January Movie Roundup: Sylvie’s Love, WW84, The White Tiger

Apparently we’ve survived January 2021 already. As with all of 2020, I have spent the month catching up on a slew of movies and below are some mini-reviews of an esoteric collection of films that could help you while away the hours. Get excited!

Sylvie’s Love: Starring Tessa Thompson as the eponymous Sylvie, this is a swoony romance set in the 1950s and early 60s. I don't want to give away any details, because like with any good romance, the joy is in watching two people fall in love, the obstacles that fall across their path, and whether or not they will overcome these hurdles to reach their happily ever after. Instead, I'll focus on why it's a gorgeous watch. 

If you're a fan of classic movies or TV (think I Love Lucy, which does feature in this film!) you may have some sense of what to expect. Costume designer Phoenix Mellow has brought out some truly splendid outfits and Tessa Thompson is resplendent in many a fine outfit throughout this movie. In fact, during the end credits, I was very pleased to see the sentence, "Ms. Thompson's gowns provided by Chanel." Her co-star, Nnamdi Asomugha, is no slouch as well, and together, the two share a burning, yearning chemistry that echoes all the dreamy love stories of this era. 

Of course, what makes Sylvie's Love extra special is that it is a Black romance. In an interview with Tessa Thompson, she mentioned how rare it was for her to get such roles or see such women portrayed on screen. Black stories often have to be about slavery, crime, or racism. There are still pitifully few films where you can just watch two Black people fall in love and go through the ups and down of all that entails. But this is still a movie about a Black woman in 1950s America, and I found the story particularly fascinating given the career path Sylvie chooses at a time when most women were just expected to be passive housewives. It's a lovely, well-written, gentle movie that will make you smile when you're done. Watch it.

Wonder Woman 1984: Speaking of period films, if you needed a reminder of what the 80s were like, Patty Jenkins has you covered with this sequel. Now I absolutely adored 2017's Wonder Woman and was very excited to watch this movie, but oof. I was not a fan. I watched it over Zoom with two college friends and when we were done, we agreed that this film was a hot mess. In terms of capturing the aesthetic of the era, it's spot-on: the costumes, music, and settings (they rebuilt an entire mall to make it as 80s as possible!) are wonderful. But hoo boy, this story is inexplicable.

I know it's silly to complain about plot holes when you're talking about a superhero movie. The whole point is that the regular laws of physics don't apply. But the art of great genre fiction is that the world you're in still does adhere to SOME rules. Unfortunately, the plot of this film largely revolves around a wishing stone that seems to have a new set of rules every time it is used. While we were watching this film, the majority of my texts to my friends were variations on "Wait, you can do THAT with the stone now?" It was all a bit much. And Pedro Pascal seemed to be having a fine time chewing up all the scenery as one of the movie's villains, but we were also constantly perplexed as to what accent he was doing at any given moment. 

Most importantly, the love story made Wonder Woman seem a bit hapless, to a point where Steve (Chris Pine) had to mansplain feminism to her and how she could still be complete without a man. I realized that what I missed most from the original movie was the balletic action scenes, where there was more hand-to-hand combat and you could see the Amazons whale on the villains. In this movie, there's an over-reliance on all of Wonder Woman's props and assorted paraphernalia, which then turned the action scenes into any other boring DC film rather than something exquisitely feminine and fun. And for some reason the CGI was just off - things looked fake and green screened and maybe this would have worked in a movie theatre with a cheering audience, but it did not hold up for home viewing. Apparently Wonder Woman 1984 could not defeat Pandemic 2020.

The White Tiger: I loved Aravind Adiga's novel, and was cautiously optimistic about the movie. Directed by Ramin Bahrani, the movie is a perfectly faithful and good adaptation of its source material, and features a star turn from Adarsh Gourav who plays the protagonist, Balram Halwai. This is a story of how a lower caste boy from a remote Indian village becomes a driver for a high caste family in Delhi, and exposes the seedy underbelly of Indian life. If you're Indian, none of this is particularly a revelation, but I have definitely heard from non-Indian folk who were shocked by it. I must admit, the use of Punjabi MC's "Mundian To Bach Ke" featuring Jay-Z as the opening song made it clear to me that the target audience was foreigners who can only relate to India stories via the medium of bhangra.

