Wandering just a little bit at times but with a strong cast and a lot of good choices.
Categories: Movie and Series Reviews, Biography
American Gangster (2007) 4/5
Categories 4/5, Biography, Crime, Drama, Movie and Series Reviews 
An overall pretty good movie with two things I took a little issue with. One, I would have preferred a less fluffed ending, it almost seemed like the close out of a buddy-buddy film. Second, and I know I would get a lot of push back for this, I think Denzel didn’t give it his best. Denzel is great, so his decent is still pretty good, but I think he could have leaned in more at certain beats to drive home the stories intent.
Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) 4.5/5
Categories 4.5/5, Biography, Drama, History, Movie and Series Reviews 
It must have been incredibly hard to balance this movie. I can’t fault the age of the actors too much vs the real life people when no doubt they probably got people in seats and the movie made. Everyone is on their game and the story carefully balances how much of each character we get. I did feel a little longing for more knowledge of the politics in it but I appreciate the movie nonetheless.
BlacKkKlansman (2018) 3.5/5
I’m torn because I really loved some aspects but some liberties felt out of place. Starting there, I think the romance plot and the mustache twirling officer felt a bit hamfisted. To not go into spoilers, I will just say this reaches a peak at the end of the film.
That being said, the cast did wonderful and there was some really good writing. I also felt mixing in direct-life clips was handled well and that is not easy to do.
I ended up peaking the wiki page for this one after and I found a lot of the parts I had trouble with were the parts adjusted to fit a Hollywood movie. Kinda a shame because the movie is fantastic in so many ways. Obviously there was a way to do these things but as is I think they felt too from-the-script-to-the-screen. It didn’t feel natural.
Don’t let what I am saying deter you though. I feel I am being a bit picky and I will probably wish I had given another half-star later.
Unfrosted (2024) 1/5
Categories 1/5, Biography, Comedy, History, Movie and Series Reviews 
I can’t find a reason to encourage anyone to watch Unfrosted. Technical movie making keeps it from escaping falling any lower, but be not deceived, the movie is dreadful.