'The Last Shift' Never Gets To The Root Of The Issue

The 2016 Presidential election revealed just how divided America can be. Many people across the country seemingly voted against their best interests for a presidential nominee whose policies would do more harm than good for the average working-class American. The election showcased, yet again, how many people will cling on to hatred, bigotry and racism because the privileges of whiteness are the only things they have of value. 

In The Last Shift, filmmaker Andrew Cohn offers a birds-eye view of working-class, small-town America. The narrative showcases two lives that intersect, bringing about frustrating results.

Albion, Michigan is a town that the rest of America has forgotten. Stanley (Richard Jenkins) has lived there his entire life. He's worked the graveyard shift at Oscar's Chicken and Fish for the past 38-years, where he makes less than fifteen dollars an hour.

Stanley is exceptionally prideful about his life's choices. He's content in the grind of his daily work, his rented room in a flophouse and the evenings he spends playing darts and drinking Mountain Dew with his buddy Dale (Ed O'Neill). However, Stanley is ready for the next chapter of life. He's decided to retire from Oscar's, earn his driver's license and drive down to Sarasota, Florida to get his ailing mother out of her hellish nursing home. 

Before his final shift, Stanley's boss, Shazz (Dolemite Is My Name's Da'Vine Joy Randolph), has tasked him with training his replacement. Jevon (Shane Paul McGhie) is a young Black father who has recently been released from prison after defacing a public monument. He's full of lofty ideas about the world and has a passion for writing. However, his angst, aimlessness and the suffocating confines of Albion have left him feeling stuck with only the air mattress in his mom's house as a life raft.

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'Farewell Amor' Is A Character Study On Loss, Reconnection And Second Chances

Cinema has a history of examining the breaking, ripping and pulling apart of families. What is almost never seen on screen is the rejoining and the reconnection of what was once broken, or the aftermath of what occurs when lives are forced back together. Ekwa Msangi's feature directorial debut Farewell Amor is a quiet, elegant film about a family torn apart by the Angolan Civil War only to reconnect 17-years later in New York City's JFK airport. 

Walter (The Chi's Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) is an Angolan-born taxi-cab driver who fled from Angola to New York City, leaving his wife, Esther (Zainab Jah), and daughter, Sylvia (Jayme Lawson), behind. Now, nearly two decades later, having battled the United States' often chaotic and sometimes corrupt immigration system, the family is together once again. What should be a happy occasion is a tense meeting of virtual strangers. 

Accustomed to life as a single man, with a routine that involves driving during the day, dancing at night and a beautiful lover, Linda (Nana Mensah), Walter struggles to make room for Esther and Sylvia in his home and in his heart. Still, he's determined to do what he feels is honorable. Stuffing down his feelings over the loss of Linda and the life he's grown accustomed to, Walter carves out space for his wife and daughter in his cramped one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment. Meanwhile, Esther isn't quite the woman he once knew. Now a devout Christian who prays fervently and offers more than the family can afford in tides, Esther feels that God has truly blessed her family with their reunion. However, she struggles with the cracks and imperfections of her new family dynamic. America is a terrifying new world for a woman who has experienced so much loss. Though Walter is present, she feels his emotional absence, which only heightens the deep-seated loneliness that she's carried with her for so long. 

It's also hard for Sylvia to adjust to life in a different place, but with more maturity than most teenagers in her position, she does her best to embrace her new life. In America, she's able to foster her secret love of dancing. The introverted teen also captures the eye of DJ (black-ish's Marcus Scribner), a boy at school who encourages her to try out for the step team. While she is used to living under the looming shadow of her beloved but Bible-bound mother, Sylvia recognizes that a relationship with a more lenient and understanding Walter may provide the kind of freedom that she's been craving, she's just uncertain if she can trust him.

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'Time' Shows The True Cost Of Our Broken Prison System

Time is precious. But it can also be haunting, especially when an outside force is holding the years, minutes and moments we use to clock our lives in the balance. For people who are incarcerated, the United States prison system is adamant about making sure time is something it owns. 

