When her close friend Julianne Moore’s young daughter has a fatal accident under her care, her town turns against her and school nurse Sigourney Weaver’s professionalism in other instances is called into question. It’s quite a bit of melodrama that doesn’t given either of these great actresses quality material to work with, especially Weaver who is expected to deliver some really strange behaviors while in prison. The MVP of the whole film is David Strathairn as Weaver’s husband, giving a strong performance as a man who has to make tough decisions while keeping his family together.

To get into a mechanics’ course, Ryan Black is forced to submit an essay. He chooses to write about the rape and murder of one of his friends by a white man and how his community dealt with the lenient sentence given for the crime. Violence perpetrated against native women is an incredibly underreported subject, but unfortunately here with the story focusing on the antics of Black and his best friend Adam Beach, it gives the feeling that the woman is a secondary character in her own story. Regardless, I appreciate the attempt to bring more native stories to film and with this, it does portray what feels like a genuine community and how its members interact.

Captain Treat Williams and his crew are hired by a group of mercenaries to aid in hijacking a luxury cruise. Unfortunately when they arrive on the ship, they find almost everyone dead, killed by a mysterious force. It’s very silly with a story that’s a bit too convoluted, but it delivers exactly what is expected from the genre, nothing less and nothing more. The CGI creatures are definitely dated, but still remain effectively scary. There’s something refreshingly capitalistic that the movie doesn’t have a single good character in the entire cast and doesn’t try too hard to sell them as as such.    

In this faux documentary set in the year 2042, a reporter interviews a mother and her college-aged daughter who are imprisoned for having sought an abortion in Sweden. While very dated and somewhat cheaply made, this film hits hard in the current United States. The reporter also interviews other individuals, including a Roman Catholic priest, feminists, and the prosecutor in the case, who provide context to how a country supposedly built on freedom and liberty slid so far into a totalitarian state. The film isn’t great as a piece of entertainment or art, but it does serve as a huge warning sign of how easily rights can be eroded on little piece at a time.

This sequel to Blacula begins with the leader of a voodoo cult choosing apprentice Pam Grier as her successor instead of her son Richard Lawson. In retaliation, Richard resurrects the vampire Blacula to do his bidding, only to discover Blacula is not so easily controlled. With a greater focus on William Marshall’s Blacula character, this is possibly better than its prequel. The addition of the voodoo cult nicely parallels Blacula’s own coven and Pam Grier is always a great bonus.  

An homage to Blaxploitation films of the 1970s, the titular character is an ex-CIA agent and Vietnam vet who must avenge his brother’s death while also combating the drugs that are littering the streets. Meticulously made to look like a film of the era it is honoring, even filming in Super 16 format, it is obvious that the creators had done their homework and were fans of the original genre. Michael Jai White as Black Dynamite is as bad ass as any of the well known heroes and anti-heroes from those films. He’s incredibly committed to the performance and is well supported by a cast that is a revolving door of well-known actors. I really hope a sequel is on its way. 

Ruby Dee entreaties Harvard professor Sean Connery to come out of retirement from the law to investigate her grandson Blair Underwood’s conviction for the rape and murder of a young white girl. Once down to Florida, Connery must contend with racist, brutal cops, his own wife’s connection to the case, and serial killer Ed Harris. I’d seen negative reviews of this that I couldn’t understand. The first half is rather compelling with Connery dealing with the aforementioned issues while also putting together the facts of the case. Then in the second half, it gets bad, really bad. Every single character suddenly acts opposite of how they’d been portrayed through the earlier parts of the film, except Ruby Dee because she’s criminally underused by that point, and what could have maybe been a compelling courtroom climax instead commits to the dumbest timeline.