'Soul' salvages a surprisingly dreary holiday movie season

After the letdown of The Midnight Sky and the infuriating disaster that was Wonder Woman 1984, Pixar's latest -- Soul -- is a breath of fresh air. 

In some ways it's not the most wholly original story -- it deals with someone prematurely dying and trying to get back to earth to fulfill unrealized promise -- terrain covered quite well in Heaven Can Wait (both versions) and A Matter of Life and Death. But it's a very thoughtful and emotionally mature film, gorgeously animated and performed with great conviction, especially by Jamie Foxx in the lead role.

Although Pixar's films are best enjoyed on the big screen with an audience, Soul plays quite well at home. It revolves around an affable music teacher named Joe Gardner who dreams of being a successful jazz pianist (in the world of this movie, jazz clubs are both hip and thriving in New York City) but spoiler alert is killed right before his dream gig.

It's a bravura opening that leads to some even more elaborate complication when Joe is paired with a nascent soul (dubbed no. 22) is search of a "spark" that will give her a fulfilling life in a person back down on earth. It all gets very complicated, and I'll admit a little confusing (I'm in the midst of trying to train and corral a puppy so I was very distracted while watching).

This is probably Pixar's most complex film since Inside Out and probably it's most sentimental since Up. I've enjoyed the Toy Story franchise, but generally speaking I think their one-off originals are always more satisfying than their spin-offs and sequels. And Soul deserves a lot of credit for being an effortlessly black film without patting itself on the back for it.

It has the kind of simple yet profound message that most children an adults can appreciate -- and it's funny and engaging enough to be a real crowdpleaser.

In other words, it was a real palette cleanser after the exercise in crass cynicism that was Wonder Woman 1984. Part of the reason Pixar rarely falls flat on its face (with the notable exception of the Cars franchise) is because its productions require years to prepare and execute, and that meticulousness really comes across on screen.

I know it's more complicated when dealing with real human beings -- but movies like Wonder Woman 1984 (and to a lesser extent The Midnight Sky) feel almost unfinished, as if they were rough drafts of what could have been a better more interesting film.

Like for instance, as charming as Chris Pine is, did he really need to be brought back for the sequel? I understand it's plot function --sort of-- but it would have made for an interesting movie (and given Gal Gadot more to do) if she had to learn to love someone new or came to grips with the idea that being alone is ok. Instead, we're saddled with a childlike premise about ... wishes?

It's been a frustrating movie season. With the exception of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the overwhelming majority of this year's awards fare is unavailable to rent or stream (at least at the moment) and there's just not a lot out there that is available to get too excited about.

I don't expect to be able to sit comfortably in a theater again until maybe June of 2021 -- so it's gonna be a long slow slog. Sigh.

'Wonder Woman 1984' is a woefully disappointing mess

For a Wonder Woman movie there isn't a lot of Wonder Woman in Wonder Woman 1984, at least not in the first half which is a bit of a jumbled mess. After a rousing opening -- which winds up not amounting to much -- set in her youth back on her home planet, the film becomes the closest thing to a Joel Schumacher style superhero film I've seen in years.

The always charming Gal Gadot, who got to have fun playing a fish out of water in the first film, is largely a bland, straight woman here. Kristen Wiig is basically doing a variation on Michelle Pfeiffer's performance in Batman Returns, but not as effective  and Pedro Pascal gives a very campy, sweaty performance which feels like it's in an entirely different movie, and is too similar to a young Donald Trump aesthetically to not make that comparison.

The film's conceit -- that it's set in 1984 is overplayed, as most of these kind of period films are -- and the candy colored cuteness reaches its breaking point during an extended montage where Chris Pine (inexplicably, and I mean inexplicably brought back from the dead as Wonder Woman's long lost love interest) tries on a bevy of stereotypical 80s outfits. Pine is a likable actor, and he commits to playing his WWI-era character's amazement at the future, but he's just one detour too many in this overstuffed movie -- that looks amazing but is maybe one of the sillier superhero movies I've ever seen.

By this point, there has been one all-to-brief Wonder Woman action scene -- and that would be fine if the decidedly ludicrous plot had been more engaging or more comprehensible, or if the terrific cast had the opportunity to play people instead of types.

Wiig in particular is a disappointment here. She is given a lot of screen-time not the space to inject much of her own comic rhythms into her performance. We've seen this kind of nerd-to-supervillain transformation many times before (Jim Carrey in Batman Forever, Jamie Foxx in The Amazing Spider-Man 2), and she's just going through the paces. I can't buy her as a badass villain, no matter how much dark eyeshadow she wears. And there's a strange preoccupation with objectifying her undeniably well-toned body (including an emphasis on her ability to wear high heels and somehow just removing her glasses makes her sexy?) which is strange coming from a film co-written and directed by a woman. 

