Review: "The Prom" Does Enough Right to Be a Good Time

Scene from The Prom (2020)

If there are any issues to be found with director Ryan Murphy's version of The Prom, they're mostly found in the show it was adapted from. At its core, it's one of the most good-intentioned musicals of the modern age, spinning the familiar coming of age story about proms into this one of queer acceptance. When the film is in this mode, there's rarely anything more euphoric, finding protagonist Emma (Jo Ellen Pellman) expressing herself with this passionate outsider narrative. It's her against an Indiana school that finds her lesbianism offensive. The struggle makes for compelling drama, especially when dealing with her still closeted girlfriend Alyssa (Ariana DeBose). 

Those moments of tenderness are the heart of the film, which unfortunately are sidelined by something more egregious. The Prom is as much about acceptance as it is the power of theater as a form of self-expression, and that means a whole supporting cast of eccentric Broadway types. What they bring to the show is essential, but the approach creates a gross misunderstanding of what makes The Prom a delightful addition to the movie musical. It isn't about watching adults ham it up, sharing these stories of coming out and doing vivid dance numbers. This was, as its title suggests, should've been about the prom. Had the story been presented predominantly from Emma's perspective, it may even be a masterpiece. Instead, it's a decent if familiar story only elevated by a sugar-rush of a soundtrack that is sure to get stuck in your head. It's a good time, but it could've been better.

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.

An Open Letter from The Oscar Buzz

Scene from Grand Hotel (1932)

Lo and behold, here we are at the end of another year. 2020 has been such a wild year with its endless ups and downs. For fans of the Oscar season, it's been one of the most interesting, unprecedented years on record. This is the first (and possibly only) time that The Academy will accept streaming movies in all significant categories. The ceremony has been pushed back months. What exactly is there to make of this season? There's been plenty to talk about in light of this, and I can't wait to see what happens next. But, before 2021 kicks off I thought that I'd open up for why I've been rather dormant on here over the past three months. I need to apologize for myself. The Oscar Buzz will continue, though there will be some minor changes going forward.

Review: "Mank" is a Distracting Messy Homage

Scene from Mank

No matter who you are, there's a good chance somebody at least once has told you that Citizen Kane is one of the greatest movies ever made. The mythology surrounding it has only ballooned in the near 80 years since its release, finding director Orson Welles being considered a filmmaking pioneer who took down Hearst with this swift commentary of greed and corruption. While history has been favorable, there are those like director David Fincher who want to posit that Welles wasn't the mastermind behind this story. There was one man in particular named Herman J. Mankiewicz - a studio savant who navigated the studio system in the 1930s before making this screenplay that changed the world. 

It's a juicy enough hook for Fincher to apply his familiar hostile view of humanity to. After all, who doesn't love an underdog story, where history can be rewritten to immortalize the real heroes? The issue with Mank isn't so much what it intends to achieve, but that it does so in a bit of a clumsy way. Based on a screenplay written by his father Jack Fincher, it's a story that glamorizes early Hollywood with endless references and pastiches that help to explore the "movie magic" concept. However, there's little else going on here that feels essential. For a story about writing a universally acclaimed hit, it sure lacks the payoff that could make this into a modern masterpiece. It's a bit of a misfire, finding Fincher giving too much into sentimentalism that clouds his technique, keeping the story from ever meeting its full potential.