July Movie Kickoff: Summer of Soul, Zola, No Sudden Move

It seems like filmmakers are making up for 2020 by flooding the movie market in 2021. As a result, I found myself watching three movies in three days during the July 4th weekend. These movies ran the gamut of genres so settle in: you’re about to find your next weekend recommendation!

Summer of Soul: Directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (an incredible musician and music historian, who you might also know as the drummer of The Roots, the band on the Tonight Show), this documentary tells the story of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. The festival took place over six weekends in Harlem and featured a roster of incredible talent, including such folk like Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, Mahalia Jackson, Gladys Knight & the Pips, etc. However, like most great moments of Black joy, this festival was forgotten - the Moon Landing took place during one of the weekends, and later that summer, Woodstock happened and there was only room for society to remember one great music festival, so the Harlem one took a back seat. Even though the entire event had been filmed, the producer couldn't get anyone interested in buying the footage, so it sat in a basement for 50 years until it was finally unearthed and shared with the world via this glorious documentary.

No joke - I spent two solid hours dancing in my seat while watching this film. The music is a relentless onslaught of greatness and it's impossible not to smile and sway as you're being serenaded by some of the best musicians known to man. It's also an incredible history lesson, given that America was at a tipping point in the Civil Rights movement when tensions were flaring after multiple assassinations of prominent figures, but also Black people were starting to proudly declare that "Black is beautiful" and take ownership of their identities. Afros and African designs were the norm, the New York Times moved to use the word "Black" instead of "Negro" after lobbying from journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault (she is one of the people interviewed in this film and her whole personal story is incredible and worthy of its own movie), and we even get some ethnomusicology with the people of East Harlem who brought their Latin influences with amazing Afro-Caribbean beats that punctuated this festival. 

Watch this movie - it is pretty perfect and you will both learn something and be enormously entertained. I dare anyone to not get chills when Nina Simone takes the stage or have a big smile on their face when The 5th Dimension start singing Aquarius (or when watching the older members rewatch that footage and beam in pride). I mean...COME ON. 

Zola: A movie based on a Twitter thread? Sounds like it would be vapid and insubstantial. But nope. It's a dark, funny, twisty thrill ride that perfectly captures our social media era and the inherent dangers of going off on adventures with people you've just met. 

Taylour Paige and Riley Keough play Zola and Stefani, two women who are going down to Florida for a weekend to make some quick money stripping at some clubs. They met when Zola waited on Stefani at a restaurant, and Zola thinks nothing of it when Stefani calls her up with this sudden proposal to make some quick money. They embark on a road trip with Stefani's boyfriend Derrek (Nicholas Braun, aka Cousin Greg from Succession, who is simply perfect casting for hapless fools who have no idea what's happening around them), and the mysterious X (Colman Domingo), a man whose name Zola won't get until the end of the movie, but who is apparently Stefani's roommate. 

Well, things go haywire quickly. Turns out X isn't a roommate, he's Stefani's pimp, and Zola is gonna get into some hot water if she doesn't help Stefani turn some tricks during this weekend. What follows is a sleazy, but somehow still hilarious film where Zola does whatever she can to keep the craziness at bay and just make it through this weekend. Directed by Janicza Bravo, and co-written by her and heralded playwright Jeremy O. Harris, this movie absolutely zips along, throwing you from one insane scenario to the next. Also, I HAVE to point out that because the director is a woman, even though this movie contains a lot of sexual content, both men and women are equally exploited (I got more male full frontal nudity in this one film than I've ever seen in all the films I've watched before) and there was also a hilarious scene in a public restroom where, for the first time, I accurately saw a cinematic depiction of how different women pee. It's amazing what diversity behind the camera can mean in terms of what we get onscreen.  

I came home and read the original Twitter thread posted by the real-life Zola in 2015, and the film captures almost all of it verbatim. It is an epic story, told by some epic filmmakers and actors, and you won't be bored for a second. Throughout the movie you'll also hear the familiar chirps and pings that accompany social media posts and you'll feel like you're texting about this movie as you're watching it. It's a bizarre, immersive experience, and well worth your time. 

No Sudden Move: Steven Soderbergh directed and the cast is a who's who of talent, including Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Jon Hamm, David Harbour, Brendan Fraser, Amy Seimetz, Julia Fox, Kieran Culkin, and so on and so forth. The poster lists them all, but if you don't read up too much about it beforehand, you'll also get a fun cameo that you didn't expect towards the end.

That being said, I'd be hard pressed to walk you through the plot. Set in 1950s Detroit, this is about some small-time gangsters who get roped into what should be a fairly simple job. However, it doesn't go according to plan, and as they try to unravel what went wrong and find out who was ultimately responsible for all the events they've set into motion, they uncover an increasingly complicated scheme that involves some high-up people doing some shady things. You can sort through all the machinations yourself, I was not able to keep up.

This movie has been getting a lot of critical love, so by all means, go forth and enjoy it! It's classic Soderbergh, with witty repartee and actors who look like they're having a whale of a time, but ultimately, the plot was too convoluted for my liking. Also, the setting was a bit dark and grimy, and while it was impeccably shot (natch), you get tired after a while of just watching a bunch of men in suits swanning around with bags of cash and pistols. The film wasn't as funny as the Ocean's trilogy or some of Soderbergh's lighter heist films, and felt a bit too weighty and portentous in terms of its stakes. I prefer my heist films to have less of a body count, you know? So give it a try if you're ordinarily a fan of this filmmaker and this insane cast, but don't be too disappointed if it can't quite measure up.