A well-pitched exercise in peak blaxploitation style, more than an actual movie, with an all-timer of a soundtrack.
Category Archives: Black Directors
CROOKLYN (1994)
Spike Lee’s semiautobiographical depiction of his own childhood feels “true,” but really rubs me the wrong way.
HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE (1987)
Somewhere between a social satire and sketch comedy resides this weird late-80s time capsule that I thought was funny but not necessarily notable.
THE LEARNING TREE (1969)
The first ever studio movie from a Black director tells the semi-autobiographical story of its director growing up in 1920s Kansas, and I was actually pretty impressed with it as a movie.
HOUSE PARTY (1990)
A very fun teen time capsule from 1990 that has a lot on its mind but resists any major dramatics.
DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS (1995)
A very well-done neo-noir that deals with issues the original film noirs mostly ignored. Denzel Washington plays the detective in over his head.
TO SLEEP WITH ANGER (1990)
A Magical Realist story of a Black family in Los Angeles that throws out a lot of ideas, and leaves us to our own conclusions.
THE BLOOD OF JESUS (1941)
This is a movie as “outsider art,” an unfiltered detour into a religious mind without an insincere bone in its body.
THE BEST MAN (1999)
I’ve watched a lot of movies that were aggressively not my thing since starting this blog, but oh boy, this was a rough one.
WAITING TO EXHALE (1995)
Some people are perfectly happy to watch movies where a bunch of women get together and complain about men and then get together or do not get together with those men. It’s not my thing.