Patty Jenkins, who is an incredible talent, seemed to have a real cohesive vision with the 2017 original that was sustained throughout even if the finale did give way to the same CGI overkill that overwhelms so many of the films in this genre.

Still, that movie felt special -- it felt like a real event. This movie feels disposable in the worst way -- as if it exists just to exist -- because the first Wonder Woman was such a big hit, there was an obligation to make another. And it's still better than most of the recent DC Comics output these days, which has become insufferably dreary and incoherent.

Wonder Woman 1984 isn't aggressively bad per se -- but it's far more of a bore than I expected it to be. It wants to be about big ideas and soaring emotions, but it fails on both counts.

It actually gave me more appreciation for the Marvel universe, not that all of those films are perfect, mind you, but they are almost all very plot and character driven and you have a sense of where they are going and why. In Wonder Woman 1984, individual moments work -- the opening, a dreamy flight in her invisible plane, an armored car chase in the desert  -- but as a cinematic experience it's hard not to see it as a colossal disappointment.

Ironically enough, Warner Brothers' decision to pull the film from theaters and release it on streaming was viewed as a huge blow to the film industry, but I actually think they dodged a bullet here. I am sure this film would have opened big (in a covd-less world) because of the goodwill generated by the original, but I have a hard time thinking it would have been well-received or been the savior of the movie business.

In fact, the most I think of it, the more I kind of hate it.

Clooney's languid 'Midnight Sky' is a misfire but he isn't

George Clooney has some of the most expressive eyes in movies -- and I've missed seeing him and them in films for the past four years. They are put to great use in his new downer of a sci-fi film, The Midnight Sky, but unfortunately the film never matches his intensity.

It's got a smart sci-fi premise. It's nearly 30 years in the future and the majority of Earth has been destroyed, presumably due to the climate crisis. A gaunt and grizzled Clooney plays a terminally ill scientist who has chosen to live his final days in Arctic but suddenly finds purpose when he discovers a space craft (populated by the likes of David Oyelowo, a totally wasted Kyle Chandler and a pregnant Felicity Jones, all giving indistinct, lowkey performances) that is headed for Earth AND a mysterious, young stowaway, whom he forms a special bond with.

Clooney has to traverse a perilous tundra in order to send a signal to the craft that Earth is no longer inhabitable, before it's too late. So far, so solid. But the movie can't decide whether it wants to be a emotional tearjerker or a thriller. The space station crew, while populated by likable actors, isn't particularly engaging, so it's hard to get too emotional about their fate. 

Meanwhile, there's some real intrigue in the Clooney-mystery girl subplot (although I saw the twist in that one coming), but he cuts away every time things start to get more interesting. I love Clooney is suave movie star mode (think the Ocean's films) but he's also demonstrated that he can be a powerful serious actor too, but as a director he has deprived himself of an opportunity to fully take center stage here. 

His directorial career has unfortunately been far less satisfying than his acting oeuvre. I thought Leatherheads was cute and The Monuments Men was watchable, but in my opinion he has only made two truly good movies Good Night and Good Luck and 2011's underrated The Ides of March.

The Midnight Sky is his most effects-laden film (it looks great) and his most spectacle-y, even it's a dour, quiet film for much of it's running time. If nothing else, he demonstrates that he can make something on a bigger canvas (his previous more successful directorial efforts were decidedly insular) but the film feels derivative of better space epics like The Martian, Interstellar, Ad Astra and Clooney's own Gravity.

Even a particularly hokey scene -- where the character's sing along to Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" while floating through space, recalls his Gravity character's affinity for country & western music.

It's unclear to me if he was trying to recapture the success of the film here. Space has been good to Clooney, although it did no business, he was excellent in Steven Soderbergh's 2002 remake of Solaris. I'd hate for the poor critical reception this new film has received to deter him from directing more and certainly acting more in the future.

He's been such a Hollywood Golden Boy for so long and so unabashedly proud of his liberalism, that when he stumbles like this there are far too many gleeful detractors, but I have always admired that he takes chances instead of just making films when he plays a new variation of Danny Ocean, where he can cash in. I'm also all for heady sci-fi, it's just this film's head isn't screwed on entirely straight.

