Reviews

A brain dead romcom from this year currently streaming on Hulu. Lucy Boynton (from Bohemian Rhapsody & Sing Street) stars as a music aficionado (w/delusions of music producer grandeur) who goes through the day suffering from memories of her loved one's demise, newly cast Superman David Corenswet (who ironically looks like a shabby Henry Cavill here), in a car accident which now has affected Boynton perpetually wearing a set of cans on to curtail her incipient PTSD. The additional side effect of this audio stoppage has her travelling back in time (or maybe spurring long dormant memories she had w/Corenswet) which makes things tough after an encounter group for survivors, run by Retta, she meets a new guy, Justin H. Min, who may shake her out of her funk. When it's revealed her time travel is real (I kid you the 'f' not), I was so checked out that the filmmaker would actually embrace such a plot contrivance, I had to keep observing as if I was looking at firefighters using the jaws of life at a car accident. Watch at your own peril. Real life rock stars Bryan Ferry (maybe from a distance w/members of Roxy Music) & Nelly Furtado show up trying to give this music yarn some cred.

Jean Renoir's (Beauty & the Beast/Grand Illusion) 1951 story of a family of British expats living in India. Heard throughout the film via voice over is the younger daughter, Patricia Walters, who chronicles her family's jute farm as an injured soldier, Thomas E. Breen, comes to stay w/them which raises her amorous antenna as well of those of her sisters. Meanwhile the daughter of a servant, Melanie Burnier, has come to visit as well expanding Breen's prospects. Languid, lush & beautifully shot this film looks like a series of postcards come to life w/my only niggling complaint is the whitewashing of the affair where the indigenous people are kept at a distance limiting the scope of the universality of the tale.

A tidy film noir (running 68 minutes) from 1949. An assistant bookmaker, Jeffrey Lynn, is trying to make ends meet so instead of getting the raise he just asked for from his boss, Richard Gaines, he instead gets let go due to the poor performance of the company but there may be an opportunity to make some dough if he comes to see him later tonight at his home. Flash forward to the meeting & Gaines has laid out a plan to off himself & w/the insurance money take care of his wife, Katherine Emery & son, Raymond Roe & all Lynn has to do is fire the shot from outside the window & get paid 10K for his troubles. Of course best laid plans never come to pass as the night in question Lynn finds Gaines dead in his den already so he has to think as fast as he can to rectify things as the police, led by Henry Morgan, come into the picture setting off an investigation & Lynn is in the crosshairs. Even Lynn's wife, Martha Scott, fears the worst when she finds his 10K hidden away in a closet but the real poop hits the fan as the true reveal of the killer comes about w/poor Lynn about to get his at gunpoint. The briskness of the exercise works wonders but the detriment in the acting & the lackluster lensing leaves this firmly on the sidelines w/better known noir fare like Double Indemnity stealing the spotlight in a similar told tale.

An uneasy mix of politics & satire from 1945 starring Claude Rains & Vivian Leigh. Julius Caesar is about to set up camp in Egypt, he stands on the dunes surveying his new conquests w/the Sphinx looming in the background when a voice startles him from the darkness. Cleopatra reveals herself & she, not knowing who he is, engage in a conversation about the impending conquering army which will soon engulf the region. Once he introduces himself, their relationship soon becomes that of teacher & pupil, much like the writer's, the revered George Bernard Shaw's other screenplay Pygmalion (the basis for My Fair Lady). The bulk of the film is spent seeing Cleopatra, played by Leigh as a spoiled woman/child deferring any decisions to her nurse humorously named Fatatteeta (a running joke throughout the film is how the character's name is mispronounced) but who soon, much to Rains' chagrin, become the ruthless leader who will govern Egypt under Roman occupation. Neither working as drama or mirthful political comedy, the film, running over 2 hours wears out its welcome by its aimless narrative. Co-starring Stewart Granger as a merchant enlisted into Caesar's ranks & Michael Rennie (from The Day the Earth Stood Still) as one of the Roman centruions under Caesar's command.

Yasujiro Ozu's last feature from 1962 finds him mining his usual ore of the older generation hoping to fix up the younger (marrying their daughters off) as modern Japan leaves traditions behind as the new modern world engulfs their world. Focusing on a group of old men who are more akin to a women's sewing circle than patriarchs, marriage is the topic of the day even though our lead, played by Chishu Ryu (who's played his share of fathers for Ozu), hopes during his meetings w/his old school buddies (who reminisce about their old teachers) to gain some clarity in his dilemma. One of their own turns out to not have been as successful as they are (he runs a noodle shop w/his daughter who missed her opportunity to marry) which further puts Ryu to contemplate the status of his unwed daughters. Bottom line, more of the same from the master who's preoccupation may infuriate some & charm others but being it is of a piece of all his work (my only niggling complaint is the absence of Setsuko Hara who usually is the bow on top of Ozu's cinematic presents), why mess w/perfection.

