Music, dance dominate 'Michael'

     It's probably a mistake to look at Michael as a biopic that explores every facet of Michael Jackson’s life with nuance and studied objectivity. Approved by the Jackson estate and made with its participation, the movie makes no mention of the widely known child sex abuse claims against Jackson. The deconstruction of Jackson’s image began in 1993. Michael concludes in 1988, offering a terse title card at the end, “The story continues.” 

  I’ll say.

  Whatever you think about Michael Jackson, director Antoine Fuqua concentrates on something incontestable: Michael Jackson’s riveting performance skills and the connection he made and still makes with his legion of fans.

   If you think that’s insufficient, stay home. Otherwise, you’ll find a movie that can be regarded as an entertaining slice of showmanship with selective biographical footnotes. 

   Fuqua begins with 10-year-old Michael (Julian Valdi). who’s under the dictatorial sway of his father Joe Jackson, a menacing Colman Domingo. 

   From the start, it’s clear that Michael occupies his own world, separate even from the brothers who make up the increasingly popular Jackson Five. 

    Michael's relationships with his brothers get short shrift. Instead, Fuqua concentrates on Joe’s command of his sons. When Michael errs during rehearsal, Joe beats him with a belt. Mom (Nia Long) remains sympathetic to Michael, but Joe runs the show.

     A father/son conflict sets the stage for the movie’s theme: Michael struggles to gain independence, to become the master of his destiny, without rejecting his family. Michael lives at the family home throughout most of the movie,  albeit a much improved version when the newly prosperous Jacksons relocate from Gary, Indiana, to Encino, Ca.  The entire movie takes place in pre-Neverland days.

     In many ways, Michael remains a child throughout. He reads illustrated versions of Peter Pan, amasses an army of stuffed animals, and then begins collecting real ones, notably Bubbles, a chimp that becomes his friend. (It's evidently a CGI creation.) The movie seems to accept all this at face value, leaving us to decide whether there's something slightly pathetic about Michael's juvenile preoccupations.

    The movie also deals with the business side of Michael’s life: his alliances with Motown and Berry Gordy (Larenz Tate); his work with Quincy Jones (Kendrick Sampson), and his move toward solo performing, which culminates with the firing of his father as his manager. Michael instructs his attorney, John Branca (Miles Teller), to deliver the news. He does so by fax.

      Another glimpse of Michael’s manipulative power comes into view when he meets with the head of CBS (Mike Meyers) and threatens to persuade the label’s major white artists— Bruce Springsteen among them — to quit the label unless Michael’s creative and dazzlingly produced videos are shown on MTV, which at the time didn’t play much work by Black artists.

    Without the right Michael, the movie would have been laughable. It doesn’t take long for the movie to be placed squarely on the shoulders of Jafaar Jackson, Michael’s real-life nephew and the son of Jackson Five member, Jermaine. 

    Jafaar looks like Michael, moves like Michael, and sings with a voice that — to my untrained ears — sounds like Michael. It’s either an amazing act of mimicry or an amazing performance. Either way, Jackson's presence in the movie feels real.

     Jafaar also gives Michael an aura of innocence; he visits sick kids in cancer wards and donates big money to the burn center where he's hospitalized after a serious accident during the filming of a Pepsi commercial. Michael's relationship with his mother remains tender throughout, and he plays peacemaker when he meets with Crips and Bloods to lower antagonisms. He also uses the gang members as inspiration for the choreography in his “Beat It” video.

    Michael's battle with Joe continues to the end. The elder Jackson tries to cling to Michael’s earning power as long as possible, even concocting a deal with Don King (Deon Cole) to promote the famous “Victory Tour.” 

    At its best, the movie functions as the best imitation act you’ve ever seen. Jafaar does his own singing and the score has been cranked to maximum effect. The infectious rhythms of a showcase number such as Billie Jean prove irresistible.

    Sure, reality, or what we know of it, casts a shadow of skepticism here, and it occurred to me that the family might still be riding Michael’s coattails, but if you see Michael as a show that captures the magnetism and performance energy that underscored Michael’s ascendance, you may have to agree that the King of Pop earned his crown.

A very long 'Wicked' goodbye

 

   Fans probably will differ, but I've had enough. Four hours and 58 minutes of Wicked -- the popular play divided into two halves for the big screen -- is more than the material can easily support. 

