In 2014, director Amma Asante - former actress turned filmmaker - hit the scene in a big way with one of the most underrated films of that year, Belle. Actually her sophomore feature, she'd previously been named Most Promising Newcomer at the BAFTAs in 2005, a prescient prediction. This week, ...
Watch This: The Salesman
For years promoting the U.S. releases of foreign films, again and again I heard them described as "quiet." Quiet and compelling. Quiet and taut. Quiet and affecting. It's no wonder so many worthy imports fail to reach a large audience. Who wants to spend two hours watching a lot of quietness - which ...
Watch this: I Am Not Your Negro
"Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced." -James Baldwin The hardest part about watching I Am Not Your Negro, easily 2016's best documentary and most essential viewing, is watching it. More than once, I cringed, winced, looked away, closed my ...
Maybe Watch This: The Founder
There's a family story I've heard at holidays and cookouts since I was a kid. A joke, really. And that's the story that my great grandmother went to high school with Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's. Had she played her cards differently, we might all be in very different circumstances today. Imagine! ...
Bechdel, DuVernay and Me
In 1985, Alison Bechdel included a few simple questions in her thoughtful, often poignant comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. Far from mainstream then, that single strip has gone on to inspire a litmus test for all media - though it's most commonly used in regard to films. Distilled to its essence, ...
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