A 2020 Netflix WWII drama which takes place in the European theater specifically in Netherlands & the Battle of the Scheldt. Focusing on a small group of characters; a family whose son causes an accident where a couple of Nazi troops are run over prompting his doctor father to intervene to plead his case to the German commandant when he's arrested while his sister finds her brother's camera which contains photos of key attack sites which she needs to get to the Canadian invasion force while some British soldiers in a glider unit crash land in country & have to get to safety before they're discovered. All of this gripping drama plays against the backdrop of the Germans, who are in the midst of retreat, trying to hold on before the inevitable. For me more interesting than last year's All Quiet on the Western Front remake, which also has a host of unknowns actors (except for Tom Felton of Harry Potter fame who plays the glider commander), forcing the audience to focus on what's going on in a particular skirmish most Americans would not have heard of.

A horror comedy currently in release. When a gang of kidnappers get a gig to snatch up a child ballerina, Alisha Weir, for some cash they get more than they bargained for when the tables are turned. Holding up at a cavernous locale, the bad guys which include Dan Stevens, Kevin Durand (currently in the new Apes movie), William Catlett, Kathryn Newton, the late, great Angus Cloud, Melissa Barrera (working w/the directors for the third time after appearing in the last 2 Scream flicks) who all answer to Giancarlo Esposito, settle in for the update where they'll find out if the job will bear fruit but then (& we have the film's trailer to thank) it's revealed Weir is a vampire she starts offing her captors one by one, even turning Newton into a night dwelling puppet to do her bidding as the dwindling survivors have to survive the night. I guess if I had not seen the trailer I may've had a better time w/this but even the outrageous blood splatter & outre humor never really filled my particular tank making this a diverting, for the cast, exercise in excess.

A 1980 Charles Bronson vehicle. Bronson is a border guard in charge of one sector. He complains that traffic is up & his crew is at their breaking point even though a new recruit, played by the late, great Bruno Kirby has joined the ranks. One night a truck full of 'wets' is pulled over w/one of the coyotes, played by Ed Harris in his debut role, sits in the back of the truck armed, ready for the worst. The deputy, played by the late, great Wilford Brimley, gets the driver's papers but as is his way, he needs to see what he's hauling which ends up w/him being shotgunned to death by Harris who also kills a young migrant pulled from the cab along w/the driver. At first wanting to punt the deaths to the Feds or Narcos, Bronson is reticent to cede the case since Brimley was his friend. Bronson tracks down the boy's mother & brings her along to see if they can nab the coyote from the Mexico side (the original driver has since been killed w/drugs planted in his truck amplifying the drug angle) but after this gambit doesn't payoff, Bronson turns his attention to the head importer of labor in the area, played by Bert Remsen (who in turn works w/a white collar type played by Michael Lerner) who denies any wrongdoing but Bronson finds a boot print (the same print found at the murder site) so Bronson knows he's got his man so all he needs to do is to get all his ducks in a row (on Christmas day no less where the smugglers are being ambitious hoping to bring at least 2000 people across) coordinating his staff as they pick off all the returning trucks back to base w/Harris' capture a surety. Atypically methodical & slow moving for a Bronson vehicle on the cusp of the decade which would catapult him into action star infamy, the film's pace affords low dividends but dividends none the less. If you're in for a cool slow burn which doesn't resort to action movie tropes & at times quite thoughtful about the immigration issue, this film may tick off some boxes. Also starring John Ashton (from Beverly Hills Cop & its sequel) as one of Bronson's men, Kenneth McMillan (from the original Dune) as Bronson's boss & genre vet Charles Cyphers (from the original Halloween) as another of Bronson's men.

Clark Gable stars in this 1952 Western which deals w/Texas's road to statehood. Boiling down to two different factions for & against annexation of Texas w/Andrew Jackson, the president at the time, played by Lionel Barrymore, getting Cable's help for the pro while Broderick Crawford stands against the action. Meeting during an Indian skirmish, Gable & Crawford actually manage to be civil to each other (no kidding!) but Cable doesn't divulge who he is & his agenda. Meeting Crawford's squeeze, Ava Gardner, Cable becomes enamored w/her but then Gable goes into motion on his plans which culminates in a tense standoff where Texas politicians, which includes Ed Begley, deliberate Texas's fate, as opposing forces are in the midst of battle. Entertaining to be sure but doesn't make a lick of sense when it comes down to the actual politics which took place at the time but the stars' charm make all of this nonsense go down handily like warm soup on a cold afternoon.