Chadwick Boseman, Viola Davis are dynamite in 'Ma Rainey'

Chadwick Boseman was a special actor. It may not have been apparent to us until it was too late, but when he passed away this year it hit a lot of us like a ton of bricks. He was both a star and a terrific actor, someone who invested his roles with passion and physicality. 

Anytime there's a posthumous release from an actor there's a tendency to invest to much in them, but this year, ironically enough -- two of Boseman's best performances in Da 5 Bloods and now Ma Rainey's Black Bottom have been released to great acclaim, and I'm happy to say it's deserved.

He looks considerably frailer here than he did in Spike Lee's war film and he very well may have been struggling in his courageous fight against cancer when he shot this August Wilson adaptation. His real life challenges only add more vulnerability to Levee the character he plays here -- an ambitious but also damaged trumpet player who plays in the band of legendary blueswoman Ma Rainey in 1927.

The action -- much of it claustrophobic takes place in a rehearsal hall and recording studio -- where Rainey (played brilliantly by Davis in a performance unlike any she's ever given) and her band do verbal (and sometimes verbal) battle amid a chaotic session. Their dialogue is never just about the music -- like all of the great playwright's work its concerns grapple with the toll racism can take on everyday and exceptional lives.

The film's great flaw is that it never really rises above the sensation of being a photographed play, albeit a gorgeously photographed one. The two major exceptions are the raucous opening number and the darkly ironic final one -- a perfect ending to a film that's more complex than it first appears to be,

It's impossible not to compare this film to Fences, the last high profile Wilson adaptation, which also starred Davis is a much different type of role. That film did a better job, in my opinion, of creating a world outside the insular, talky narrative. Wilson's dialogue can be florid and dense, sensational on stage I'm sure but not a natural fit for film. 

Still, his work is like fillet mignon for talented actors -- and yet again, Davis makes a feast of it. 

Here she has totally physically transformed herself into the rough and gruff Ma Rainey -- with heavy eye make-up, a mouthful of gold teeth and raunchy disposition -- this is not the sort of kind almost recessive character we're used to seeing her play. And what a relief! Davis clearly has been itching to show more sides of her persona and this is a big powerful tour de force from her.

Her scenes opposite Boseman -- who is playing a competitor not just within the band but also for the affections of Ma Rainey's trophy girlfriend as well -- are electric, and stand as a testament to their unique power as performers.

And in the end its all so bittersweet because Boseman is gone and if nothing else this film demonstrates how much potential he had. He gives this movie his all -- perhaps he knew it would be his last -- and while the film itself is not quite a masterpiece (it feels perhaps too small scaled) it will always be a testament to its stars' talent and a reminder to never take them for granted again.

Zappa, Bee Gees both get overdue respect in respective docs

There are two very engrossing and expansive new docs on two very well known -- or so it would seem -- music acts The Bee Gees and Frank Zappa, that are definitely worth seeing.

Alex Winter, who is best known for playing Bill in the Bill & Ted movies takes on the challenging task of directing a film about Zappa (called simply, Zappa), one of the most prolific and hard to pigeonhole artists of all time. It's decidedly not a traditional documentary in the sense that it doesn't follow a strict chronology or walks us through his oeuvre album by album.

Instead the film's preoccupation is Zappa's complex musicianship and brutal work ethic rather than the full depth and breadth of his career, which can make it kind of a frustrating watch for the uninitiated or even the somewhat initiated. You get the sense that he was a deeply committed artist, to a fault, and a pretty closed off, even cold person -- but the music is unique and his unwillingness to compromise this vision is admirable.

Because Zappa is gone, the film has to rely a lot of the people who lived with him and played alongside him. The interviews are solid, but the footage of Zappa himself -- as irascible as he was -- is the highlight of the film. His crusade against record censorship, for instance, comes across quite well. 

I left the movie appreciating his music more, but wishing the film had more of a cohesive center (it feels very haphazard, which perhaps the point) and some emphasis on the joy  -- if there was any -- in his efforts, rather than all the many thinks that made him cantankerous. Frankly, Zappa comes off as a bit of pompous grump -- albeit an immensely talented one.

On the other hand, The Bee Gees: How Can You Bend a Broken Heart, is a much more emotionally accessible film. It has an aura of sadness about it, not just because two of members of the band (plus their younger brother Andy) have all died, leaving Barry Gibb as the lone voice from the family -- but because the band was unfairly viewed simply as a disco act, when their career was much longer and far more complicated.

You walk away from this film with not just an appreciation of their one of kind voices, but their songwriting artistry (they were behind Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers' hit "Islands in the Stream"). You recognize that they were far more respected by their peers than people realized. They're also far more likable and self aware than Zappa was.

