTS 'HEIR' & 'VAIN' ARE SUPERSTARS IN THE UNDERGROUND WORLD OF SAN FRANCISCO'S MISSION DISTRICT URBAN OUTLAWS ALWAYS ON THE RUN. AFTER A CLASH WITH THE LAW, THEY FIND THEIR LIVES SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL WITH EXPLOSIVE CONSEQUENCES. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 8 reviews)
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Quality of Life by Bryan A. Pfleeger (Metairie, Louisiana United States)  3 Stars
May 06, 2008
Benjamin Morgan's no budget character study Quality of Life is a decent film. It's not a great film but the term independent gem may well apply. Quality of Life refers to those nuisance laws like littering, prostitution and graffiti writing that degrade the status quo from inside the system.
The film follows the paths of two graffiti artists in the Mission District of San Francisco. Michael aka Heir (Lane Garrison) and Curtis aka Vain (Brian Burnam) are house painters by day and graffiti artists by night. After a run in with the law the friends follow two divergent paths. Heir moves in the direction of getting a job in an ad agency while Vain continues to spiral out of control and into self destructive behavior.
While the acting is not always even the performances by the leads are generally effective. There is good support from Luis Saguar as a concerned father and from Mackenzie Firgens as Vain's live-in girlfriend, Lisa.
The filmmakers, working on a shoestring budget,produce a compelling portrait of the graffiti and hip hop lifestyle. The disc that I viewed from Screen Media was bare bones. I understand that the filmmakers have a bonus filled edition available for sale at their website. If you are a fan this may be the better edition to purchase. One slight problem that I did notice was that the sound was mixed extremely low during the feature. This problem is not present on the commentary track by Morgan and producer Brant Smith. The commentary track is a good listen and explains the trials and tribulations of no budget filmmaking.
This is one small gem that is worth checking out.
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Thumbs Up by M. Anthony Gaitan (cali) 3 Stars
February 11, 2008
Its pretty much a raw story of a graff writers life. Alot of graff writers deal with the same stuff this movies goes into. From cops, to beef, struggle and bombing.
The movie is a little low budget but easy to see past that once it gets going. Has lots of bombing, good music and a decent story IMO. By the time your done with the movie im sure youll be glad you watched it, atleast once.
its worth the 5 bucks... get it.
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Where do you draw the line? by Robin Benson  2 Stars
December 31, 2007
An all too predictable indie production: street level story aimed at the youth market with raw editing, dialogue, sound-mixing all indicative of a low (almost no) budget. Unless you are part of the target market the characters and plot become forgettable very quickly.
I thought the Extras were of more interest having watched the film. Director Benjamin Morgan and Brant Smith's efforts to get their baby into film festivals and then expect to be suddenly surrounded by distributors wanting to get their hands on the film were touching. No go with Sundance but Berlin accepted, where it joined the dozens of other (better?) films on show. It turns out that word of mouth marketing worked best to pull in the punters. The film's website offers the DVD, a book and a CD so maybe the crew might make a few bucks in the end.
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Why the title change? A msg from the Director. by Benjamin Morgan (United States)  4 Stars
October 18, 2006
Interesting to see the dialogue around the title change. Thought I should comment to clear the air. The distributor opted to change the title (and the key art). They felt that, although everyone in the subculture knows what quality of life laws & offenses are, the general public would not. We were actually OK with the title change (to widen our audience). We were not, however, thrilled with their key art. Authenticity was/is our core value. The key art on this version basically throws that out the window. (As you can see, this is a CG creation of an SF alley way, and they superimposed our actors heads on some random bodies to get the hoodies and spray can in there.)
If you're interested in buying the real, authentic, filmmaker approved version, go to our website www dot qualityoflife-themove dot com. We're offering a grip of tasty extras that are available only from our website (in addition to our exclusive Sam Flores shirts and behind-the-scenes book). Thanks for the support!
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a pretty good movie, gloomy, dark and hopeless by JustAForeignReader (Major Earthquake Faultline) 4 Stars
September 14, 2006
the graffitti artworks were really amazing. what a sad and hopeless story. again, the majority americans are struggling while the politicians are bragging that america is the most powerful and the richest nation on the planet. all the roles were played wonderfully realistic and so naturally performed, a great achievment here. this is a movie turned out to be almost great but also very dark. i couldn't say i enjoyed it because it's a very sad story.
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