Before reaching critical & commercial stardom w/Bonnie & Clyde, Warren Beatty & director Arthur Penn tested the waters w/this study of a lost entertainer trying to find himself in this 1965 feature. Beatty is a successful emcee/comedian but his enormous gambling debts have forced him to flee town. Arriving in Chicago, he manages to get his hands on a social security card which he parlays into a new identity gaining a job at a kitchen clearing out garbage but the smell of the limelight beckons him & he manages to get a booking agent & a berth at a club. When his agent gets ambitious & decides to get him a gig at a more prestigious joint, Beatty's fears start to return so he resists the position even though the owner of the establishment descends from on high to personally offer Beatty the slot. Shot on black & white, Penn elevates the material by using interesting shot compositions (Beatty gives a set on stage which is then intercut w/him doing the same material at a steam-bath) & quirky jump cuts giving the seedier environs of the Windy City a time gone by quality. You wouldn't think of Beatty as a comic (since up to that point in his career his looks afforded him some choice yet standard dramatic parts) but he comes into his own here leading to his meteoric stardom in a couple of years time. Co-starring Franchot Tone (once a star in his heyday in the 1940's) as Beatty's former boss & Jeff Corey as a booking agent at a club.

A comedy from 1950 starring Burt Lancaster, Dorothy McGuire & Oscar winner Edmund Gwenn. Gwenn is a counterfeiter currently flooding his neighborhood w/fake dollar bills & apparently has been doing it for so long, at least 10 years, the treasury department has dubbed him w/the titular moniker. In comes Lancaster, an agent who has a rep for always getting his man, assigned to the case & w/a few men manages to make some headway when he catches Maguire, a translator who works for the UN, using one of the tainted bills which he hopes by wining & dining her will get him closer to Gwenn since Lancaster figures the bill was passed in her neighborhood which gets confirmation when some kids in McGuire's area unearth Gwenn's printer buried in a backlot. Billed as a comedy, the film is a bit more serious minded, maybe due to Lancaster's perf where he comes off as diligent minded in his task, but still Gwenn's affable little minter is still a winner w/the ambience of 50's New York always great to see in black & white.

A film noir from 1957. Rory Calhoun is a master heist man but after hitting a brick wall because of some gambling losses he goes to his partner & money man, Barney Miller's James Gregory, w/his plight & concocts a long off job where they'll steal money from a military bank in a sleepy town whose windfall intrigues Gregory so he agrees. Calhoun, along w/Gregory's moll, Mary Costa, set up shop as it were posing as a married couple w/Calhoun buying a garage in town as cover. Time passes & various members of the crew begin to come together, especially a lush of a demolition expert, Robert H. Harris, posing as the couple's sickly uncle who stays w/them but his penchant for the sauce becomes an issue. Once the day arrives for the score to go down, Calhoun & Costa start to have feelings for each & more importantly want to get out of the game & go straight which prompts them to want to stop the theft. Will it work though? Calhoun packs a punch as his criminal everyman wants to keep pulling jobs but an aching sense of the norm starts creeping in coupled w/the actual extended set up of the caper makes this flick quite engaging as we know what will happen but it coming off w/o a hitch is a sight to see.

A sci-fi monster mash from 1957 featuring a star making turn by Ray Harryhausen's rampaging creature from Venus. A space craft crash lands near an Italian fishing village w/a couple of the astronauts saved before the ship sinks into the ocean. Unbeknownst to the surviving space explorer, a vial containing a Venusian embryo has been saved from the wreckage by the young son of one of the fishermen who sells the find to a visiting zoologist & daughter. That the beast feeds on sulfur & seems to grow at will brings the US military into the fray to contain the behemoth as it runs rampant through Rome culminating in a showdown on the Colosseum. Harryhausen's inventive creation is a feast for lovers of stop motion animation w/the brisk story-line running so fast one forgives the lack of nuance & dramatic heft.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's last film (he would die of an overdose) from 1982 which involves an unsavory minded sailor on leave confronting his own homosexuality. Querelle goes to a brothel which has the unusual practice of having the johns gamble to see who they will eventually bed for the night (if the john wins, he'll sleep w/the madame of the house (played by the late, great Jeanne Moreau or if the client loses, he'll have to bed down w/her husband). Complicating matters is Querelle's strained reunion w/his brother & the various criminal schemes he has underway (a heroin deal, a theft involving his commanding officer played by original Django, Franco Nero) which only puts his eventual sexual liaison in perspective. Shot stylishly on a soundstage w/Fassbinder's usual penchant of having his actors perform his material w/the enthusiasm of a broken mannequin, the film (probably because it was a posthumous effort & his surviving partner had to fight producers to cut 30 minutes from the final release) still is an affecting treatise on the condition of our notions of sexual identity in a world (even today!) where it is still a much fraught over issue. Brad Davis, a particular favorite of mine since he starred & was nominated for Best Actor for the seminal Midnight Express, is this side of beefcake w/a chip on his shoulder giving the film its ambiguous heart in a landscape of artifice & expected masculinity.