  Sure, Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba work with palpable commitment and fervor, and, yes, director John M. Chu and his crew haven't skimped on production value with sets that may be theme-park worthy.

  Still the finale, proves less than grand.

  I was lukewarm but respectful toward Wicked (2024), and, like most critics, I was impressed by Erivo's captivating performance. The first movie even ended with enough momentum to suggest that Wicked: For Good might outdo the first installment.

  Alas, For Good drags enough to tamp down some of the pleasure in watching Glinda, The Good Witch, and Elphaba, a.k.a., the Wicked Witch of the West, battle for the future of Oz. 

  Be assured, though, Elphaba retains her against-the-grain posture. She wants to expose the fraudulence of the storied Wizard, played here by Jeff Goldblum without benefit of much winking humor.

  The movie generates little doubt that the feuding Glinda and Elphaba will eventually acknowledge their lasting bond. Ergo, For Good feels as if it's working through two hours and 18 minutes of maneuvering to reach its inevitable conclusion.

   Some of the charm has faded. In this edition, the now subjugated animals of Oz have an unimpressive CGI aura. Supporting actors Marissa Bode, as Nessarose Thropp, and Ethan Slater, as Munchkin Boq, reach the screen in the flesh, but to limited avail.

   For Good treats the arrival of Dorothy as a marginal event, although it provides origin stories for Tin Man and Scarecrow, characters that figure in the plot, but don't have much dramatic or comic resonance.

    Fans already know that Grande and Erivo have the chops to sell popular tunes such as No Good Deed and For Good.  New songs include No Place Like Home and The Girl in the Bubble. They didn't leave me humming on the way out of the theater.

    Oops. I almost forgot. John Bailey returns as heartthrob Fiyero, whose fate involves straw and an unexpected (if you're unfamiliar with the material) shift in affections. 

    Michelle Yeoh reprises her role as Madame Morrible. Her one big scene stirs up a storm that could have found a home in a disaster movie.

     The Wicked phenomenon hinges on upsetting expectations created by familiarity with The Wizard of Oz: Glinda retains her bitchy qualities, the Wicked Witch earns our sympathy, and the story delivers a message about how lying, self-serving leaders can manipulate a gullible populace into compliance.

      Fan involvement with these characters may be strong enough to keep For Good's box office solid. Costumes and Wicked-inspired hairdos were in evidence at a preview screening, and it would be unfair to tag For Good as a flop. 

     As I've said, Grande and Erivo know how to hold the screen, and Chu created a few high points that had the audience applauding.

    But if I find myself looking at my watch during a film, I take it as a sign that I wasn't being transported into a world of enchantment -- no matter how much the movie seemed to be insisting on it.

       Oh well, I don't know if there are plans for a movie in which the once-frightening flying monkeys (yes, they return, too) assert their independence and conquer what's left of our rapidly foundering planet. Maybe they'd do a better job than we have.

Running a too-familiar race

 

  A quarter of the way through The Running Man, a remake of an action-stuffed 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, I had to pinch myself. "Wait," I thought, "Isn't this November, and if so, why am I watching a movie that looks as if it should have been part of the summer action sweepstakes.

  This second adaptation of a 1982 Stephen King novel -- published under the name of Richard Bachman -- moves quickly, but not quickly enough to make us forget we've already seen movies about deadly game shows run by authoritarians interested in controlling the masses and reaping profits. Need I mention The Hunger Games?

   Director Edgar Wright (Baby Driver, Last Day in Soho) tells the story of a reality-based show broadcast by an evil corporation called The Network. If any of the movie's contestants survive the hunt, they win $1 billion, a sum purportedly worth risking one's life for in a society in which few are privileged.

    A buffed Glen Powell plays a husband and father with anger-management problems. Powell's Ben Richards keeps losing jobs because he flies off the handle while sticking up for underdogs at work. 

    Desperate to find care for his sick infant daughter and financial relief for his overworked wife (Jayme Lawson), Richards auditions for non-lethal TV game shows. He plans to avoid The Running Man, but Network head Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) talks him into competing in the deadly competition.

     From that point on, the movie is off and running, racing through one set piece after another while dragging along some overpacked thematic baggage behind it. 

     Let's get the message out of the way: All the Network cares about is ratings. If it needs killings to up the dramatic ante, it doesn't hesitate. The Network also uses doctored videos to turn the contestants into menaces who purportedly threaten the common good. The masses buy in.

