Review: "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" Hits the Sweetest High Notes

Scene from Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

To sing the blues is to pour your heart out to the world. With every aching note, the struggles of the individual reflect a community eager to be heard. It's something that lives inside the Black community, serving as a survival tool throughout years of oppression and reminding everyone what it means to be human. But given how diverse the voices within this group are, one has to ask the question: what is the blues? Who gets to control the direction that it goes? Throughout director George C. Wolfe's fantastic adaptation of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, he explores this question in great detail over a sweltering summer day in 1927. What follows is a phenomenal showcase of talent, finding Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis butting heads with electric performances and even more energetic music. It's one of the year's most vibrant stories and one that never lets up for the entire ride.

Failed Oscar Campaigns: "Black Panther" (2018)

Scene from Black Panther (2018)

As awards seasons pick up, so do the campaigns to make your film have the best chances at the Best Picture race. However, like a drunken stupor, sometimes these efforts come off as trying too hard and leave behind a trailer of ridiculous flamboyance. Join me on every other Saturday for a highlight of the failed campaigns that make this season as much about prestige as it does about train wrecks. Come for the Harvey Weinstein comments and stay for the history. It's going to be a fun time as I explore cinema's rich history of attempting to matter.

The First Trailer for "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" Sings a Sweet Melody for Oscar Season

Scene from Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Anyone who is doubting that Netflix isn't going to dominate this year's ceremony clearly hasn't been inundated with endless trailers in the past month. It feels like every week now they're introducing a new title that will populate every field, whether it be Mank, The Trial of the Chicago 7, or the latest August Wilson adaptation Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. While there have been various photos released, this trailer marks the first major look at the film which, among other things, marks the final performance by Chadwick Boseman. With all of that said, this Denzel Washington-produced movie looks to follow in the path of Fences with a great movie that not only please crowds but will likely win an Oscar or two.

Spike Lee Lights Up the Oscar Conversation with "Da 5 Bloods" Trailer

Scene from Da 5 Bloods

When we last left director Spike Lee, he had broken through a decades-long feud with The Academy Awards and won an Oscar for BlacKkKlansman. The film found him capable of taking his angry style and presenting in an accessible way that made audiences latch onto its subject matter of racial divides in society. Even as time has passed, he seems just as ambitious as ever, wanting to tell stories that reshape how we see black America as something more complex and interesting. Considering that everyone was eager to see what he'd do next with his first Netflix movie, many see this as a new era, where Lee will be returning to the conversation sooner than later.

Da 5 Bloods is promised to be a Vietnam War epic like no other. With few exceptions (if any), there hasn't been a war story that explores the struggles of the black experience in this way. One has to wonder what he has to say, especially since we know that he won't hold back and get as confrontational as he believes that the story needs to be. While everyone won't get to see it in a theater, it's coming very soon to light up the Oscar conversation, giving us something that prognosticators sorely need right now. From the first trailer, it feels like we got our first surefire nominee and one that could find Lee going bigger and bolder than ever before. While it has some trappings of Vietnam War movie tropes, it's still got a lot of greatness under its surface.

Review: "Black Panther" Creates Exciting New Potential for Superheroes

Scene from Black Panther

While comic books movies have taken audiences to the far reaches of space, into the depths of the ocean, and into the most fantastical of fantasies, Black Panther has managed to find something groundbreaking within the confines of the Marvel Cinematic Universe narrative. It isn't just that it's the first black superhero to headline his own movie, or that he does so without having to navigate a white world. Its very embodiment of Afro-Futurism is something that even a decade ago would've seemed risky for Hollywood. In 2018 however, it has shamelessly come forward and told a story that is exciting both in action and in story. Director Ryan Coogler isn't just obsessed with making a film look cool, but also gives it a cultural depth that would place it alongside touchstones like A Raisin in the Sun. For all of its great moments, the film feels different because it feels important; not just in the sense of world building, but in the future of superhero cinema. There hasn't been a movie like Black Panther before, and hopefully there will be a bunch coming very soon.

Here's a Look at the 683 New Members of The Academy

Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies

It has been awhile since we received any significant Oscar-related news. Of course, that is to be expected following the annual ceremony where one season ends and the cooling off period carries into August and September. However, there is some good news regarding new members. According to President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, there are 683 new members who will be joining this upcoming season. It is a record amount and almost double of last year's hefty total. On top of that, Isaacs' plan to overcome the Oscars So White fiasco by having a more diverse group by 2020 is starting to take effect. Read on to discover how exactly that is as well as the name of each and every new member, plus a few credits to help you pick them out of a line-up.

Review: "Get on Up" Does James Brown Justice and Nobody Else

Chadwick Boseman

There are few figures in music history that are as pompous, exciting, and wild as James Brown was at the height of his career. He could dance, sing, and almost seemed to control the world with music that may have seemed lyrically banal, but was invigorating with passion and funk. It only makes sense that he would eventually join Ray Charles and Johnny Cash and get the biopic treatment. Director Tate Taylor manages to make a nice flashy package in which we get a sense of who Brown (Chadwick Boseman) was, but what does it all equal up to besides a scrapbook of memories? Get on Up, for better or worse, is a film that benefits from an interesting subject that is more interesting than he should be during the dull parts.

Will "Get on Up" Make Boseman One of This Year's First Oscar Contenders?

Chadwick Boseman

In terms of music icons, there are very few standards. The most notable ones were eccentric types with definitive personalities. They entertained not only through song, but influenced fashion, physicality, and helped to shape the pop culture landscape. One of the loudest and innocuous icons is James Brown, whose music may lyrically seem surface level, but unified nations during political turmoil in the 60's and set precedents for African Americans in music. There is a reason that he is The Godfather of Soul and is the most sampled artist in history. He had a universal appeal in his simplicity. So how do you capture the magic of a performer who was so vivacious and magnetic without coming up short? Director Tate Taylor's Get on Up at very least looks to attempt to do the flamboyant man some justice.