Yasujiro Ozu's 1960 semi-sequel to his Late Spring (from 1949). Casting the same actress from his earlier effort, Setsuko Hara, where she played a woman whose father's machinations to marry her off become a nuisance since all she wants is to stay by his side, here she plays a widow w/a willful daughter whose friends of her late husband feel she's ready for marriage. As they gather one evening to preside over memorial rites for Hara's hubby, the businessmen suddenly decide her daughter is ripe for matrimony but the moment she hears this (especially when one of the tycoon's ambushes her w/one of his underlings who she just brushes off), she in no terms tells Hara for them to mind their business. As things keep getting prickly between the combatants, one of the men suggests one of their own court Hara (since he's a widower) in order to force the daughter to make a decision which backfires badly as the daughter's friend/co-worker gets fed up & tells her in no uncertain terms to grow up & pick a mate (or don't!) even though her prior brush off w/the underling comes around on his own. Finally exploding at Hara for all the romantic shenanigans, her daughter decides to leave the nest which doesn't last long as the film comes to an end & things work out for the best. Even when the daughter devolves into a shouting match at Hara, Hara is implacable, keeping whatever turmoil & anguish under lock & key, letting her innate decency rule the day. Not being very Ozu literate (this may be my fourth feature I've seen of his), it's refreshing to see how decent & low key his traits are even when decent people get caught up in their own forthrightness & w/simple straight forward compositions (the dialogue sequences are edited like the gentlest of tennis matches usually w/the speaker addressing the camera head on), the narratives tend to be easygoing & calming.

A sobering drama from last year starring Zac Efron. Based on the tragic true story of the Von Erich brothers who under the rule of their paterfamilias, Holt McCallany, bought into his belief that were going to masters of the wrestling world sending each brother (Jeremy Allan White from the Bear, Harris Dickinson & Stanley Simons) into the ring even though the pressure was great due to the Von Erich curse. One brother had passed away when he was young & throughout the narrative a series of crushing physical & emotional defeats befall the family as their dream soon becomes so much taillights w/Efron the eye of the hurricane as he remains a witness to the going's-on w/McCallany's resolute blindness to success brushing aside his failures like so many bad choices. Playing out as the antithesis of the American dream where the attempt is made but something unseen & insidious takes hold of a family's psyche, the film which director Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene) wisely lets play out as his camera remains planted as the tragedy unfolds like a modern day retelling of the story of Job. Also starring Maura Tierney as the mom of the family & Lily James as Efron's wife.

A pseudo-film noir from last year starring Thomasin McKenzie & Oscar winner Anne Hathaway. Taking place in a jail town in 1960's New England, McKenzie lives a lovely existence going to work as a check-in rep at jail for visitors, taking care of her drunkard ex-cop of a father, Shea Whigham & espying on the occasional couple in a sexual clutch at the local make-out spot where she gets off. Into this meager life comes Hathaway, newly hired as the prison shrink, which shakes her up since Hathaway is all glamor & dangling cigarettes where McKenzie is a perennial wallflower. Using the case of young murderer (who offed his dad) & his mom who wants nothing to do w/him as a point of interest both women comes to forge a friendship during the holidays which seems to be working out swimmingly until Hathaway imprisons the mother, Marin Ireland, in her basement which lures McKenzie in to handle things as the situation goes off the rails. Having all the building blocks in place, director William Oldroyd (who directed the excellent Lady MacBeth which put Oscar nominee Florence Pugh on the map) makes a mash of this story, adapted by Anthony Bregman from Ottessa Moshfegh's novel, never gelling the narrative in a satisfying manner w/some attempts at black humor w/running interludes of McKenzie offing Whigham (shades of Bud Cort's suicide attempts in Harold & Maude) which never work culminating in a ambiguous coda which had me smacking my forehead over.

