The Birth of a Nation (2016)

Remember back when The Birth of a Nation premiered at Sundance? It became an immediate Oscar front runner until it was derailed by controversy surrounding the director. But let's face the truth: it was never going to win Best Picture. I saw this movie just a week after Green Book won Best Picture in a year of landmark movies by black directors. The Academy was never going to award a movie about a black slave revolt. It's simply too radical for mainstream Hollywood. It's a powerful and provocative movie. And if it makes you uncomfortable, that was the intention.

If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

Goosebumps. This movie gave me goosebumps in a way the book did not. Simultaneously beautiful, breathtaking, and tragic, this James Baldwin adaptation is a bold follow-up to Moonlight for Barry Jenkins. His direction is meticulous. He takes small brilliant liberties in acting out scenes undescribed in the novel (moving furniture), and sticks closely to the book in tense scenes of despair (and one big liberty in changing the ending). The cinematography and lighting are stunning. The centered head-on shots in which the audience is confronted by the helpless gaze of our protagonists are heartbreaking.

The soundtrack by Nicholas Britell is achingly beautiful. You could feel the audience in the packed theater all holding our collective breath in anxiety. The horns and swelling strings cue the viewer to exhale a sigh of brief reprieve to celebrate the love at the center of the story. The music slowly pulses the audience along to the tragic fate we know awaits. And I'd like to say that it is because I read the book that I know how it ends, but that's not it. We implicitly know how this story ends because it is the story of being black in America, in the 70s and in the 21st century just the same. The film opens with a passage from James Baldwin explaining the title. The eponymous Beale Street is a stand-in for any main street in an American city where the Fonnys and Tishes survive.  Fonny is a noir-ish character, helpless to change his fate. This is most devastating in the moments we get to soak in their joy and love (of partner, of family, of community), in the character of Daniel foreshadowing what fate lies ahead, and when the baby finally arrives.

The entire cast is superb. The leads have perfect chemistry. Kiki Layne is absolutely radiant. Regina King is gripping. The whole supporting cast, the ones with just one scene each, Brian Tyree Henry, Dave Franco, Pedro Pascal, Diego Luna, etc are all scene stealers. You have to let this one simmer a bit, that slow burn is unlike anything else this year.