Showing posts with label Zazie Beetz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zazie Beetz. Show all posts

Thursday, January 12, 2023

Atlanta (2016-22)

This one leaves a pretty large hole in the television landscape. Atlanta was a landmark. It was experimental. It spent whole episodes without a glimpse of our main characters. It pulled stories from real life. It was raucous and poignant. It had something to say about the black experience in America. And then in its penultimate season they go to Europe and speak to the black American experience abroad. It bravely portrayed white people in a way no other show dares to. Its bizarre-ness is explained in its final episode with a not wholly original but brilliantly executed meta sensory deprived dream. It went from a black Justin Bieber to a white Teddy Perkins to a trannsracial man being interviewed on a Charlie Rose type talk show.

Donald Glover can do just about anything and everything. Brian Tyree Henry is now a highly sought after actor, who I apparently saw on stage in Book of Mormon years before Atlanta, and who stole the show in the excellent If Beale Street Could Talk. I think Hiro Murai also gets a lot of credit for the look and dreamlike feel of the show. And I don't know who the music supervisor is, but they're first rate.

Friday, April 5, 2019

High Flying Bird (2019)

Steven Soderbergh's latest experimentation with iPhone filmography is excellent fun. It makes you think anyone can make a movie, but he has a special vision. You don't realize it, but it's a heist movie disguised as a sports movie. It's a basketball movie that takes place during a lockout. And this is all about the politics of the game, the game on top of the game, if you will. The message is overt and searing, delivered with smart writing and great acting.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Deadpool 2 (2018)

I don't even really remember anymore what I wanted to say about it. I saw it nearly a month ago. But I remember that I wasn't impressed. And I did not really like the ending.