The latest in the reboot franchise (number 5 by count) takes place hundreds of years after the events of the last entry after Caesar's passing where we find a young ape, Owen Teague, in a rite of passage to retrieve an eagle's egg from an aerie way up top a mountain face (his tribe is known as the eagle tribe since they raise...you get where I'm going!). Succeeding but then failing (he drops the egg at his village when he's startled by a human, Freya Allan) then discovering a rogue sect of apes sent by a leader, Kevin Durand, who's kidnapping & imprisoning surrounding ape villages in an effort to open a large door to a bunker which he hopes to loot of weapons. Teague & Allan partner up, assisted by Teague's village mates, Lydia Peckham & Travis Jeffery, to blow up a dam so the bunker will be flooded w/another human, Oscar nominee William H. Macy, showing up to cover his own butt in the action. Still carrying the excellence from the previous 3 entries treating the ancient ip at this point w/the appropriate wonder & intelligence makes this a rip roaring yarn which along w/the excellent motion capture tech making this an unusually smart popcorn time at the movies.

A great little doc from 2007 w/an unwieldy title. Billy Mitchell is the world champ (a dubious honor) in classic arcade games w/a high score on Donkey Kong (the infamous game which also introduced Mario). Enter Steve Wiebe, a family man w/kids who also has a knack for the game, even playing on his own arcade unit in his garage, who has aspirations for the throne. Setting out to break Mitchell's record, Wiebe goes down to an infamous arcade & proceeds to get head turning high scores in full view of witnesses & the public at large. Mitchell however believes he's the Bobby Fischer of the Atari age so he stays away from the game den & keeps tabs on Wiebe's progress via phone calls where his loyal yes men keep him informed. When Wiebe achieves a rare game freeze (the game's avatar spins in inactivity when the game's memory is taxed), Mitchell sends a minion (an elderly woman) to the site w/a videotape purported to be a high score (which buries Wiebe's tally) feeding the frenzy for both titans to meet in a head to head competition. As the Guinness people (the world record keepers) give a deadline for Wiebe to top Mitchell's taped claim, the stage is set for a fraught encounter, right? Maybe. Not being a hardcore gamer but knowing enough to distinguish between Galaxina & Galaga, this pseudo grudge match is immensely watchable even though after a while you'd wish these grown-ups would get a life.

A Netflix original currently streaming starring Oscar nominee Bill Nighy & Top Boy's Micheal Ward. During a chance encounter Nighy, a volunteer soccer coach, runs into Ward at a park where he's snatched a ball from some soccerball kicking kids to strut his stuff. What Ward doesn't know is that Nighy coaches a British team filled w/homeless men which are competing in a world tournament (taking place in Italy) & Nighy feels Ward desperately fits the bill. At first reticent to be included w/the downfallen men, Ward soon steps up to the plate & becomes a captain of sorts bringing his fellow players game (& lives to be honest) up to snuff which culminates when the favored South African team comes to play (a team where he already volunteered his time to assist) & they're down a man, causing him to step in as a substitute. Based on a real yearly contest (who knew?) the film has an 'easy going, you know where this is going to end up' vibe about it which will pluck the apropos heartstrings to great affect w/only the most miserly of curmudgeons dismissing the familiar tract out of hand. Also starring Valeria Golino as the Italian host rep who engages Nighy.

Peter Greenaway's (The Pillow Book/Prospero's Books) 1987 treatise on a talented architect who's lost his way creatively & emotionally. Played by the late, great Brian Dennehy (in probably his only foray into art film) as an ugly American in Italy on assignment in a retrospective of his hero Etienne-Louis Boullée. Once there however it becomes a battle of wills & ideologies when he butts heads w/the organizers of the presentation. His wife, played by Chloe Webb, also feels the brunt of his constant battles (& decides to keep her pregnancy to herself) while she piques the interest of a suitor, played by Lambert Wilson. Dennehy decides to shack up w/another woman but what really fells Dennehy is a constant pain in his stomach (the titular belly) which for all he does (changing his diet, seeing specialists, etc.), the ache remains. The pain affects his demeanor whereby he punches first whenever a verbal disagreement is brought to his attention & even postcards he sends to a friend (I have to hand it to Dennehy, he had wonderful penmanship!) are not answered at any point in the story leading to the eventual empty solace of a man who lets his demons get the best of him. Being an early Greenaway film, his usual artistic concerns were in its infancy & his standing as an filmmaker wouldn't be noticed until The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover 2 years later would cause a deserved stir but here (the print on TCM was horrible) I can only glean my reaction from the version I saw w/the plotline very familiar & other than having an actor like Dennehy cast in an unorthodox role (he would play Willy Loman in a lauded stage version of Death of a Salesman in the last few years of his life) the narrative comes off as passe & past its prime.