The movie has plenty of twists and turns; the first scene sets up what you're going to be working towards and then flashes back to give us Balram's story. Rajkumar Rao and Priyanka Chopra Jonas also star to give us the view of NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) who are back in India after living abroad in New York. They like to pretend they are enlightened and treat their servants well, but will quickly cave in to the Indian system when they're in trouble and need someone else to take the fall. There are no true heroes in this movie, just a bunch of complicated people who are striving to live the Indian dream, and along the way there's plenty of filth and muck to wade through.

Despite this dark subject matter, the film actually employs a darkly comic tone, which is very in keeping with the general Indian ethos. So while not a feel-good film, it's an entertaining watch, and might give you some insights into how wealth disparities function in a developing country as opposed to first world countries that just hide away their poor behind a veneer of respectability (I'm looking at you America). Like with any good story, it is both intensely specific and incredibly universal at the same time. Give it a try.

Netflix Documentary Roundup: Pretend It's a City & History of Swear Words

Netflix has delighted me this month with two comical documentaries about two things I love: swearing and New York. If you're in need of some cheer at the end of a long day, settle down for a twenty or thirty minute episode from either of these shows and have a little giggle. Don't we all need that these days?

History of Swear Words: The clue's in the title. You're going to get six episodes, each focusing on a different swear word, that explain the etymology of said word, how its uses have changed over time, and the current status of this word in our vernacular. The show is hosted by Nicolas Cage, just to add that extra soupcon of silliness, but mostly you will get talking heads with linguists, comedians, and even Women's Studies professors to offer up jokes and fascinating facts about swearing. For example, did you know that if you stick your hand in a bucket of ice water, you will be able to hold your hand in there for longer if you start swearing as opposed to if you go "oh fiddlesticks!" Turns out swearing is actually a great coping mechanism, which may account for why my work day is never complete without getting on the phone with a colleague and going "what the fuck" at least once.

The show is at its best when it's looking into the various intersections of cursing and culture. "Shit" was great purely because of Isaiah Whitlock Jr. offering up his best rendition of that word. I loved the episode on "Bitch" and how politicized it is, where its usage can vary widely depending on whether a man or a woman is using it and whether they're using it to talk about a man or a woman in turn. The episode on "Pussy" delved into the recent reclaiming of the word during Women's Marches. In "Dick" they discussed how the SNL skit "Dick in a Box" won an Emmy despite TV censorship rules forbidding them from saying "dick" without a bleep (the censorship rules around "dick" are particularly remarkable and varied, as everything depends on context). And finally, they devoted a whole episode to "damn," a word that isn't even considered a swear these days, but would have gotten you in a lot of hot water in the Middle Ages. As such, the show offers up insights into how language evolves, and suggests that in a few more decades, words that we currently find objectionable could become prosaic. 

Go ahead and give this show a watch. It's silly and fun and bizarrely educational. You won't fucking regret it. 

Pretend It's a City: This is a seven-episode series about the writer, Fran Lebowitz, that is directed by (and also periodically features) Martin Scorsese. It's all about her life in New York and her thoughts on the world, and every episode is like watching a New Yorker article come to life. This show was definitely made for me. I realized this within the first few minutes when Fran started talking about how she loves to read the plaques on the ground in NYC, but no one else in the city does, so it feels like these plaques were placed just for her. But I too love reading those plaques, so I immediately felt a great kinship with this fantastic woman. As I made my way through the series, I would keep texting my friends with my favorite quotes, until it all got a bit ridiculous since every sentence out of Fran's mouth is pure gold. Some choice musings include, "No one can afford to live in New York, yet eight million people do. How do we do this? No one knows, it's a mystery to us," "What's the point of a private plane if other people are on it?" "I hate money but I love things." Same, Fran, same.

The episodes are loosely themed, and interspersed with wonderful footage of old New York or scenes from classic movies and TV shows. The music selection is lovely, with one of the end credits featuring Ray Charles' "New York's My Home." There are discussions on #MeToo, LGBT laws, climate change, the health and wellness industry (when Fran was a child, "we were sitting in the front seat of the car on the laps of our smoking mothers"), and the ubiquity of technology (Fran owns neither a computer or a mobile phone). She talks about her time working as a cab driver in the 1970s. We see her old TV interviews and talks and it's clear this woman has been this witty and winning throughout her life. And most importantly, she discusses her love for reading and books. She bemoans people who don't read because they want to see themselves represented in their literature. According to her, "a book is not meant to be a mirror, it's a door." She had to get a large apartment she couldn't afford simply because she needed space to store the ten thousand books she owns. I've never wanted to go to someone's apartment more. 