For over 20 years, Sibil Fox Richardson, aka Rich Fox, a businesswoman, and an advocate, has been doing all the groundwork to push for the release of her husband, Robert Richardson. On September 26, 1997, in an act of desperation, Rich and Robert robbed a credit union. Though Rich was able to get a plea deal, serving out three and a half years for her role in the crime, Robert was sentenced to 60-years in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, one of the worst prisons in the United States. Time is their story. 

Told in black and white with director Garrett Bradley's modern-day footage interwoven with Rich's personal home videos of her and their sons, Time unveils a life of waiting and longing. From her own words, prior to and following her release from prison, the audience learns more about Rich. She welcomes us into the life she's carved out for herself. We watch their six boys transform from pamper-wearing babies into towering bearded men. Rich has found joyous moments in the past 20 years. Yet, the fight for her husband's release is the singular goal of her life.

Regal and fearsome, Rich more than takes responsibility for her part in the robbery. What she doesn't accept is the time that has been stolen away from her family. She's constantly irritated by the lackadaisical attitudes of judges and judicial secretaries who can't seem to make the correlation between their day-to-day work and the lives that dangle in the balance. 

As Time swivels between the past and the present, we sit with a self-assured Rich, who never cowers in the face of her past mistakes or what she perceives to be right. It's an interesting contrast to her mother, who suggests on more than one occasion that Rich should humble herself to make headway with Robert's case.

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'Sylvie's Love' Has The Immense Beauty Of An Old-Fashioned Romance

Black people have very few opportunities to see ourselves in sweeping romantic dramas like the films that used to dominate Old Hollywood. We've certainly had movies like Love Jones and Stella Meghie's forthcoming romantic drama, The Photograph. However, outside of Diana Ross' Mahogany and Lady Sings the Blues, films in the same romantic vein as Casablanca, An Affair to Remember and It Happened One Night, or even contemporary period pieces like The Notebook, have largely been reserved for white actors and storytellers within the tight confines of American Cinema's studio system. Now, we have Sylvie's Love.

Set in the summer of 1957, writer and director Eugene Ashe's aesthetically stunning Sylvie's Love is a sweeping old-fashioned romantic drama about missed moments, extraordinary love and staying true to yourself. Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha), a quiet but brilliant saxophonist, stumbles into Sylvie's (Tessa Thompson) world on a sweltering summer day in Harlem.

While Robert and his group, the "Dickie Brewster Quartet," are gaining traction in the music scene, Sylvie is stuck. With her fiancé Lacy (Alano Miller) overseas in Korea, the aspiring television producer spends her days watching I Love Lucy and Father Knows Best in her father's record shop. She entertains herself by lounging with her cousin Mona (Aja Naomi King) on the record shop's rooftop and dodging her bougie mother's lessons on being a lady.

From the moment Sylvie and Robert meet there is a spark. They experience that sizzle and connection that draws them to one another like magnets. The pair embark on a whirlwind summer romance, full of late-night dancing and stolen kisses. Yet, Sylvie's engagement ring is a constant reminder of their reality, especially when Robert and the quartet receive an opportunity to take their music to Paris. 

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'The 40-Year-Old Version' Is An Ode To Black Womanhood And Putting Yourself On

Grief has a way of highlighting time and forcing us to face mortality. It directs us to examine our dreams, aspirations and life's journey. In Radha Blank's outstanding debut feature, The 40-Year-Old Version, the writer, director, producer and star grapples with defining success, fearlessness and the limits we put on ourselves. 

Shot in crisp 35mm black and white, reminiscent of classic 1970s New York films, The 40-Year-Old Version introduces us to Radha, a fictionalized version of the filmmaker. A once-acclaimed playwright who made it onto a prestigious "30 under 30" list, Radha is now struggling to find her voice and her power in the wake of her mother's death. With her 40th birthday approaching, Radha spends her days teaching a crew of rambunctious high school students dramatic writing and taking long sips of a disgusting diet drink in a futile effort to lose weight. 