      Set in a dystopian near future, The Running Man relies heavily on Powell, who may not have been the ideal choice for this kind of action movie. I don't mean that as insult. Powell was great in Top Gun: Maverick and in the dark comedy Hit Man, but a kick-ass star? I suppose the box-office will decide.

      In all, three contestants (Powell, Katy O'Brian and Martin Herlihy) compete, but it's hardly surprising that only the top-billed Powell remains standing through the escalating mayhem. McCone (Lee Pace), a masked Hunter, remains in dogged pursuit throughout.

    The move can feel pretty dogged itself. I'm talking structure, not pace. As he moves from New York to Boston, Richards receives help from friends and sympathizers. William H. Macy plays Molie, a guy who outfits Ben with armaments. Daniel Ezra portrays Bradley, a savvy guy who facilitates Richards' travels, and Michael Cera appears as a  well-equipped rebel with plans to fight the Hunters.

    Toward the end of the movie, Ben hijacks the car of a realtor (Emilia Jones), who believes he's the villainous fiend the Network claims him to be.

    It's tough to avoid cliches in this kind of movie. Colman Domingo portrays Bobby Thompson, the amped-up host of The Running Man, a showy role that doesn't offer much for Domingo to chew on.

      Aiming for the big finish, Wright concocts a dizzying  airborne showdown. By that time, I was wondering whether the movie hadn't fallen into a trap. If you don't have anything novel to say, try saying it louder.

      None of this is bad enough to condemn Running Man or good enough to praise it. The Running Man has the all-too-familiar markings of a movie that wants to be a summer blockbuster. But, as I said at the outset, this is November.

Theater in a fabled New York prison

   The Sing Sing Correctional Facility is located about 30 miles north of Manhattan on the banks of the Hudson River. It once was the home to an electric chair dubbed "old Sparky." The Rosenbergs — Julias and Ethel — were executed there in 1953. The prison now houses about 1,700 inmates and employs some 900 people. 

  I'd wager that during the average American's day, even the average New Yorker’s, little or no thought is given to life inside Sing Sing or any other prison.

   For that reason alone, Sing Sing merits attention. 

   The movie revolves around a prison-based program known as RTA (Rehabilitation Through Arts). Among other things, the program offers prisoners an opportunity to act and stage plays. Theater provides a chance to expand limited prison horizons. 

    Director Greg Kwedar employs (Colman Domingo) and a variety of the program's alumni to create a story about men who have found solace and hope practicing theater arts. Eighty-five percent of cast members were RTA veterans, and the story is based on a 2005 Esquire article by author John H. Richardson.

   Domingo portrays Divine G, an even-tempered man who has made the group the focal point of his life. He shares a cell with Mike Mike (Sean San Jose), another convict whose participation in the program has given his life purpose.

   The story brings Divine G and Mike Mike into contact with Divine Eye (Clarence Maclin), a prisoner who hasn't  gotten a handle on his rage. 

   A question looms: What will the program offer Divine Eye and what will he offer it? 

   The movie also chronicles the development of Breakin' the Mummy's Code, a whacky comedy written by Brent Buell (Paul Raci), the program's theater director, a sympathetic character who listens, arbitrates disputes, and keeps troupe members focused.

   Throughout the movie, Maclin's character struggles with Hamlet's "To Be or Not To Be" soliloquy, eventually delivering it to the satisfaction of his fellow prisoners and us. I encourage you to read the speech and consider what it might mean to you if you were reading it behind bars.

   Emotions are drawn from parole hearings, and the unexpected death of one of the characters sends Divine G into a deep depression. Coleman's performance shows what it's like for a man who prides himself on coping with reality to lose hope.

   But the movie's positive message emerges in ways that can be moving and uplifting. Sing Sing put me in mind of one of my favorite quotes from Samuel Johnson, the 18th-century genius who's not known for his thoughts on American prisons. 

   "The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope,'' wrote Johnson. In theater, the men of Sing Sing find more than drama; they find hope that their humanity can't be destroyed.

A disappointing 'Drive-Away Dolls'

 

   I'm not sure how to classify Drive-Away Dolls, a solo directing effort by Ethan Coen, half of the great Coen Brothers team. The brothers are now working separately. Coen wrote the screenplay with his wife Tricia Cooke.

   Drive-Away Dolls almost feels like a Coen Brothers movie, maybe the rough draft for one. Remember, I said almost. Intermittently amusing in a deadpan way, Coen's episodic comedy drifts toward disappointment.