This film does what the best musical biopics do -- it puts you at the center of their creativity, shows you how they developed their signature sound (the reveal of how "Staying Alive" was conceived is riveting) and effectively conveys the emotional feelings their music inspired.

I've become an enormous, almost obsessive fan in recent years -- they're one of those artists that you know all the hits but you may not have really paid close attention to the lyrics of talent of the Gibbs themselves. And, sadly, they became a victim of their own success.

The most telling moment comes during the infamous "Disco Sucks" debacle in 1979 during a White Sox game. An anti-disco DJ led a cruel event where disco records were to be destroyed, but the film reveals that most of records being destroyed that day were by black artists -- and the Bee Gees, while white, were very much viewed as validating that culture.

To their credit they take great pains to pay homage to the black artists who inspired them, and this movie should inspire you, to seek out more of their work.

'First Cow' is the kind of beautifully made fable I admire

 

First Cow is the kind of movie film critics adore. It's slow as molasses, it's decidedly unglamorous and its meticulous attention to period details (it's set in the nondescript 1820s) show that it was made with a great deal of care and consideration. 

I approached it begrudgingly -- it has made virtually every best of 2020 critics' list but I was worried I'd find it a bore. I am not fully up to speed on writer-director Kelly Reichardt's oeuvre. I saw her Michelle Williams film Wendy and Lucy and remembered finding it effective but also slight.

I am happy to saw that First Cow is a very beautiful piece of filmmaking, if not an endlessly entertaining one. It feels like a fable or a thoughtfully rendered short story and its disarming in its simplicity and its heart.

Part of what draws you into the story is its unconventional heroes. I can't remember the last time I saw a film with leading men this -- gentle. There are no macho Revenant-style heroics in this movie. Just a soft spoken, put-upon cook nicknamed Cookie (played by John Magaro, who resembles a less twitchy Shia LaBeouf) who befriends a Chinese immigrant on the run named King-Lu.

The two men through a set of random circumstances end up going into business with each other selling delicious biscuits that become a big hit in the local town marketplace. The only trouble is they're made with milk they've been stealing by a cow owned by Chief Factor, a wealthy Englishman.

That simple transgression, made out of necessity and ingenuity, winds up spelling the two heroes doom -- which is foreshadowed by a haunting opening that takes place in present. 

The rest of the film is mostly gorgeously photographed atmosphere with an obtrusive score. Dirty, well-worn faces captured against an unforgiving landscape. There is an unspoken, almost sexual tension between Cookie and King-Lu that's interesting. And the movie ends on a jarring, abrupt note that doesn't fully sink in until you reconsider the film's opening.

All in all, this is the kind of film I like to I really admire more than I enjoyed it. It's certainly a change of pace to have leads who are more reserved and recessive, but sometimes that can make a movie feel a little monotone.

There are certain no big performances or flashy moments in First Cow. It's a very quiet, contemplative movie which may or may not be your cup of tea.

Still, with the world outside cinemas full of bombast and quite frankly absurdism right now, there is something refreshing about a story preoccupied with themes like kindness and class.

It'll almost certainly not win any awards love next year if for no other reason because it did nothing commercially and is so aggressively indie arthouse that it will never get enough an audience to be in the conversation and it's not the kind of film I see myself watching over and over again.

But the craft and sensitivity of the filmmaking here is undeniable.

 

'Dick Johnson is Dead' is both heartwarming and heartbreaking

The covd-19 pandemic has forced a lot of us to reckon with death. And the reality of my parents aging has hit home more and more. So watching the Netflix documentary Dick Johnson is Dead was an emotional experience for me. The film is about trying learn how to accept the inevitability of death -- and yet it's sort of a light comedy except for when it isn't.

The film is directed by Johnson's daughter Kirsten, who serves as the narrator and as the ringmaster of an elaborate project. She hires stuntmen and stages elaborate (and very real looking) fake death scenes involving her dad, to sort of soften the blow of the very real decline of her father.

Dick Johnson, who appears to be an incredibly genial and gentle man, is suffering from dementia and has already had several close calls, and yet, he seems to be incredibly good natured and is a good sport about the project, committing to playing dead repeatedly.

Tragically, he and his daughter have already lived through the deterioration of his wife -- whose body and mind collapsed. Courageously, Kirsten has decided to document her father before he has taken an irreversible turn for the worst.