Though she's written a promising new play, Harlem Ave, its only hope of being accepted into the very white New York City theater scene will be after extensive rewrites and thrusting a white woman at the center of the plot. These are changes that Radha isn't sure she can live with. Determined to shatter the struggling artist stereotype, Radha becomes reinvigorated by her long-forgotten passions; hip-hop and rapping. Embolden by the dazzling beats of a twenty-something Brownsville producer, D. Possible (a stoic and brilliant Oswin Benjamin), Radha begins channeling her pain and frustration through the rhymes and flows of her alter-ego, RadhaMUSprime.

Her raps like, "Poverty Porn" and "Black Woman Ass On a White Man," along with D's quiet encouragement, make Rhada feel alive. Yet she's increasingly aware of the absurdity of her new passion. Trying to keep what he believes is a mid-life-crisis at bay, Rhada's life-long best friend and agent, Archie (Peter Y. Kim), convinces her to rewrite Harlem Ave to regain her former glory as a darling of the New York theater scene. Under the direction of an absurd white producer, Josh (Reed Birney), whose latest claim to fame is a Harriet Tubman musical, Radha casts rapping aside for a white-washed Harlem Ave at a cost she never expected to pay. 

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Kenyan Documentary 'Softie' Unpacks The Hefty Personal Cost Of Revolution [REVIEW]

Softie opens with 1,000 liters of blood, and the carnage doesn't stop there. Kenyan filmmaker Sam Soko's bold and emotionally visceral documentary follows photojournalist and activist Boniface Mwangi, on his quest to change the corrupt political system in Kenya. It's a system that has choked the country since colonialism and continues into its near-60 years of independence. Despite the corruption and the high cost of human life, two political dynasties have clutched onto the most powerful political offices in Kenya. At the same time, the blood of Kenyans continue to pool at their feet. 

Though the film opens on the cusp of the 2017 elections (government elections in Kenya happen every five years), Soko takes the time to give his audience a history lesson. Using propaganda from the British occupation, Soko explains how Kenya was divided into tribes by the British. Today, those tribes that have been pitted against one another for power and greed. More than an assessment on the political state of Kenya,  Softie is a crash course on the man, who, though not yet 40, witnessed the corruption in his country first hand.

A young photojournalist during the violent aftermath of the 2007 elections which led to the country's leaders being tried in the International Criminal Court, Mwangi turned his camera lens on what was happening to his people. Men were being sliced apart by machetes, people were being dragged through the streets and beaten to death . with impunity. Fed up with the press and the government's apathy, when he had the literal evidence to back up his claims, Mwangi quit his job and took to the streets in protest. 

Now, a decade later, Mwangi is still working tirelessly to expose the country's corrupt political system. Soko's Softie unpacks what it costs Mwangi to speak up and force change. 

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Nicole Beharie's Magnetism Carries 'Miss Juneteenth'

The past haunts many of us. Roads we could've taken regularly play over in our minds, suggesting what might've been. From the outside looking in, this doesn't appear to be the case for Turquoise Jones (Nicole Beharie); She has moved on from the events of yesterday.

She's a waitress at Wayman's BBQ & Lounge, a fiercely protective mother to her precocious 15-year-old daughter, Kai (Alexis Chikaeze) and a beloved member of her Black Ft. Worth, Texas community. Turquoise puts all her energy into giving Kai the opportunities she never had. Yet, the heartbreaking thing about director Channing Godfrey Peoples' debut feature is that all of the ambitions Turquoise desperately has for Kai were once within her own grasp. 

As Miss Juneteenth opens, Turquoise stands in the mirror with a glistening crown atop her fluffy curls, with the Black national anthem "Lift Every Voice and Sing" booming in the background. Turq has a radiance and youthfulness about her, despite the weariness that comes with working yourself to the bone and raising a strong-willed teenage daughter. She is reminiscing on the beauty queen title she held fifteen years prior. Back in 2004, Turq won the Miss Juneteenth pageant, which commiserates the day slavery was abolished in Texas. Her title earned her a scholarship to a Historically Black College or University of her choosing.

Yet, life has a way of putting your mind at war with your heart. For Turquoise, it's a battle she's been fighting with Kai's father, her estranged husband Ronnie (Insecure's Kendrick Sampson), for over 15 years. Despite his past and present choices, Turquoise is still smitten by the immature but charismatic mechanic. All of these years later, she still desperately wants Ronnie to live up to all of his promises. 

