^ Yeeaaahh, The Warriors is awesome. I'd never thought of it as a EFNY prequel, nice.
Gaith said:
At one point, one of the titular gang members is killed, and is never mentioned again.
IIRC the actor was all "You can't fire me. I'm in half the movie!" and the Director was all "Oh you reckon?". They stuck a wig on some guy and threw his character under a train. Problem solved
.
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One Night in Miami... (2020)
I wasn't at all impressed with
'One Night in Miami...' at first. I found it simplistic, unsubtle and containing foolish errors. But when the four characters arrive at the hotel room setting it really sparks into life. Later, reading up on the film I could understand why. It's based on a 90-minute, one-act play but instead of just filming that, they've condensed the play into an hour and tacked on a new 1/2 hour at the start introducing the four characters. If you know a modest amount about contemporary American history, popular music and the civil rights struggle, there is nothing in that new portion you need to know. I'd honestly recommend skipping the first 30-minutes and enjoying the exciting back and forth debate inside the hotel room. It was probably only put in there to give some more varied footage to cut an exciting looking trailer from (less than 30-seconds of said trailer is not taken from the intro and short coda). The actors do a great job making you believe they are the real people but
Kingsley Ben-Adir and
Leslie Odom Jr. (as
Malcolm X and
Sam Cooke respectively) deliver most of the fireworks.
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Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)
Another adaptation of an
August Wilson play from
Denzel Washington after
'Fences' (although this time he neither directs nor stars). It's a fictionalised account of a 1927 Chicago recording session for Blues singer
Ma Rainey, focusing on the interpersonal conflicts between her band members, informed by the racial situation in America and the exploitation of black musicians. Although the overall thematic antagonist at the roots of the drama is racism, quick tempered, cocky Cornet player Levee is the instigator of much of the conflict. Levee is played by
Chadwick Boseman, in his final role, with a fury, pride, passion and energy that belies his failing health.
Viola Davis disappears into the title role but her lip-syncing isn't 100% convincing. It took a bit of searching to find the talented singer who had actually performed the songs,
Maxayn Lewis, who is just credited as "featured vocalist". Director
George C. Wolfe's work with the acting talent is faultless but I think he could have done more to make it feel less like a play and more like a film. It looks pretty set bound and mostly takes place in one room, so I don't know how the hell he managed to spend the same amount as
David Fincher did on the relatively epic
'Mank' (another 2020 Netflix production).