By Dwight Brown NNPA Film Critic On the surface, there is absolutely no reason to update the classic Broadway show Annie, which was already adapted for the screen in 1982. But this multicultural cast redux adds a hip swag to the classic kid’s story. This Annie is urban, emotional and fun. But far from perfect. […]
Exodus: Gods and Kings
By Dwight Brown NNPA Film Critic “Exodus: Movement of Jah people! Oh-oh-oh, yea-eah!” chants Bob Marley. In his rousing three-minute song “Exodus” he presents a more strong and spiritual feel for Moses than Ridley Scott’s 154-minute, whitewashed sword-and-sandals epic. Travel from the north to the south of Egypt and there is a variance of skin […]
Top Five
By Dwight Brown NNPA Film Critic Chris Rock recently hosted Saturday Night Live. During the show’s normal intro section, he did around 10 minutes of standup. One of the targets of his wicked humor was the new World Trade Center. He said he would never go in it. There were audible gasps, and a bit […]
Beyond the Lights
By Dwight Brown NNPA Film Critic Quick Rihanna, check to see if someone stole your diary. This ode to young black chanteuses fighting personal demons feels like the story of her life. But in fact, it’s the brainchild of writer/director Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball), who knows her way around a romantic drama. Noni (Gugu […]
Interstellar
By Dwight Brown NNPA Film Critic Remember Gravity. Remember the simplicity, raw emotion, visual wonder, precision pacing and unpretentious central character in that space odyssey? Hold that thought. You’ll need to. Interstellar is no Gravity; it’s on a different flight pattern. The script, by director/writer Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) and his brother writer Jonathan […]
Nightcrawler
By Dwight Brown NNPA Film Critic They mostly come out at night, under the cloak of darkness. They swarm around dead bodies and carnage. Around the wounded, the maimed, the vulnerable. They’re hated by some, loathed by others. No, not vultures. Not vampires. Crime journalists. Stringers, aka “nightcrawlers,” with no conscience, who would do anything […]
St. Vincent
By Dwight Brown NNPA Film Critic “Oh Lord. Take me now. Don’t mess with me!” pleads Vincent (Bill Murray), a disheveled, directionless drunk. The guy could drink jet fuel without a chaser. He lives alone in a dilapidated house in Brooklyn because his wife is in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s. He gambles on the […]
Dear White People
By Dwight Brown NNPA Film Critic “Dear white people: The minimum requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has just been raised…to two.” Biting satire abounds in this witty, edgy ode to racism in the age of Obama. In his debut feature film, writer/director Justin Simien’s perceptive observances take no prisoners. It’s a […]
I Am Ali
By Dwight Brown NNPA Film Critic “I am the greatest!” Who can forget the cocky trademark phrase that was delivered by the most endearing boxer of all time? Retracing Muhammad Ali’s vibrant life is an opportunity for audiences to reexamine American history, race relations, the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement and the sports world […]
The Equalizer
By Dwight Brown NNPA Film Critic The last time they worked together, Denzel Washington and director Antoine Fuqua conjured up Training Day. That collaboration won Washington an Academy Award for Best Actor, and it was the only time in Oscar history that a black man won Best Actor in a film by a black director. […]
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