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If Beale Street Could Talk
Barry Jenkins and Damien Chazelle both directed Oscar-nominated movies this year. The last time that happened was in 2017 when Chazelle’s La La Land was mistakenly announced as the Best Picture winner only to be supplanted by the true Best Picture winner — Jenkins’ Moonlight. The debacle was a distraction from what should have been…
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Roma
It’s that time of the year again. Lights are glowing. Music is going. Food is flowing. That’s right — it’s Oscar season! The festive holiday where we live in movie theaters because all the best films of the year appear over the course of three months. However, Netflix might be changing that. The platform that…
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Sapphire
“We’re all the children of God,” a black sophisticate remarks to her boyfriend, after he has interacted with the police. “Forget it.” The exchange is brief — the actor isn’t even credited — but her sharp delivery slices right through a thick curtain of denial that’s always hanging around; the hypocrisy of a United Kingdom…
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Detroit
2010 was the year of Kathryn Bigelow. She became the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director and her breakout indie The Hurt Locker scored a surprise win for Best Picture. The film, about a bomb defusing team in Iraq, is a master-class in tension and a gripping character study to boot. Bigelow…
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Do The Right Thing
July was a difficult month for America. The shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile raised national debates about racism, police violence, and Black Lives Matter. The retaliatory shootings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge ushered in new layers of fear and chaos. Our nation bled from open wounds, and we are still…
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Dead Poets Society
Poets, like prophets, are said to be guided by a muse, in some cases THE muse. In Ireland it was thought that poets, especially the great poets, folk healers, and others with knowledge beyond that of the common world were taken by the trouping faeries for seven years only to return gifted in their own…
