'Is That Black Enough For You?!?' Is A Powerful Examination of Black Film Representation That Will Leave You Wanting More [NYFF Review]

Black films have existed since the silent era. Filmmakers like Oscar Micheaux and later Spencer Williams worked tirelessly to write, direct and represent Black life on screen. However, amid unbridled anti-Blackness and the Jim Crow era, Hollywood studios, who owned the biggest movie houses at the time, locked Black films out of their cinemas. White writers, directors and producers of that era had their own ideas about Black life — ones that were riddled with demeaning stereotypes and degrading roles. 

Yet, as film scholar and historian Elvis Mitchell describes in his dense but riveting film essay, Is That Black Enough For You?!?, racism didn’t stop Black people from falling in love with movies. Nor did it stop the deep yearning within many of them, Mitchell included, from wanting to see themselves represented on the big screen. 

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'Bones and All' Starring Taylor Russell And Timothee Chalamet Is As Intriguing As It Is Bloody [NYFF Review]

When we think of horror films, there is often a feeling of edginesses and tension. Certain tropes and beats are used to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

Though filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s latest movie, adapted from Camille DeAngelis’ novel of the same name, Bones and All, has horror elements, it subverts all of the traditions of the genre to offer something profoundly moving, gory, and rich.

The film opens in 1988 in rural Virginia. Maren (a mesmerizing Taylor Russell) has just moved to a small town with her quiet but slightly overbearing father (a criminally underused André Holland). 

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'The Tragedy Of Macbeth' Starring Denzel Washington Is the Shakespeare Adaptation We've Been Longing For (NYFF Review)

For better or for worse, the works of William Shakespeare are so deeply embedded into literary history that many of us encounter at least one of his narratives before we exit our teen years. Still, as much as the 16th-century playwright is revered and emulated, much of his work has remained beyond the reach of the average person. Now, almost 500 years after Shakespeare's birth, Joel Cohen, in his first solo directing effort, has offered up a stunning adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth without the overdone fillers and the exhausting reimaginings that have plagued recent adaptations.

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'Dune' Has A Lot More To Do For A Truly Worthy Payoff (NYFF Review)

Thirty-five years after David Lynch's ill-fated adaptation of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune crashed and burned on the big screen, director Denis Villeneuve has tried his hand at bringing the stunning epic to life. The film is a coming-of-age tale of sorts. It follows Paul Atreides (a stoic Timothée Chalamet), heir to the noble House of Atreides. Paul's whole world shifts from under him when the emperor orders his father Leto Atreides, the Duke of Atreides (Oscar Issac), to invade the dangerous desert planet Arrakis and begin cultivating the highly coveted spice. Spice allows for interstellar space travel and acts as a fountain-of-youth-like substance as well as a psychoactive.

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