Fran Lebowitz is a New York City treasure and this series is a marvelous ode to both her and the city. It has added a little extra zing to my daily walks as I wander the city and look for the places Fran talks about and revel in my own enjoyment of the city. I realize this may not be the best recommendation for people who don't have any attachment to New York, but I still think you could get a kick out of this just for Fran's worldview. She is a curmudgeon who still gets so much pleasure out of life. In these difficult times, that is the kind of attitude we all need to embrace.

Promising Young Woman: What a Ride

Sometimes you watch a movie from start to finish with a big grin on your face. Promising Young Woman is that movie. I came into it with moderately high expectations, but dear God. I left knowing I could watch it twenty times more and still find new things to love. 17 days into 2021, I have found my Oscar favorite - give this movie all the awards, because nothing else will blow my brain quite like that again.

OK, I assume you want some more information. Well, the film was written and directed by Emerald Fennell, who you may know as Camilla Parker-Bowles on The Crown, or Patsy Mount on Call the Midwife. But in addition to acting, she is a prolific writer, and her brain produced this diabolical script for her directorial debut. This is the story of a woman named Cassie (played by the always bewitching Carey Mulligan), who is turning thirty, still lives with her parents, and recently dropped out of medical school (for readers who know me, no surprise why this character resonated). She is currently working at a coffee shop, doesn't seem to have any friends or any interests in life, but all of that is stuff you will find out later in the movie. The way this film kicks off, however, is in a club, with the camera panning over the crotches of a bunch of men in khakis gyrating to the music. If you didn't know this movie was directed by a woman, you sure do now! We have seen so many scenes where cameras focus on headless women in tight dresses twerking away, but hoo boy, the gender flip is not pretty. Turns out there's nothing sexy about khaki-clad office drones. 

Anyway, we then focus in on a trio of men who are enjoying their drinks when they spy Cassie sprawled on a couch, looking decidedly drunk and worse for wear. The men judge her for allowing herself to get into such a state and also berate her friends for leaving alone in such a situation - don't they know how dangerous that is? But one of the men, Jerry (played by baby-faced Adam Brody), seems uncomfortable, and decides to play the knight in shining armor. He walks over and asks if she's all right, how she's getting home, and whether she needs a ride. And what follows from that encounter sets up the main premise of the film and begins a visceral thrill ride that doesn't stop until the end credits.

I really don't want to give away more plot. In broad strokes, this is a movie about sexual assault, consent, and the many ways in which the patriarchy has taught us to protect men and dismiss women. It feels a bit like a distilled version of Michaela Cole's brilliant series I May Destroy You, but the moral ambiguity is a little less tangled up in this film - you're simply going to be rooting for Cassie as an avenging angel against horrible men (and women! - remember, there's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women) who did terrible things in her past and continue to do horrible things in the present. The casting of this film is magnificent - every single villain is an actor that I ordinarily view as a sweetheart. There's Connie Britton in a role that Tami Taylor from Friday Night Lights would have immediately shunned. Sam Richardson, the goofy Richard Splett on Veep, is a complete douchebag in this film, as is Chris Lowell, the lovable Piz from Veronica Mars, who deserves no love in this movie. Every supporting actor is superb, whether it's Jennifer Coolidge, doing some excellent dramatic work I would have never expected, or a brief scene with Alfred Molina where we see that some of the movie's villains do get redemption of a kind. And oh Bo Burnham. I just want to see him and Carey Mulligan do a lighthearted screwball comedy after this, because what a double feature that would make. 

