A Critical Look at The Color of Money

A Critical Look at The Color of Money

With the possible exception of the third Godfather entry, I‘ve never had higher expectations for a sequel than for Martin Scorsese’s “The Color of Money” (1986). After all, it took Hollywood twenty-five years to come up with a follow-up to “The Hustler” (1961), one of the greatest films ever made. When they finally decided to…

American Black Film Festival Highlights

American Black Film Festival Highlights

The American Black Film Festival (ABFF) personifies the glow and energetic spirit of Black creators, and its 27th year felt extremely timely. The featured films, TV shows, shorts, and documentaries exemplified the modern Black experience. The festival draws a global crowd and enhances the international understanding of Black people in the diaspora for its attendees….

Horror Movies and The Fate of the Black Man

Horror Movies and The Fate of the Black Man

Released in theaters this past Juneteenth weekend, Tim Story’s “The Blackening” is a well-scripted, intelligent, and funny movie that somehow seems to break the rules of the horror genre and simultaneously keeps them. “We Can’t All Die First,” the film’s tagline, keenly recognizes the well-known horror trope that if any Black people are in the film,…

Redacting Racism: Some Thoughts on Race-Blind Casting

Redacting Racism: Some Thoughts on Race-Blind Casting

As major studios adapt to the changing business and cultural landscape, moving into the future all too often means revisiting the past. Few projects embody this phenomenon like the Paramount+ original series “Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies,” which debuted last April. Set at the mythical Rydell High School four years before the events of…

FX’s The Bear Continues to Reach for Greatness

FX’s The Bear Continues to Reach for Greatness

Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) still dreams of opening a restaurant. Having discovered the money his deceased brother Mikey (Jon Bernthal) stashed in tomato cans, he now has enough cash, or nearly enough, to follow through on his plans for building a high-end establishment. With sous chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) at his side, he will…

The Stroll

The Stroll

Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker’s “The Stroll” is a riveting documentary about transgender women of color during the 1990s and early 2000s engaging in sex work in an area known as The Stroll in the Meatpacking District of lower Manhattan. It is a story of despair, sisterhood, and triumph. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect…

Black Writers Week 2023: Table of Contents

Black Writers Week 2023: Table of Contents

The following table of contents features all articles published during Black Writers Week 2023 (June 19th through June 25th), arranged in the following categories: intros, features, interviews, reviews, TV reviews, republished features, republished interviews and republished reviews. —The Editors Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho Marathon INTROS Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The…

Tribeca 2023: Fresh Kills, The Graduates, The Secret Art of Human Flight

Tribeca 2023: Fresh Kills, The Graduates, The Secret Art of Human Flight

“Fresh Kills” stands tall alongside the best post-“Godfather” gangster movies, and it stands apart because of how it focuses on the wives, girlfriends, and daughters of organized crime in a genre that more often pushes them to the margins. Small in scale but rich in character and incident (and brutal violence), it’s the debut feature by…

Adipurush

Adipurush

Let’s say you want to watch “Adipurush,” a new Indian mythological action-fantasy, without thinking so much about what came before it. You want to enter the theater with as little baggage as possible, despite the associations that come with the marquee-topping Prabhas, star of both S.S. Rajamouli’s trend-setting “Baahubali” period action fantasies. Maybe you want…

Watch This: Behind-the-Scenes of the Stunts in ‘Extraction 2’ Sequel

Watch This: Behind-the-Scenes of the Stunts in ‘Extraction 2’ Sequel

“His knowledge for action & stunts, and how to tell a story within it, it’s impressive.” –Chris Hemsworth discussing director Sam Hargrave. Netflix’s new spectacular action movie Extraction 2 is now available to watch as of today. They’ve released a new behind-the-scenes featurette to build up the hype. The movie is a direct follow-up to…

Tribeca 2023: Suitable Flesh, You’ll Never Find Me, Bad Things

Tribeca 2023: Suitable Flesh, You’ll Never Find Me, Bad Things

The Tribeca Film Festival has been a welcome platform for genre fans, and the 2023 iteration is no exception. The horror offerings span the different styles of the genre this year with the Tribeca premieres of films like “Final Cut” and twisted tales from veterans and newcomers alike. One of the most anticipated horror films…

The Flash

The Flash

One of the most spectacular and frustrating mixed bags of the superhero blockbuster era, “The Flash” is simultaneously thoughtful and clueless, challenging and pandering. It features some of the best digital FX work I’ve seen and some of the worst. Like its sincere but often hapless hero, it keeps exceeding every expectation we might have for its competence only…

Official Trailer for ’20 Days In Mariupol’ Harrowing Doc About Ukraine

Official Trailer for ’20 Days In Mariupol’ Harrowing Doc About Ukraine

“Wars don’t start with explosions – they start with silence.” Frontline PBS has revealed the main official trailer for an acclaimed documentary film titled 20 Days In Mariupol, one of many films made recently about the war in Ukraine. This one premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, then it also screened at CPH:DOX, Hot…

Every Body

Every Body

“Every Body” is a moving, fascinating look at a too-often-ignored subset of the world’s population, filled with empathy and understanding but also a cool, analytical anger about what history has put them through. The subject is intersex people, the slightly-more-than one percent of individuals who were born with a condition that complicated the state’s ability to identify…

Blue Jean

Blue Jean

Jean (Rosy McEwen) is dying her hair blonde on a quiet night in. The only noise is the sound of a dating show on her television. Her eyes are blue, but soon we notice that so much of the world around her is also blue. Her bathroom is a pretty pale blue, and so is…

Flamin’ Hot

Flamin’ Hot

With “Air,” “Tetris,” and “BlackBerry,” the last few months have borne both spring flowers and corporate biographies that mythologize well-known products and brands. Their narrative arcs follow a relatively familiar pattern: under-appreciated visionaries and everyday workers unite to face setbacks and product deadlines to go on to revolutionize their respective industries. The stories may not…