  Coen has described Drive-Away Dolls as a "queer" movie, a caper tale centered on two unabashedly gay women, the flamboyant Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and the more reserved Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan). 

  When the movie opens in 1999, Jamie has just dumped her girlfriend, a uniformed cop played by Beanie Feldstein. Jamie departs the apartment they shared as Feldstein's character sobs hysterically and pries a dildo (a gimmicky gift from Jamie) off one of the walls. 

  The story then leaves Pennsylvania, taking to the road as Jamie and Marian head for Tallahassee in a drive-away vehicle they obtain from a low-rent business run by Curlie (Bill Camp).  

   The dour Curlie insists on not being called “Curlie” even though his name is embroidered on his shirt. First names are too familiar for a first meeting, Curlie insists.

  That should give you an idea about the humor.

  Unbeknownst to Jamie and Marian, a suitcase has been placed in the trunk of the Dodge Aires they're driving. A suave gangster (Colman Domingo) wants the suitcase back. He dispatches two goons  (C.J. Wilson and Joey Slotnick) to retrieve the goods.

  What's in the suitcase? The contents of the suitcase constitute one of the movie's surprises, a joke that you'll have to discover for yourself.

  Qualley dominates as a woman who dedicates herself to freeing the spirit of the more sensible Marian, encouraging her to approach sex with libidinous abandon.

  For the most part, sex is presented with raunchy comic flare as the movie looks to find its footing. A digressive story works its way through stops at lesbian bars, a make-out session with a girls' soccer team, and an eventual face-off with the women's inept pursuers. 

   Matt Damon shows up toward the end as a senator with an interest in acquiring the suitcase.

   Coen's willingness to indulge in the ridiculous offers a degree of fun as he goofs on B-movie tropes, but, in sum, Drive-Away Dolls comes off as a ragged, 84-minute helping of comic overreach.

     The main characters are up-front about their lesbianism or “queerness,” if that’s more appropriate. But like it-or-not assertions of sexuality aren’t enough to keep much of the rest of the movie from feeling stale.

    

‘Color Purple’ musical reaches the screen

 

  

  Credit Ghanaian director Blitz Bazawule with blending  earthy naturalistic images, musical numbers, energetic performances, and superior production values in the big-screen musical version of The Color Purple. 

 At its best, Bazawule's musical seems to burst from the Georgia soil on which the story takes place.

   The source material, Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, doesn’t seem an ideal springboard for a musical; the need to entertain, almost an inherent requirement for musicals, might conflict with a story that contains so many harsh and disturbing elements.

  Bazawule and his team lean toward entertainment, while trying to ensure that The Color Purple doesn't lose all of its impact as a story steeped in cruelty and adversity, as well as hope. 

  Fantasia Barrino, who starred in the Broadway version from 2007-2008, takes on the principal role of Celie, a young woman whose infant child is taken from her early in the movie. 

  Soon the man Celie knows as her father -- and who fathered her child -- gives her to the brutal and boorish Mister (Colman Domingo). He mistreats her at every turn.

   The story derives much of its drive from Celie's need to assert herself and claim a place in the world. 

    Barrino and Domingo anchor the movie while a strong supporting cast adds to the mix, notably Danielle Brooks as the no-nonsense Sofia, a woman to be reckoned with. Brooks' seizes the screen as if it belongs to her -- and it does whenever she's on camera.

  Corey Hawkins's Harpo, Mister's son, eventually establishes the juke joint that provides the stage for one of the movie's more rousing numbers. 

    That brings us to Taraji P. Henson, who gives a showcase performance as the seductive Shug, a woman who shed the restrictive shackles imposed by her pastor father.  Shug is the only woman Mister treats with respect, probably because he knows he'll never control her.

     Shug also opens a window through which Celie glimpses another possible future for herself. The story begins in the early 1900s and continues through the 40s. culminating with Celie’s assertion of her womanhood.

      Jon Batiste makes a late-picture appearance as Grady, the man who ultimately wins Shug's heart, and Ciara portrays Nettie, Celie's sister and best friend. Early on, Netty flees the small Georgia town where the story unfolds after Mister tries to abuse her sexually.

     The musical numbers -- from one staged in front of a waterfall to another on a glamorous deco stage -- seem to emerge organically, often with an infectious beat, and Bazawule knows how to spotlight the entrance of each important character.

