Music of the Heart (1999) - Wes Craven

Oh god Miramax what have you done? It seems like only yesterday that every fall Miramax was trying to spend enough money to convince us that whatever piece of crap overbudgeted prestige picture they were making was a brilliant and moving piece of art. One look at the box of Music of the Heart and the average man might recoil in horror. Ironic to be horrified by this title directed by an out of turn Wes Craven. However I had a weakness. That weakness wasn't Meryl Streep, I can resist a shitty movie of hers quite easily, but this is for research. Sure I've seen a lot of best picture nominees, and best actor nominees, but when it comes to actresses I've seen mainly just the winners. I'm extremely bad with the 1990's and this coming out in 1999 I figured I had to pick it up. 

Well as for the film itself I had an instant flashback. I remembered those days in the mid-nineties when VH1 started their Save the Music campaign and lest I be mistaken Gloria Estefan was their spokesperson who also appears in this film. Those commercials were good enough, a feature length movies about how great music programs are to inner city kids is just tripe. This film is nauseating in its message that I was surprised at how many positive reviews of it were out there. Could it be the Miramax machine paid them off? Oh well hopefully this film will get buried in the "oh god I'm blind" pile. If you want a plot description here it is, newly divorced woman needs a job, gets hired as an inner city substitute violin teacher and makes everyone's lives happier over a decade, but her program is cut because "The Man" doesn't like letting poor kids learn music, so a bunch of rich classical musicians put together a faggy concert to save the music. If anyone asked me for a three word review to put on a DVD box I'd say this "Gayer than AIDS".

*Music of the Heart was nominated for best actress (Streep) and best song.