The look of this movie is spectacular, with bright colors and an emphasis on make-up and costume as Cassie changes her look and persona as she goes about wreaking vengeance. You don't need me to tell you Carey Mulligan is a remarkable actress, but if you foolishly need reminding, watch this performance and never forget it again. (Sidenote: I have never gotten a manicure in my life, but am now sorely tempted to paint my fingernails exactly like this character.) And I have to call out cinematographer Benjamin Kracun and editor Frederic Thoraval because this movie is beautifully shot and cut together. There is not a single frame that feels wasted, and many of the scenes made me squirm in my seat. This is an incredibly visceral film; there were moments when I felt sick to my stomach, and then other moments when I had little butterflies of anticipation watching a romance play out in a swoony fashion with crackling dialogue and a charming soundtrack that threw me off for a little bit before I realized what this insane script was about to do.

I need more people to see Promising Young Woman, whoop and squirm, and then think about how they have acted in similar situations. How many excuses have we made for people "who were just kids?" How much scorn have we heaped on women for being blackout drunk, while allowing men to get away with horrific behavior? And how bloody good does it feel to watch this story of a woman who fights back in absolutely ludicrous but highly creative ways to claim justice? I have never felt more whiplash watching a movie in my life. This is not a feel-good story, and yet it is still funny and engaging while being a furious indictment of how women are treated in our society. In a world where films still mostly subject us to the male gaze and male fantasies, it is a little miracle to get such a powerful female fantasy of what would happen if we unleashed our rage on the world. It's a hell of a ride.

All Creatures Great and Small: Soothe Yourselves

I started this blog in 2011 and the ninth post I ever wrote was about how much I enjoyed James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small, a book about his time as a vet in Yorkshire in the 1930s. Following that post, I proceeded to read his other books and love them just as much, and then discovered that PBS would occasionally air episodes of the BBC series that ran from 1978-1990, which was a gentle, wonderful adaptation that brought me much joy. Well now, Channel 5 has created a new adaptation of the series which US viewers can start watching on PBS today. And I can't think of a more soothing way to spend your Sundays than with this delightful series.

Nicholas Ralph stars as James Herriot, a man from Glasgow who has just passed his exams and is now qualified to be a vet, but is struggling to find a job. When an opportunity arises in Yorkshire, he heads down for an interview with Siegfried Farnon (Samuel West), a vet who operates a surgery out of his house and takes care of the many animals owned by the farmers in the surrounding Yorkshire Dales. Siegfried is a...challenging boss, to say the least, but he needs the help and upon the urging of his housekeeper, Mrs. Hall (Anna Madeley), he decides to hire James and show him the ropes. Add to the mix Siegfried's younger brother, Tristan (Callum Woodhouse), who is also studying to be a vet and is meant to help out in the practice, but tends to be far more interest in gadding about with barmaids. The fact that all four characters are so incredibly different and yet are cooped up in the same house together means that much hijinks can ensue. 

This series is beautiful and peaceful and offers some respite to your eyeballs. It's about a bunch of people who love what they do and are fundamentally kind-hearted and decent. Our hero has a slow-burning love story that is sweet and lovely, there are plenty of squabbles and family drama, but in the end, everything gets resolved quietly and calmly and everyone wakes up to a new day where there will be more animals requiring their care and a new set of relationships to forge with the people of Yorkshire. The production design is also wonderful, fully capturing the look and feel of that era and the raw beauty of the Yorkshire landscape that Herriot wrote about with such love in all his books. 

All Creatures Great and Small is my favorite kind of period British drama. It's like a souffle, light and fluffy, not too dense, but absolutely delicious and a welcome treat at the end of a long day. The actors are all perfectly cast, and the writing is delicate and takes its time, not rushing to any major cliffhangers but slowly letting these characters settle in and find their voices. While you can't escape reality entirely, for the next seven weeks you can at least disappear for an hour into this wonderful world. What more could you ask for?

Saved by the Bell: Bayside Gets Woke

Every morning before walking over to my high school, I would watch two episodes of Saved by the Bell on TBS. The total number of episodes in syndication is 126, so I rewatched these episodes multiple times over the course of three years, and I regret nothing. So when I heard that NBC had rebooted the show over on their new streaming service, Peacock, I was all in to see what had happened at Bayside High. And it did not disappoint.

