Just Mercy
Reproductive justice. Climate justice. Food justice. Social justice. Append the word “justice” to any other word and you’ve got a ready-made brand platform for niche activism. As cultural forces shape…
Black Lives Matter
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
At the end of the day, we’re all just looking for a place to call home. Movies have long wrestled with this sentiment and not just in a physical sense….
A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich
Politicians, journalists and experts rarely agree, but they have all named the current opioid situation a plague. It’s an appropriate word, with historical and biblical connotations; in every generation, our…
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…
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
My Spider-Man was the 1981 “Spider-Friends” version, complete with invented sidekicks, incomprehensible Saturday morning subplots, shoddy animation, and a little dog too (spoiler: they were all killed off by a…
Claudine
“I have known this woman all my life,” Diahann Carroll writes in her autobiography.* “We grew up together in the same neighborhood.” Lest someone might interpret that statement as metaphorical,…
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…
Black Panther
I didn’t expect to feel tears stream down my face so shortly into Black Panther, but within the first few minutes of the film, I was already impacted heavily. In…
Mudbound
As a child, like many others, I loved to play in the mud. We had a “sandpile” next to our barn that was about 25% sand with the rest dirt,…
Latest Podcasts
The Black Phone
Halloween is almost here which means it’s time for all things scary. To celebrate, we’re reviewing a horror movie released in June called The Black Phone. Or as we call…
Turning Red
In the world of animation, Toy Story changed everything. With that instant classic in 1995, Pixar ushered in a new era of family entertainment with stunning visuals and and rich themes…
Nope
Few names in Hollywood carry with them event status. Jordan Peele is one of them. Ever since the first trailer dropped in February, Nope was marked as the event of…
Thor: Love and Thunder
Tim couldn’t be with us this month, but fear not! We found a worthy replacement. After talking about him all year, Dan Baker is finally a guest on the Cinema…
Top Gun: Maverick
Who thought a sequel to Top Gun would actually be worth watching? Not us. But director Joseph Kosinski had other plans. His sequel to the 1986 original feels like the…
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Everyone is familiar with the multiverse thanks to Marvel, but we’ve never seen it quite like this. Everything Everywhere All at Once offers a fresh take on the concept of multiple…
