Film Reviews

Summer of Soul (…Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is the directorial debut of Questlove the drummer and frontman for the band the Roots. This documentary tells the story of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival which happened only 100 miles away from the more widely known Woodstock festival that same year. The entire…
Read more

CODA stands for “Children of Deaf Adults” and sums up most of the plot of the movie. Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the only hearing person in her family. Her mother Jackie (Marlee Matlin), father Frank (Troy Kotsur), and brother Leo (Daniel Durant) are all deaf. Ruby is the interpreter for the family who survive by…
Read more

Julia is the latest documentary from filmmakers Julie Cohen and Betsy West, the duo who brought you RBG (2018). This time the focus is on Julia Child. The movie begins by covering some of Julia’s childhood growing up in Pasadena, California. She was born in 1912 and was the oldest daughter of two conservative parents.…
Read more

Joanna Hogg is one of my favorite filmmakers working right now. She is constantly pushing the envelope and making interesting choices when it comes to her movies. The Souvenir Part II is (obviously) the sequel to The Souvenir (2019) and you really need to have seen the first movie to appreciate Part II. Hogg picks…
Read more

The Harder They Fall is the directorial debut for Jeymes Samuel. He tackles a fun genre twist for his first feature film with a Western featuring a mainly black cast. This cast is absolutely chock full of big name stars, which made it a blast to watch. The opening scene we watch as a young…
Read more

Director Pablo Larraín first came onto my radar with Jackie (2016) starring Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy. I seriously doubted Portman could pull it off, but she did and I was amazed at how marvelous of a performance Portman was able to give. Larraín’s style came through vividly in Jackie, turning the aftermath of JFK’s…
Read more

King Richard tells the story of tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams. But instead of telling the sisters’ story, King Richard tells the story from the vantage point of their father, Richard Williams. Richard (Will Smith) and Oracene “Brandy” (Aunjanue Ellis) are married and have five daughters. They run a tight ship and don’t tolerate…
Read more

Dune is a novel by Frank Herbert that I didn’t even know existed prior to this year. It is allegedly something like 1,000 pages long and is a massive sci-fi saga, but I had never even heard of it until I saw the trailer for Dennis Villeneuve’s two hour and thirty-five minute epic. I love…
Read more

If you haven’t heard of Tammy Faye you should probably look her up and gather some background information before seeing this movie. Faye is quite a character and she had a somewhat zany life, most of which is portrayed in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. For those who might not know, Faye was an Evangelist,…
Read more

No Time to Die is the final movie with Daniel Craig as James Bond. That fact most definitely affected how I viewed the movie. It is the end of an era and this review is certainly biased because of it. You’ve been warned. The movie begins with a flashback of Madeleine, who you should remember…
Read more