The reboot is the most clever piece of nostalgia programming I've ever encountered. It simultaneously manages to mock the original series and how ridiculous it was, while still treating it with the gentle love you would afford to your un-woke family member with whom you shared fond memories. The premise is simple - Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) is now the Governor of California, and has closed down a bunch of schools due to a budget crisis. As a result, students from the underprivileged "urban" (aka they don't have a lot of white kids) Douglas High, are made to attend cushy Bayside High and experience what it's like to be in a school where every student is fabulously rich and thinks it's normal to eat at a sit-down restaurant everyday. When I was watching this show as a kid, I never remotely considered how privileged and absurd these high schoolers were, but in this reboot, that is basically all anyone talks about, and it is glorious. As soon as Lil Yachty starts singing the theme song, you know exactly what you're in for.

The new cast consists of the Type A Daisy (Haskiri Velazquez) who is an intelligent, socially conscious, hard-working Latina who is determined to ace all her extracurriculars and make this an inclusive environment for the Douglas High students. Her best friend Aisha (Alycia Pascual-Pena) wants to play football, and that dream goes in an unexpectedly poignant direction that proves that while the kids at Bayside might be rich and privileged, they also spend a lot of time talking about their feelings and encouraging each other to live their dreams, which you don't get to do when you're poor and struggling to get a fair shake in the world. Josie Totah plays Lexi, a transgender cheerleader, which is a truly wonderful character to include in a high school comedy. The fact that she's trans was a throwaway line in the first few episodes, but was then fully acknowledged halfway through, and it felt like an appropriate reflection of the progress we've made. Yes, in many parts of the country, LGBTQ+ kids still have a horrible time, but on this show, we get a depiction of how it's difficult and yet perfectly acceptable to transition and get on with your life. And finally, we have Mac (Mitchell Hoog) who is Zack's son (his mother is of course Kelly Kapowski, aka Tiffani Thiessen), and Jamie (Belmont Cameli), whose mother is none other than Jessie Spano. 

Elizabeth Berkley Lauren reprises her role as Jessie, now serving as Bayside's guidance counselor, and Mario Lopez also returns as AC Slater, now working as a PE teacher and Bayside's football coach. While Gosselaar and Thiessen only show up in a few episodes of the series (spoiler alert), Lauren and Lopez are series regulars and provide a fabulous link between the old show and the new, serving up hearty doses of nostalgia in every scene. When Jessie calls Slater a pig and he goes "oink oink," your heart will melt and then you'll go "wait, why the hell did I love this show so much, it was so sexist!" Rounding out the cast is John Michael Higgins as Ronald Toddman, the hapless principal, who is a fine stand-in for Mr. Belding and ends up getting a very silly Bayside-related backstory of his own. 

Listen, I'm not saying Saved by the Bell is high art. But this is a very specific show designed to appeal to people like me who grew up on the original and are ready to embrace it, warts and all, in this reboot. With showrunner Tracey Wigfield at the helm, the writing is insanely clever and walks an amazing tightrope between being funny and woke. The final episodes offer a truly incisive look at how education fails poor people or minorities in this country and how we need to do better. For a show that's supposed to be a dumb comedy, it is shockingly smart and self-aware and has actual lessons to impart, and it is honestly well worth your time. And if you don't care about the American education system, fine. Just watch it for Episode 7 where you get to watch Mario Lopez dance to the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann thirty years later and look like he hasn't aged a day. That's the magic of television. 

Soul: Find Your Spark

If you're setting your New Year's Resolutions, might I suggest that at the top of your list you include a viewing of Pixar's latest movie, Soul? Because damn, this movie might be all you need to then forget about all your resolutions and just go about the business of living your best life. 

The story concerns Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx), an NYC music teacher who harbors ambitions to make it big as a jazz pianist. One day, he auditions to join the band of a legendary saxophonist, Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett), and he gets the gig. Unfortunately, he then falls into a manhole and finds himself turned into a soul that is on the way to the "Great Beyond." However, he refuses to die right before he got the chance to realize all his dreams, and as he flees from the Great Beyond, he ends up in the "Great Before," the place where new souls are prepped before they head to Earth to be born. Due to some standard otherwordly shenanigans and administrative errors, Joe is assigned as a mentor to 22 (Tina Fey), a soul that has been lingering in the Great Before for thousands of years and has had mentors like Gandhi, Lincoln, and Marie Antoinette, all of whom have failed in helping 22 find her "spark," which will allow her to go to Earth. 22 is a cynic who thinks a life on Earth sounds appalling (I laughed out loud at one point when Joe was afraid he had hurt one of the souls and 22 went, "You can't crush a soul here, that's what life on Earth is for"), while Joe desperately wants to return to Earth and live out his dreams. What will happen next?!