An early Akira Kurasawa (Ikuru/Ran) feature from 1946. A group of like minded students during 1930's Japan see the world as idealists even thought the specter of fascism will rear its head in a few years time. Focusing on the daughter, played by Setsuko Hara (I must have an unspoken thing for her since this is the 4th film of hers I've seen in the last 2 weeks), of a professor who goes from being a student body darling to a disgraced outsider (when the power dynamic changes in the country) but Hara plows forward, romancing & eventually marrying one of her fellow classmates who shares her philosophy even when the government scoops him up (tragically where he dies in custody). Retreating back to her parents home, Hara decides to go live w/her in-laws (who have been labeled as spies) & live her days (even getting sick) as a laborer. A lot of food for thought to be sure but Hara's mercurial performance (which screams bipolar!) doesn't engender much audience sympathy but when her battle becomes an inner one, she finally comes to the fore. Also starring Takashi Shimura (one of Kurasawa's stock players) who shows up as a police enforcer.

A by the book actioner (I mean look at the poster, photoshop anyone?) directed by Michael Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter/Nell) that has a game Oscar winning/nominated cast (I still don't know what Legolas is doing in this) which includes aforementioned Orlando Bloom & Oscar winner Michael Douglas. Noomi Rapace is a CIA operative being used by her agency & MI6 to thwart an impending terrorist attack w/the usual double crosses & uninspired gunfights along the way to spice up the business on display. A similarly plotted Idris Elba flick from a few years back named The Take did it a whole lot better. Try that one instead.

A current release in theaters starring Oscar nominees Ryan Gosling & Emily Blunt in this big screen adaptation of the famous 80's show which featured Lee Majors as a professional stuntman who moonlights as a bounty hunter. Playing out as an origin story finds Gosling's stuntman coming out of a year long rehab (after he broke his back in a fall) to get back on set at the behest of a cutthroat agent, Ted Lasso's Hannah Waddington, to double for the missing star, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, until Gosling can find him. Adding fuel to his particular fire is Gosling's reunion w/his currently off again gal, Blunt, who is directing this feature (at the film's onset she was a production coordinator) Down Under where Gosling upon discovering a corpse in a hotel room rightfully finds himself in over his head as the case plays out. An unabashed tribute to stuntmen & directed by one time stunter David Leitch who has parlayed his former career to become a premiere action director (Atomic Blonde/Deadpool 2/Bullet Train) rightfully delivers the goods but does himself no favors by having a gag reel at the film's end showing the audience everything you just watched is fake which other than the very funny rebuilding of a fractious love affair which plays front & center, the explosive ballet on display falls by the wayside. Also starring Teresa Palmer as Johnson's co-star in the production, Winston Duke, from the Black Panther series, plays another stuntman while recent Oscar nominee, Stephanie Hsu, plays an assistant.

A Netflix original, currently streaming, about a forgotten, in some circles, black woman who ran for president during the early 1970's. Oscar winner Regina King plays Shirley Chisolm who became the first black woman to be elected representative to Congress who due to some bureaucracy (she didn't get to work on the committees she wanted due to her freshman status) was advised to 'go for it' & run for president against Nixon even though fellow Democratic nominee, George Wallace, played W. Earl Brown, an unapologetic racist, was doing better in the polls. Buoyed by the support of her husband, Michael Cherrie & her advisors which include the late, great Lance Reddick, Oscar nominee Terrence Howard, Brian Stokes Mitchell & Oscar nominee Lucas Hedges, the race is on or is it as King's presence in the electorate is vague at best which aligned w/her efforts to not bother campaigning in areas which she feels are a long shot makes her the slimmest of also ran's but then Brown is the victim of an assassination attempt which signals to King a chance may be had w/the film's last third focusing on the eve of the Democratic Convention where pledges for the possible nominee come to the fore. King is great here (don't be surprised if she caps another Emmy win come this time next year) as even in the most vulnerable moments, her strength is evident further buoyed a stellar supporting cast that writer/director & Oscar winner, John Ridley (he won for his script for 12 Years a Slave), gets great mileage from.