sex, lies, and videotape Movie Review

Though this was the second time I’ve seen sex, lies, and videotape, it really felt like the first. The first time I saw it (probably in college or maybe even high school) I thought it was a little dull and unmemorable. I didn’t get what all the fuss was about. Sundance Audience Award winner? Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner? But then priorities and taste change and suddenly a character-driven drama filmed on a low budget about a man (Peter Gallagher) cheating on his wife (Andie MacDowell) with her sister (Laura San Giacomo) and the old friend (James Spader) who comes to visit and, with his eccentric personality, serves as a catalyst for change is a lot more interesting. Maybe when I was a teenager I was hoping for a lot more out of the sex part of the title. There’s plenty of sex talk, but not a lot of flesh. Like I said, priorities change.

Conviction Movie Review: The Innocent Goes to Prison and the Righteous Gets a Law Degrees

It is the unfortunate consequence of an imperfect Justice system that the guilty will sometimes go free and occasionally the innocent will be punished. The philosophy behind proving guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” is that the latter will occur much less frequently. Sadly, it occurs more often than a free society should be comfortable with as the ever-increasing number of exonerations through DNA testing makes clear.

In 1982, Kenneth Waters of Ayer, Massachusetts, was tried and convicted for the brutal murder of a neighbor. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. His sister, Betty-Anne, always believed in his innocence and so she got her GED, a BA and then finally a law degree so she could personally take on the cause of getting her older brother out of prison. In the end, DNA evidence overturned his conviction and set him free.