If you read that plot description and thought to yourself, "how is this a kid's movie?" you are not alone. This is a visually stunning film with a great jazz score; maybe children would be content to stare at the swirling blue souls on the screen and have an audiovisual experience, but I don't see how any young kid is going to follow this plot unless they have already been burdened by the existential dread of being alive, which only happened to me at the age of twelve. For adult audiences, however, this movie is mandatory viewing. Also, at one point Joe and 22 do end up in NYC, so if you're a New Yorker, there's the added joy of getting to see the city in all its animated glory, complete with a cameo from Pizza Rat. In true Pixar fashion, there are great jokes from the writing team of Pete Docter, Mike Jones, and Kemp Powers (who was promoted to co-director with Docter after all his contributions to this movie) including one where Joe asks 22 why she sounds like a middle aged white woman and she replies, "because it annoys people." 

This is the first Pixar film to feature a Black protagonist (and Powers is their first Black co-director) and a lot of care and love has gone into ensuring the Black characters in this movie are portrayed accurately and animated in a way that subverts the history of racist caricatures in old cartoons. The voice cast in this movie is also particularly fascinating as it features many international stars whose voices were so familiar to me yet took a second to place, including Richard Ayoade, Graham Norton, and Rachel House. It was clear that every actor was having fun chewing on this elaborate script and delivering insanely complex and witty dialogue that deals with man's fundamental question: what is the point of living? Much of this movie is centered around finding 22's "spark," and I can honestly say that it sums up in less than two hours everything I've been talking to my therapist about for two years now. The moment when Joe figures out what the "spark" is supposed to be is, of course, the moment that Pixar makes you cry. It is so absolutely splendid.

Watch Soul. It will make you confront the big questions of human existence while still being silly and outrageous and a mind-bending visual spectacle. It is deeply personal and universal all at once, and its central message will help set you up for 2021 and beyond. And after you do watch it, please give me a call so we can chat about the "spark" and all our hopes and dreams.

Small Axe: History Lessons for the Future

Happy New Year! 2021 is upon us and it's a low bar to hope it will be better than 2020. After the catastrophe of the past year, many of us are looking forward to the return of some semblance of normalcy. But even if we all get vaccinated and Covid eventually ceases to be a concern, 2020 wasn't just about the pandemic. Instead, the pandemic served to highlight the many ways in which our society was fractured and unfair, which came to a head most prominently with the Black Lives Matter protests across the world. So while we toast the New Year, let's also continue the dialogue and take up actions to address the racial and economic disparities that have decimated so many of our fellow citizens. And to do that, there's nothing more vital you could watch in the New Year than Steve McQueen's Small Axe anthology. A collection of five films about West Indian immigrants in Britain in the 1960s to the 80s, this is an empathetic, searing, gorgeous portrayal of life in the West Indian community, the challenges they face from their white British neighbors, the racism baked into the various government systems they interact with on a daily basis, and their strength and perseverance to live a good life and take joy wherever they can find it.

Mangrove: The first film is the most conventionally cinematic entry in the anthology. Two hours long, it tells the real-life story of the Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill and the subsequent trial of the "Mangrove Nine" in 1971. Opened by Frank Crichlow in 1968, the Mangrove was a Caribbean restaurant that became a community center of sorts for the immigrants in the neighborhood. We see how much it means to these people to have a place that is their own where they can have joyous parties complete with steel drum accompaniment and plenty of dancing. But of course, racist white members of the Metropolitan Police think "they're taking over the country" and "need to go back to where they came from" and the restaurant quickly becomes the target of unsubstantiated raids and harassment. Fed up with all of it, a group of Black activists staged a march in 1970, but the protest turned into a violent confrontation with the police and the second half the movie turns into a courtroom drama where these activists are put on trial for inciting a riot. It's a captivating movie that covers so much history and yet sadly feels like it could be a story about 2020.