Miss Juneteenth is a breathtaking canvas for Beharie's emotional range, deliberate choices and profound warmth as an actress. It begins slow, with Peoples meticulously fleshing out Turquoise's world. The chemistry between mother and daughter even elevates the sometimes choppy narrative. Beharie has a way of channeling both friendship and an authoritative tone in the same breath or with one look. Though Turquoise recognizes that Kai has different aspirations than she once did, she is incapable of fully accepting this. Kai's desires are mainly to join a dance team, attend the big state school and slay in Battle of the Bands. However, Turq's desperate desire for her daughter to achieve what she never did overwhelms her. 

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Maïmouna Doucouré's 'Cuties' Confronts Betrayal Of Young Black Girls

Throughout the world, the pain, suffering and voices of little girls are often ignored and silenced. French filmmaker Maïmouna Doucouré's debut film Cuties (Mignonnes) is an arresting assessment of the hyper-sexualization of young girls and grapples with the juxtaposition of this issue in a society where women are becoming increasingly sexually liberated.

The bold and disquieting film follows Amy, an 11-year old girl who moves with her mother and young brothers from Senegal to a jam-packed Paris housing project. While her mother, Mariam (Maïmouna Gueye), has become preoccupied with the devastating news that her husband has taken a second wife, Amy is left to parent her younger siblings. This includes everything from watching them, feeding them and doing the grocery shopping for the household. Similar to films like Beasts of the Southern Wild, Crooklyn and Eve's Bayou, Doucouré shines a light on how quickly Black girls are expected to stand in and complete tasks typically ascribed to adults. In contrast, little Black boys often basque in the attentions of their mothers, free of such expectations.

Though her mother has raised her as a devout, conservative Muslim, Amy soon gets her hands on an iPhone and begins to emulate the more provocative images of women she sees online and in music videos. An outcast in her plain clothing and large Afro puff, Amy soon finds herself fascinated with her classmate, Angelica, a Latinx girl who wears her slick straight hair and quick temper as armor. Angelica is fearless and volatile--the queen bee of her friend group that's dubbed themselves the Cuties. Eager to garner Angelica's attention and earn her place on the Cuties crew, Amy begins wearing her brother's t-shirts as crop-tops while intensely studying the Cuties' mannerisms and behaviors. What starts as an innocent desire to fit in and have a place in her new environment becomes a cautionary tale for not just young girls, but for the rest of the world that has decided that young girls (especially young girls of color) aren't worthy of protection.

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'Bad Hair' Has A Lot To Say But Never Says It [REVIEW]

Justin Simien's Bad Hair begins with a trauma that many Black women can relate to across the globe--their first perm. Eager to look like her dazzling older cousin, Linda, pre-teen Anna Bludso looks longingly at a box of relaxer while the creamy crack sits in her coils and kinks. Unfortunately, the result is disastrous. Just minutes later, the chemicals penetrate her scalp and clumps of hair snap from the roots. Her shrill scream zips the audience forward in time to Los Angeles in 1989. 

Anna (Elle Lorraine), now a grown woman, lives with the painful memory and a scar from her first and only relaxer. Currently trusting only her own hands to care for her soft afro, she's become a more timid version of her younger, bolder self. Though she carefully styles her hair with bows and wraps, Anna is virtually invisible at Culture, the music video based TV show where she works. As an executive assistant desperate for her own chance to host a show, she's constantly passed over in an entertainment industry that only finds value in Black women who present like Janet Jackson in her Control era, with long-flowing curls and caramel-to-light skin and Eurocentric features.  

When the network's top executive (James Van Der Beek) shakes things up by placing ex-supermodel Zora (Vanessa Williams) at the helm of Culture, she sees promise in Anna, whose ideas have been stolen or ignored for years. However, Zora warns Anna that to seize her spot as host of the new Cult, she needs a new look. Desperate to be seen, Anna suppresses her fear and goes to Virgie (Laverne Cox) for her first sew-in. Though Anna's new look transforms her image and her career, it comes at a cost that she never expected. 

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