The result makes for a very sad movie that is punctuated with joyous fantasy sequences and adorable charm. In a way the film is like death itself -- it's never not upsetting but it can also be reflective and even a little regenerative.

The production values are good but the movie has a ramshackle, homemade quality which makes it feel deeply personal, but it's also pretty universal. 

We all have ebullient people in our lives like Dick Johnson, people we couldn't imagine ever losing and what this film does is remind you how fleeting moments with these can be (especially at the end) and the movie makes a literal and philosophical case for making the most of your time this person before it's too late.

I'll admit I had been sort of afraid to watch it, having been broadly familiar with the premise. But it's really rewarding viewing and a special film for this strange time we've living in.

It's poignant finale is unbelievably moving, gut wrenching even -- but it's never manipulative or self-indulgent. It's transcendent. 

'Mank' is a masterfully made but somewhat stagnant drama

Your patience with David Fincher's new biopic Mank will depend a lot on your interest in the history of classic Hollywood and the politics of pre-WWII America. Lucky for me, I have an interest in both but I am not sure the movie will be as engrossing to the broader audiences. 

Perhaps, the film's fatal flaw is that its titular hero -- legendary screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz -- isn't a particularly compelling or charismatic one. Gary Oldman is a great actor, even a legendary one but he's miscast here -- far too old and one note -- for me, at least. Michael Stuhlbarg would have been perfect for this. Although, Oldman is very good at playing soused. We are all meant to understand that Mankiewicz was a genius screenwriter, and for fans of Citizen Kane that's clear, but the film simply repeatedly reinforces two character traits: his alcoholism and withering sarcasm. 

Far more successful are the color characters who circle around him -- a note perfect Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies (the trophy wife of William Randolph Hearst), as well as Arliss Howard as Louis B. Mayer (who has a great, barnstorming monologue about the studios' relationship with the movies) and Charles Dance as an imposing Hearst. Tom Burke pops up occasionally, doing a slightly better than average impression of Orson Welles, but this film is less interested with Kane's iconic director-star, which I suppose is a virtue. Mank presupposes, as many critics have over the years, that it was the film's screenwriter who was the real brains behind its influential narrative.

Director David Fincher's reverence for Kane is clear. Beyond little specific cinematic nods, the film itself is impeccably crafted. It has been shot, gloriously, in the style of a studio picture of the era is portrays, and its firecracker screenplay, poignantly written by Fincher's late father, really captures the rat-a-tat style of classic Hollywood.

This is why the movie leaves me a bit torn and cold. Fincher is one our greatest directors and he has been sorely missed from movies since his last foray, the blockbuster Gone Girl. He is a masterful technician and his meticulousness always makes his films hard to ignore. But emotion has never necessarily been his strong suit, which is perhaps why his best films are either about stunted people (The Social Network) or are dense in plot (Zodiac).

In Mank, Seyfried does the best job of connecting but she's in the film for fleeting moments that get overwhelmed by its detours into sidebars on left vs. right politics of the era and behind the scenes studio backstabbing.

The film is clearly a labor or love -- and is likely a shoo-in for the Best Cinematography Academy Award -- but it suffers from comparison to the movie its nominally about the making of. Citizen Kane brilliantly charts the rise and fall of an innocent who turns corrupt but Mank's lead character never evolves much. He start the film as a stumbling drunk malcontent and finishes it that way too.

It makes for a movie that is not exactly boring but hardly exhilarating.  Which is surprising from the director of such propulsive fare as Seven, The Game and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Ultimately, Mank is not the masterpiece I was hoping for -- but I am happy to have David Fincher back.

'Freaky' is so much fun I only wish I'd seen it with an audience

Freaky is afflicted with the same annoying trait that a lot of nominal teen movies have -- its young characters are so arch, self consciously hip and overwritten that they aren't even a little bit relatable or recognizable as real people. 

It yet again casts an improbably attractive lead -- Kathryn Newton -- as a mousy outcast (she's a put-upon high school mascot to boot), even when she resembles the mean girls that bully her.

And yet, it is a fun watch in part because it is disarmingly grisly -- if you like that kind of thing -- and somewhat charmingly old school. It's not exactly scary, but it's entertaining in the way that Scream was. its secret weapon is a committed and spirited performance from Vince Vaughn, who has had one of the most mercurial movie star careers in recent memory.

He blew up on the scene with 1996's Swingers -- but then made a lot of poor career choices (like an ill-fated attempt to portray Norman Bates), before resurrecting his career as a straight comedy star with movies like Old School and Wedding Crashers. But then he fell out favor again -- with his right wing politics not doing him any favors. That was until director S. Craig Zahler teamed up with him for Brawl in Cell Block 99, in which he was a revelation in a badass dramatic role unlike any he's played before. 