      A screenplay credited to Marcus Gardley, Alice Walker, and Marsha Norman relies on melodramatic twists that might be glaring in a dramatic rendering but become acceptable in a musical environment, although late-picture plot points pile up without much grace.

     Dan Laustsen’s richly realized cinematography and Jon Poll's sharp editing deserve attention and a cameo by Whoopi Goldberg, who played Celie in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 movie, provides connective tissue to the story’s lineage.

      After a novel, a movie, and numerous stage productions, Celie’s story still provides enough of an emotional framework for a retelling, this time with a palpable sense of the life that derives from vividly drawn characters and the deeply committed actors who play them.

     

An unsung civil rights hero

    Born in 1912, Bayard Rustin dabbled with Communism as a young man and spent two years in jail as a conscientious objector during World War II. He later fought to integrate American labor unions, and  played a key role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. 

   Though deprived of credit, Rustin was the visionary and organizing force behind the now famous 1963 March on Washington at which Martin Luther King gave his fabled "I Have A Dream" speech.  

   Because Rustin was openly gay before such declarations became commonplace, he upset some members of the civil rights establishment. NAACP chairman Roy Wilkins, for example, thought Rustin's sexual orientation disqualified him from playing a leading role in the March. 

  That's a lot of territory and Rustin, a semi-successful bio-pic built around a strong performance by Colman Domingo, covers some of it, even as the richness and sweep of Rustin's life plays second fiddle to the March on Washington.

  Martin Luther King, the figure most associated with the march, and Rustin were friends. They had a falling out and eventually reconciled. As King, Aml Ameen wisely avoids mimicry, capturing King's idealism, as well as his more pragmatic concerns.

   The rest of the cast includes Glynn Turman as A. Philip Randolph, renowned head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a major figure in the civil rights movement. Jeffrey Wright plays an Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a spot-light hungry Harlem Congressman, and a miscast Chris Rock appears as NAACP chief Roy Wilkins.

  Informative as it can be, Rustin isn't a dramatic knockout; the story can be weighed down by the movie's need for exposition, montage, and a detailed depiction of how Rustin rallied volunteers to create an event that would attract more than 250,000 people to the National Mall.

     Working from a screenplay by Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black, director George C. Wolfe suggests an element that conforms to the current political climate, the "intersectionality" that found Rustin battling bigotry on two fronts -- racial and sexual. Rustin was more of a universalist than that statement might suggest, an old-fashioned Leftie with deep labor roots and a commitment to class struggle  -- albeit in a non-violent fashion inspired by Gandhi. 

      Gayness seldom becomes a focal point in a story that's embedded in the roiling issues of the moment.  A romance between Rustin and a married preacher (Johnny Ramey) points to a period when some gay men had no wish to open the closet door. 

     It’s long past time that Rustin, who died in 1987, began securing his place in the popular imagination. Perhaps Rustin -- now in theaters -- will help with that, particularly when the movie bows on Netflix on Nov. 17.

    Fair to say that Domingo and Rustin deserved a richer movie than Rustin, which is too much of a historical refresher for those who lived through the period and too much of a primer for those who didn't.

     Still, Domingo carries the film past its rough spots, capturing Rustin's fiercely unapologetic activism, deep-rooted conviction, and intellectual heft. Take the word "unapologetic" seriously: It may not have been easy, but Rustin insisted on defining himself: Courageously, he refused to outsource the job.

Reimagining a 1992 horror movie

     

    Director Nia DaCosta's Candyman has been described as a "spiritual sequel" to its 1992 predecessor. I'd call it more of a "rethink" in which the original movie has been given an updated agenda. 

     While keeping her eye on horror-movie obligations, DaCosta infuses the proceedings with visual style and thematic ambition replacing the 1992's white academic with a black Chicago artist.

    Yahya Abdul-Mateen II portrays Anthony McCoy, an artist who lives with his curator girlfriend (Teyonah Parris) in an upscale condo built on the site of the mostly demolished Cabrini-Green Homes, a housing project where much of the original was set.

      McCoy becomes increasingly obsessed with the story of Candyman, a tale most of the other characters regard as an urban legend -- until they no longer can.

       The legend springs from a 19th-century tale about Daniel Robitaille (Tony Toddy) an aspiring black artist who was tortured, given a hook for a hand, and burned by racist thugs sent by the father of a white girl who had fallen in love with Robitaille. Robitaille became Candyman, the killer who haunted the Cabrini Green projects.

