Title Tws summary Trust ▲ Year Viewable | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A fine basketball movie, elevated to true inspiration given that it is about a transcendent moment in American race relations: the first all black team to compete for – and win – the NCAA championship. |
||||||
Spike Lee’s He Got Game serves as an elegy for basketball in America – its cultural transcendence, but also the avariciousness at the upper reaches of the hoops industry. The movie trawls through agents, leeches, homeboys and groupies on the make, each hoping to ride a prime-time player to Eas…
WikChip Image
Reel Hoop Stars in Real Life
|
||||||
A time capsule of 70s stereotypes, Foxy Brown represents a high-water mark for Blaxploitation movies. It’s certainly exploitative, with lots of black thrown in. Well, black as Hollywood often caricatured it during that freewheeling time. “Dyn-o-mite” gets said unironically, for instance. "S…
WikChip Image
Foxy Brown statue: Super Bad!
|
||||||
Devil In A Blue Dress is a twofer: a damn good neo-noir movie and an excellent 1940s L.A. period piece, from an African-American POV. Throw in a prime Denzel Washington performance and you’ve got a great movie, one that stands the test of time. Pity they never made a sequel. Taken from Walte…
WikChip Video
Denzel on Devil In A Blue Dress
|
||||||
Nina Simone’s name and presence had occasionally penetrated my consciousness and always piqued my interest. Happily, this well done documentary finally brought her consequential music and politics alive. Dubbed the High Priestess of Soul, she was a unique and uniquely transfixing artist, fusin…
WikChip Video
Liz Garbus on her Nina Simone doc
|
||||||
Barbershop: The Next Cut should be a Best Picture contender but won’t be. Not because it’s black, because it’s a comedy. Comedies get no respect from the Academy. Can I get a witness? Somebody? While LOL funny, Barbershop 3 is not your ordinary comedy. Instead, it bridges several paradoxes…
WikChip Video
Cube, Common, Cedric & Nicki, oh my!
|
||||||
The American hero who almost single-handedly defeated institutional racism personified his unique first name. Lots of Marshalls, just one Thurgood, which is why Marshall is a poor title for this stirring biopic. OTOH, Thurgood sounds like a thoroughly good historical drama about Thurgood Mars…
WikChip Video
Thurgood Marshall, American action hero
|
||||||
Uncle Drew has great timing, both when it hit theaters and how it rolls its comedy. It premiered on-time and on-target: three weeks after the NBA playoffs concluded, just as my basketball jones started to kick in. Plus, it’s populated with proven NBA superstars, including Shaquille O’Neal, Amer…
WikChip Video
Original Uncle Drew short films
|
||||||
Aretha Franklin was never even that close to being one of my favorite soul singers. There, I’ve said it. That’s now chang…
WikChip Video
The most sought-after concert film? Yes!
|
||||||
Devotion is a poorly-titled twofer: a damn good war movie about a Medal of Honor recipient and his heroic squadron, plus a powerful biopic about the Navy’s first black fighter pilot. It’s triply good for reviving these true stories about the sadly overlooked Korean War. All in all, that makes i…
WikChip Image
NAVY Fighters in the Korean War
|