Month: February 2022

Based on James Baldwin’s semi-autobiographical novel, this recounts the experiences and history of a Black family who moves from the South to Harlem, particularly of a teenaged boy and his relationship with his domineering, self-righteous, and heavily religious stepfather. Being made of television, it is a bit low budget and stagey at times, but it does boast an incredible cast with Paul Winfield, Rosalind Cash, and Giancarlo Esposito all in major roles. I’m sure I missed some context since I’m very unfamiliar with the Black Pentecostal church, but it does offer some interesting explorations on religion and threads that connect and reverberate through family history.

Omar Epps is an undercover cop on a mission to bring down LL Cool J’s criminal enterprise. After an unspecified time on the job, his superiors pull him from the assignment when the line between good and bad becomes blurred, but he goes back in when it’s determined that he’s the only one who can pull off the take down. The plot is entirely predictable as it’s similar to any number of undercover cop films, but it’s not even a middling entry for the genre. It has some glaring pacing issues and criminally underuses Pam Grier as a fellow detective. 

On the day of his 21st birthday, young Rex Smith celebrates the end of his pirate apprenticeship, a situation that was caused due to a misunderstanding by his nurse Angela Lansbury, and vows to bring the end to the pirates as his sense of duty dictates. This sense of duty and the ineptitude of the pirate band (they are well known to be lenient on fellow orphans) are underlying themes through the entire story. The art direction is faithful to its theatre roots, offering the viewer the sense of being transported into the middle of a stage performance. The whole production is quite amusing and delightfully campy, most fully embraced by Kevin Kline as the Pirate King.   

During World War II, disgraced former lieutenant Clint Eastwood learns from a German prisoner that there is a large stash of gold being held in an occupied area of France. With no love for the Army, he gathers together a motley crew to acquire the gold. It’s very weird to see a World War II movie where the Allied characters are not good guys nor part of a noble cause. There are other bizarre choices from the catchy, but oddly psychedelic poppy theme song and Donald Sutherland also broadly playing a hippie in an era almost thirty years before they existed.