Lover's Rock: This movie is a magnificent mood piece that is like watching a music album come to life. We watch a bunch of folk come together at a reggae house party in 1980 and see how those relationships evolve over the course of a night. Most of the scenes are just extended moments on the dance floor, where people give in to the joy of this music, dancing exuberantly and hilariously to Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting," or singing along with abandon to Janet Kay's "Silly Games." Right now, when we can't all be together in large crowds, dancing and experiencing the crush of humanity, Lover's Rock is a reminder of what that felt like. I've never cared for such parties before, but I'm damned if I didn't immediately want to go clubbing after watching this movie. The mood shifts with every piece of music, going from silly to sexy to lazy to ecstatic, and even if you're just watching on your couch, you will feel sweaty and alive by the time you're done.

Red, White and Blue: Here we get the remarkable story of Leroy Logan, the son of Jamaican immigrants, and a former research scientist, who joined the Metropolitan Police after his father was assaulted by two police officers. We see how he comes to the decision to join the force, much to the chagrin of his father, who naturally distrusts the police, and what follows as he proves to be an exemplary officer who still has to face gross racism and discrimination from his colleagues. The relationship between father and son is at the forefront here, a remarkable look at how immigrants want their children to be "more British than the British," but are terrified when they try to challenge the status quo. The courage and thanklessness of trying to change the system from within is also on full display, as we watch this thoughtful and intelligent man periodically give in to furious rage as he realizes what a mountain he is going to have to climb. Logan went on to be a founding member of the Black Police Association, and his story is both sobering and inspiring. 

Alex Wheatle: This is yet another astonishing biopic and plays like a superhero origin story where we see Wheatle thrown into prison and then learn about his life story through flashbacks. Raised in a children's home in Surrey, where he faced intolerable cruelty, he fell in love with reggae music and started writing songs about Brixton. We watch as he moves to a social services hostel and finds a group of Jamaican immigrants who can teach him how to "strut like a Black man strut" and give him a sense of his Black identity and what it means to have family. He then participates in the 1981 Brixton uprising, for which he is imprisoned, but his Rastafari cell mate is the man who encourages him to read and tells him, "if you don't know your past, then you won't know your future." This film showcases how hard it can be to assimilate both with wider British society as well as within your own West Indian community if you have had such a scattered upbringing, and it is a beautiful story of a man who took all of his terrible experiences and turned them into something life-affirming and important. 

Education: The final film is about young Kingsley Smith, a boy who is deemed too "unmanageable" by his white teachers and is therefore sent to a special school for the "educationally subnormal." Once there, we see what a joke these schools are, run by uninterested white administrators who often don't even show up to class and let the kids run wild. At home, Kingsley's mother is so busy that she doesn't pay attention to what's going on with her son, but when she is visited by a concerned woman who has started to look into these schools and how they are failing West Indian children across Britain, she decides to take a stand. While the story is fictional, it is based on real-life educational practices in the 1970s and is a heartbreaking reminder of the many ways in which we disenfranchise immigrants and minorities right from the beginning of their lives. The system guarantees their failure, and it takes superhuman will and strength and family support to advocate and fight for fair treatment. I'm not sure that we're doing much better in 2020 than we were doing in the 1970s, where children in poorer neighborhoods still receive a lower quality of education and have their life paths inexorably set out for them. This is an emotional and affecting film, particularly the moment where Kingsley finally attends a school run by an engaging Black teacher who shares a book about Nubian Kings and Queens that gets him excited about reading. It takes so little to turn a child's life around, and this movie shows what it takes and how it can be done. 

Small Axe is a thrilling piece of storytelling, a collection of eye-opening tales that are worth multiple rewatches. Steve McQueen is a consummate writer and filmmaker, and every single actor in these movies is a revelation, delivering performances that strike your heart and shake you to your core. I honestly cannot pick my favorite film out of the five because they all tell such different but equally mesmerizing stories about people that I would never have heard of otherwise. And while the above reviews have focused more on the broader themes of each film, I do need to call out the specificity and poignancy of the writing in each of these movies. These are fully developed, rich, nuanced characters, and my favorite scene in this anthology is at the beginning of Red, White and Blue, during a game of Scrabble. It has absolutely nothing to do with race, but is a piece of character development that perfectly captured who all of these people were just by virtue of the words they were playing on the board, and then the father's refusal to play a "Y" tile for a very particular reason. It's a little thing, but it speaks to the love and care and attention that has gone into making every single one of these films. Watch these masterpieces because they are cinematic classics we will be discussing for years to come.