       The horror element stems from an additional conceit. Anyone who looks into a mirror and says the name Candyman five times will summon Candyman who'll proceed to rip them apart with his hook.

        Gory, sure. But DaCosta -- working from a screenplay by Win Rosenfeld and Jordan Peel, the director of Get Out and Us, two equally ambitious horror movies -- tempers the bloodshed by suggesting a variety of broader themes. Among them: the hypocrisies of gentrification, the pretensions of the art world, and the history of racial violence and the rage it can breed.

        Abdul-Mateen's increasingly powerful performance anchors a movie that features Colman Domingo as the man who first alerts McCoy to the Candyman legend. 

         I wouldn't say that everything about Candyman works but DaCosta's visual approach (keeping the camera at a distance while showing one of the murders through an apartment window, for example) reflects a strong level of imagination.

       The use of shadow puppets to fill in the movie's backstory proves even more novel. These displays of puppetry -- scenes of racial violence and injustice -- remind us about what underlies the events we're watching.

        You can see DaCosta's inventiveness right from the start. She brilliantly opens the film by turning the world upside down, subverting cliche by shooting the streets of Chicago by pointing her camera at the sky rather than the relying on typical images in which we look down at the city from above. 

      Her choice disturbs and provokes and sets the stage for a movie that deserves credit for having more than exploitative thrills on its mind. 

A movie that began with Tweets

 

If you're skeptical about a movie developed from a series of furious tweets, you're not alone. I, too, wondered whether anyone could or even should make such a movie. Enter Zola, a slender movie developed from the tweets of A'Ziah King, a woman who  in 2015 found herself caught up in an adventure involving pole dancing, prostitution, and threatened violence.  Zola casts Taylour Paige as Zola, a woman who's talked into accompanying a new friend (Riley Keough) on a road trip. The pitch: They can make some quick money pole dancing by traveling from Detroit to Florida. Once in Florida, it becomes clear that Keough's Stefani has more than dancing in mind. Colman Domingo plays X, Stefani's pimp, a guy who's amiable until he isn't. Stefani is also accompanied by her boyfriend (Nicholas Braun), a clueless young man who seems to have no idea what's going on -- and might not even if someone told him. Tension arises when Zola decides that it's better to be on the marketing end of the sex trade. She has no interest in providing carnal services and doesn't. Director Janicza Bravo doesn't shortchange nudity, sex scenes, and the butt-jiggling wonders of pole dancing without making any of it seem less than tawdry. I've seen Zola referred to as a satire. Whatever it is, you may ask yourself (I did) why keep watching? One reason: Both actresses are totally committed to the movie's odd journey. If there were an Oscar for playing ditzy but conniving women, Keough would be an instant frontrunner. In the end, though, Zola seems little more than a curiosity that answers a question that probably didn't need to be raised: How little source material does it take to make an 82-minute movie?

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

      Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, a big-screen adaptation of August Wilson's 1982 play, may make you sorrowful. It did me. Not only does the material contain a fair measure of heartbreak but it also marks the last performance by Chadwick Boseman, the actor who died of colon cancer last August at the age of 43. 

    Best known for playing T'Challa in Black Panther, Boseman also portrayed a variety of signature historical figures -- Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, and James Brown.  

     Ma Rainey offered Boseman a different kind of opportunity. He plays Levee, a mercurial trumpet player with a fiery temper and a big talent. Levee plays trumpet in a band assembled by Ma Rainey (Viola Davis), a woman known as Mother of the Blues.  Levee's talent may be too big for Ma, who keeps tight control over the music she performs.

     Director George C. Wolfe's playing with an A-team. In addition to Boseman and Davis, he's helped in his efforts by Glynn Turman, who plays Toledo, and Colman Domingo who portrays Cutler, two other members of Ma's musical ensemble.

     Although Wolfe attempts to open the play for the screen, there's no mistaking Ma Rainey’s origins as a powerhouse piece of theater, even as performances from Boseman and Davis ignite the sparks of conflict.

     Much of the movie takes place in a Chicago basement room where the band members await Ma's arrival. They're getting ready for a recording session, having just blown in from one of Ma's gangbuster tours of the Black south. The year: 1927.

     As portrayed by Davis, Ma is a woman of tornadic force. She wants things her way -- and if that means holding up the session while someone runs to the store to get her a bottle of Coca Cola then that's how things will be. 

