24 March 2017. I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO **** Here is a searing, damning document on the black people’s condition in American history. The last work of the infinitely intelligent and eloquent writer and social critic James Baldwin (1924-1987) is narrated here by Samuel L. Jackson in this powerful documentary by Haitian director Raoul Peck. Baldwin’s […]
FILM: Moonlight – story of the life of a black man in three stages of his existence – boy, adolescent and man
17 March 2017. MOONLIGHT **** There is a captivating alchemy in Moonlight that is quite intangible. It is as delicate as a flower and as powerful as a fist in the stomach. This story of the life of a black man in three stages of his existence – boy, adolescent and man – is a full […]
Film: true story of three black women vital to the U.S. space program in the 1960s
10 March 2017. HIDDEN FIGURES **** Before the summer drought of mediocre films (already started after the long award-season culminating with the Oscars), check out this excellent film about a trio of black women who were vital (one of them – Katherine Johnson – was pivotal) to the U.S. space program in the 1960s. The beauty […]
FILM: Loving – a true story of a multiracial couple who took their case to the Supreme Court
17 February 2017. LOVING *** Richard and Mildred Loving fell in love and got married in 1959 in a small town in Virginia. They had known each other for many years and were very happy together. The only problem was that Richard was white and Mildred was black. And mixed marriages were not legal in […]
Film: Hacksaw Ridge – about a war hero who refuses to touch a rifle
3 February 2017. HACKSAW RIDGE (Tu ne tueras point) **** This is the true story of Desmond Doss (touchingly played by Andrew Garfield), a conscientious objector from Virginia who refused to touch a rifle during WWII. Despite that fact, he managed to save more than seventy of his comrades during a horrific battle with the […]
Film: La La Land – a glorious film from the new wonder boy of Hollywood
27 January 2017. LA LA LAND **** Damien Chazelle, the 31 year-old director of this glorious film is the new wonder boy of Hollywood. He was first noticed for his brilliant second film “Whiplash”, which won an array of awards some two years ago. No one would have imagined he could top that one, and […]
Film: A Dragon Arrives – a Tarantino-like yarn set in Iran
13 January 2017. A DRAGON ARRIVES! ***1/2 (vo Farsi) A barren desert, a huge, rusting ship stranded on dry land, and a car driving towards it with an attractive, cool-looking driver in dark glasses and a hat. Then a bare, dark room with the same man and an interrogator. He is telling the tale we […]
Film: Nocturnal Animals – Gripping, troubling, thought-provoking
6 January 2017. NOCTURNAL ANIMALS *** There is a great sadness and feeling of loss in this second film by Tom Ford. It is a different tale, but with the same sombre mood as his last (award-winning) film, “A Single Man”. As usual with this famed couturier, there’s also that air of elegant ennui and […]
Film: The Founder – from failed salesman to the Golden Arches – the McDonald’s story
30 December 2016. THE FOUNDER ***1/2 Everyone knows the McDonald’s name, the mass-produced, fast food hamburgers that have conquered the world, for better or for worse. The original idea came from two McDonald brothers in California who were proud of their innovative success. That was in the mid-1950s, and it was like a “symphony in hamburger […]
Film: Sing – a jubilant animation film – 4 stars
23 December 2016. SING **** Oh, what a joyous movie! We are truly lucky this holiday season to have such delightful films to cheer us up and forget the cold and frenzy of the Christmas rush. Go, and forget for a couple of hours all the miseries we see on the daily news. In this jubilant […]
