Personal Problems

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Personal Problems

Released Mar 30, 2018

2h 45m

Drama

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Popcornmeter

100%

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11 Reviews

Popcornmeter

Fewer than 50 Ratings

Problems emerge in the black middle class.

John DeFore

The Hollywood Reporter

An accessible experiment made at the dawn of the video era.

Mar 31, 2018

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Glenn Kenny

New York Times

For all its rough edges, "Personal Problems" retains a vitality and an integrity that practically bounds off the screen.

Mar 29, 2018

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Chuck Bowen

Slant Magazine

Bill Gunn and Ishmael Reed collapse conventional notions of reality, providing simultaneous glimpses into the minds of dozens of characters, lingering on scenes and informing them with confessional intensity.

Rated: 4/4

Mar 28, 2018

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Lee Jutton

Film Inquiry

Personal Problems focuses on Black humanity in all of its highs and lows, hopes and fears, mistakes, and triumphs.

Jul 25, 2020

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Jon Dieringer

Screen Slate

It's a necessary work, and one of the major repertory revivals of this or any other year.

Mar 1, 2019

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Bedatri D. Choudhury

MUBI

One doesn't quite watch Personal Problems for its technical superiority, one watches it for the problems that still persist, to draw a line of legacy for A Wrinkle in Time, Black Panther and Mudbound that have been made

Jan 17, 2019

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Audience Member

There is no escaping the degraded look of early 3/4" video, digitized for the restoration, but the acting and storytelling immerse us into a real black experience of the time, unadulterated by Hollywood's cliches.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/25/23

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William Gunn

Director

Vertamae Grosvenor

Actor

Sam Waymon

Actor

Walter Cotton

Actor

Ishmael Reed

Actor

Ishmael Reed

Screenwriter

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Synopsis

Problems emerge in the black middle class.

Director: William Gunn
Producer: Walter Cotton
Screenwriter: Ishmael Reed
Distributor: Kino Lorber
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Mar 30, 2018, Limited
Runtime: 2h 45m