    Ma has her eye on Levee for other than musical reasons. Her lover (Taylour Paige) has caught Levee's attention. He has no qualms about moving in on the highly territorial Ma, a woman so strong-willed she insists that her stuttering nephew (Dusan Brown) deliver a spoken introduction to one of her signature tunes. 

     A complex character, Levee wants to start his own band. He has a taste for independence: Wilson gives him a monologue that allows us to understand the raging forces that incite his mood shifts, as well as his refusal to kowtow to the older members of Ma's band.

     Wilson's play includes plenty of emotive fireworks and the supporting cast sets them off with old-pro precision that does justice to each character and to the movie's larger themes, among them, the way whites exploit black talent. 

     A fine cast makes us feel every bit of humor and sting in Wilson's writing, but Ma Rainey's Black Bottom has an effect Wilson couldn't have anticipated: It leaves us wondering at the cruel fate that ended Boseman's life too soon.

 

Love in the time of racism

In If Beale Street Could Talk, director Barry Jenkins adapts a James Baldwin novel that pits the innocence of lovers against soul-crushing racism.

If you stop to think about it, you might be hard-pressed to come up with a long list of movies that portray love with tenderness, soul-deep commitment, and true devotion.

Among other things, a tender depiction of such a love is precisely what distinguishes If Beale Street Could Talk from normal Hollywood fare. director Barry Jenkins' follow-up to his Oscar-winning Moonlight, has moments that are illuminated by the characters love for each other and by Jenkins' love for them.

But if Beale Street -- set in New York during the '70s -- only dealt with love, it would not be doing justice to the 1974 James Baldwin novel of the same name. If Beale Street Could Talk also assays the impact of racism on the innocence of two lovers who have known they should be together since childhood.

Tender feelings collide with harsh realities that test the devotion of a young man and woman who want little more than to live, raise a family and continue loving each other.

The casting of the couple obviously becomes crucial in a movie such as Beale Street and Jenkins' has done well. Stephan James portrays Alonzo, a.k.a. "Fonny," a 22-year-old with ambitions to make sculptures from wood. KiKi Layne portrays Tish, Fonny's 19-year-old fiancee and also the story's narrator.

Jenkins invites us to fall in love with this sweet couple and we do, but he also plans to break our hearts. Tish is pregnant and it's entirely possible that Fonny will be in jail when his child is born.

Set up by a racist cop (Ed Skrein), Fonny faces a false rape charge. Tish fights to clear his name. She knows that the Puerto Rican woman who identified Fonny in a line-up did so in a confused panic. Fonny wasn't even in the vicinity of the crime.

The movie contextualizes the relationship between Fonny and Tish by bringing their respective families into focus as it shifts between the present with Fonny awaiting trial in jail and the past in which Fonny and Tish developed their relationship.

Fonny's mother (Regina King) supports her pregnant daughter; her father (Colman Domingo) also makes his love for Tish clear; he understands that he's going to have to get involved with some hustling to raise money for Fonny's defense.

In an early scene, the two families meet and sparks fly. Fonny's religious mother (Aunjanue Ellis,) disdains Tish and treats her as a wanton woman who's ruining her son's life. Fonny's father (Michael Beach) takes a different view. He hauls off and belts his wife in the kisser, a slap that turns a comic scene into something harsh and harrowing.

Perhaps Baldwin was trying to highlight poles of belief within the black community: staunchly religious conservatism vs. love-infused tolerance, the latter born of an understanding about what's needed to carry on.

Brian Tyree Henry turns up as an old friend of Fonny's who has just been released from jail and who can't shake the emotional damage of incarceration. He didn't belong in jail any more than Fonny will.

Jenkins respectfully extends scenes to allow the actors to live within them, but some of them go on too long and you begin to feel the movie's length.

Maybe it doesn't matter because If Beale Street Could Talk doesn't feel rooted in a specific time and place as much as it feels like an extension of imagination lodged in an essential moment -- one built around a deep understanding of harsh American realities and an unconquerable capacity for hope and survival.

If Beale Street Could Talk poses a heartfelt and heartbreaking question: Why must two lovers pit their happiness against a world that doesn't want to give them a chance? That sounds like the trailer for a romance novel, but -- in this case -- it's an indictment of racism that tries to crush the sweetness out of everyday life.