In Freaky he's the adult in a horror spin on the Freaky Friday franchise, but instead of being a stuffy adult in need of loosening up he's a bloodthirsty serial killer. The switch happens early in the movie, so we don't get much time to establish his character but the movie really comes alive once the switch happens. Newton does a solid job channeling a creep and Vaughn is instantly a riot as a somewhat stereotypical teenage girl.

I haven't seen the director Christopher Landon's Happy Death Day movies (they looked a little smug to me), which appear to have taken on the gimmick of turning another beloved comedy, Groundhog Day, into a horror film, but this material feels more fertile and fun. It's so stupid and silly that it becomes quite fun. The film make's great use (as Brawl did) of Vaughn's massive build and his crack comic timing.

It's all really crowd-pleasing stuff -- with some fun nods to the gender dynamics and some decent stabs at pathos. Although it does have its fair share of plot holes and cringe-y moments.

Still, it also moves like a bullet -- with a bright color palette that is uncharacteristic for the genre. It plays well on TV, but would have been a blast to watch with a big raucous audience, which is why the news that broke today that Warner Brothers is taking their entire 2021 slate to streaming is so disheartening. Freaky has gotten some good reviews and buzz, but I have a hard time believing it will get the same audience it would had it played like a normal release in the pre-covd times.

My only hope it finds an audience somewhere, sometime -- because it deserves it.

Steve McQueen's 'Small Axe' film series is a revelation

Mangrove, the first of what will be five films by director Steve McQueen about the black experience in the United Kingdom, is sort of like the anti-Trial of the Chicago 7. It's devoid of manufactured emotional moments and speechifying, there is a real suspense in its courtroom scenes and it's less clumsy about drawing parallels between its late '60s setting and modern day conflicts.

The film is about a chapter in UK history that I, and I suspect most American viewers, knew nothing about -- the case of the Mangrove 9 -- which wound up being a watershed in that country's own civil rights movement, which is not as well known or venerated as our own.

It starts simply enough -- Frank Critchlow (played sensationally by Shaun Parkes) is a popular local restauranteur whose local spot The Mangrove has become more than just a West Indian dining establishment. It becomes a beloved meeting place for the local black community -- to sing and dance, to talk politics, to revel in their own traditions.

Its very existence ticks off a bigoted local policeman, who, if the film is to be believed, almost singlehandedly leads a campaign of harassment of the establishment which ultimately boils over in a protest that is itself violently attacked by the police.

Critchlow, as well as activists like Altheia Jones-LeCointe (a moving and magnificent Letitia Wright), are unjustly hauled off to jail and later court with a tremendous amount of institution opposition against them. Some of the nine defendants take the extraordinary risk of defending themselves in court and this leads to some real fireworks that I won't spoil here.

McQueen has been one of the most consistent and also surprising major directors of the moment. His last feature, Widows, was an unexpected detour into genre filmmaking that was both exciting and exacting. It's one of the most underrated films of the last few years and I was very curious to see what he was going to do next.

Small Axe -- which is a series of five films that will stream on Amazon -- is the most ambitious thing he has ever done. It's billed as television, but the production values and craftsmanship are more than worthy of the big screen. Mangrove is the first and it really makes a powerful statement. Surprisingly, the second entry -- the shorter and more atmospheric Lover's Rock -- is somehow even better.

It takes place mostly during an extended, raucous house party and is aided tremendously by an irresistible soundtrack of mid-to-late '70s reggae and disco jams that will make you want to get up on your feet. It's incredibly immersive -- you will feel like an attendee -- and it also feels like a lost documentary of the era, since the action and acting is so naturalistic and authentic.

And, at a time in covd, you will sorely miss the freedom of an old fashioned dance party.

At its center is a tentative romance that occurs organically between Michael Ward and Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn, two incredibly charismatic young actors who both have tremendous star potential. The movie itself runs just a little over an hour and is almost like a Terrence Malick mood piece.

Every so often this safe harbor for black joy is punctured -- by the threat of violence or white oppression -- but it proves mostly resilient, and this film, which may seem insubstantial on its surface, has a delayed sort of power. It plays beautiful as a companion piece to Mangrove, which is a heavier work, and taken as a whole it points to a director working on another level than many of his peers

I can't wait to watch the totality of his vision -- which has been both edifying and entertaining during a particularly dreary moment in this country.