Movie review by Greg Carlson

One of the most buzzed-about movies at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival was “Magazine Dreams,” the sophomore feature from writer-director Elijah Bynum. The film, starring Jonathan Majors as a rage-prone bodybuilder, is not a home run, but it is a significant improvement over the filmmaker’s 2017 debut “Hot Summer Nights,” a disappointing neo-noir thriller. “Magazine Dreams” owes a heavy debt to “Taxi Driver,” but Bynum flips the paranoia and racism of the white Travis Bickle to ponder the experiences of Black Americans under threat for merely existing. Too grim to signal the likelihood of mainstream box office success, “Magazine Dreams” will draw attention for the muscular (in all senses of the word) performance of the increasingly vital Majors.

Not unlike some of the remarkable physical transformations made by Robert De Niro in the pursuit of total character immersion, Jonathan Majors spent hours following a brutal training regimen to add a key credit to his already impressive filmography. The ominously-named Killian Maddox certainly seems like a “mad killer,” despite caring for his aging grandfather William (Harrison Page) and seeing a counselor (Harriet Sansom Harris). Bynum foreshadows tragedy, laying out clues like a breadcrumb trail, but it is Majors who molds Maddox into a formidable monster, alternating between pathetic vulnerability and terrifying violence.

Whether consciously or not (and it is difficult to imagine not), Bynum borrows liberally from Paul Schrader’s legendary “Taxi Driver” screenplay, and a number of scenes in “Magazine Dreams” mirror Bickle’s grim descent toward homicidal action. In one, Killian finds the courage to ask grocery store coworker Jessie (Haley Bennett) out for dinner. He may not order black coffee and apple pie with a slice of melted yellow cheese, but Jessie’s realization that her date is not entirely safe comes just as quickly as Betsy’s cut-off of Travis. Taylour Paige, as a sex worker identified in the credits as Pink Coat, doesn’t completely align with Jodie Foster’s Iris, but her big scene is one of the film’s most memorable.

Bynum also doesn’t go so far to include a smooth-talking Easy Andy, but “Magazine Dreams” is no less unsettling when Maddox puts together a small arsenal that includes the all-too-familiar type of assault-style rifle used in so many horrific mass shootings. Instead of Bickle-style diary voiceovers, the filmmaker substitutes Killian’s Google searches – which pose queries like how to be remembered and how to get people to like you. The results in both movies are similar. The deeper we follow the protagonist’s downward spiral, the more we dread the inevitable.

“Magazine Dreams” succumbs to some repetitiveness, but I sincerely appreciated Bynum’s final-act choices, which keep viewers on high alert with more than one welcome surprise. What transpires before the tense climax poses more questions than answers, and not all of the director’s intentions are clear. I’m still not sure what to make of the resolution to the subplot tracing Killian’s hero-worship of bodybuilding idol Brad Vanderhorn (Mike O’Hearn), which teeters on a wobbly tightrope between homoeroticism and homophobia. Other scenes, like the one in which Killian has an ugly altercation with a past tormentor at a diner, strike with the brilliance of lightning.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The unbelievable fate of one of the world’s largest collections of physical movie media is the subject of “Kim’s Video,” a fizzy and entertaining nonfiction cocktail mixing essay-like asides on the power of cinephilia with an oddball odyssey involving the Italian Mafia. Directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin, the feature premiered as part of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. In some ways, the timing is always right for a consideration of disc and tape as we continue to stumble through an often hellish and always fractured streaming landscape where access to titles can vanish without warning. “Kim’s Video” reminds viewers that there was something very special about browsing the shelves of shops both large and small.

Given the unpredictable plot twists and the movie’s blend of narrative approaches that bounce from personal diary to travelogue-infused investigation to meta-heist caper, it is not surprising that a number of early reviews have criticized the filmmakers for failing to make a straight documentary about dry cleaner/video rental magnate Yongman Kim and his legendary New York City outlets. Many viewers, myself included, at first imagined a more traditional biography/history of Kim and Kim’s Video in the vein of Puloma Basu and Robert Hatch-Miller’s “Other Music.” But once it became apparent that the massive library of VHS and DVD landed, mostly intact, in the small Italian town of Salemi, I was ready to get on board with Redmon and Sabin.

In 2012, a few years after Kim’s video business was shuttered, Karina Longworth wrote an excellent feature for “The Village Voice” detailing her own visit to Italy in search of the collection. Now, a decade later, the contours of Longworth’s report mirror a great deal of the Salemi-set sections of “Kim’s Video.” The idea that Kim’s offer to give away his entire inventory in exchange for an assurance that existing members (who numbered in the tens of thousands) would be able to access the collection is wild enough, but the reality – which Redmon and Sabin consider with the same incredulity as their viewers – turns the film into a rallying cry to liberate the neglected treasure from its moldering prison.

The filmmakers know that Yongman Kim, the man, is a vivid subject, even though he will only pop in and out of the unfolding drama. They tease his appearance, using comments from a variety of former employees to heighten the mystery with quirky anecdotes and descriptions of Kim’s often intimidating intensity. Whenever Kim shows up, the movie sparks with energy unmatched by scenes in which relentless narrator Redmon is given the runaround by cartoonishly hapless Italian bureaucrats as he pokes around overseas. The latter category provides comic relief, which plays in contrast to clips from movies (like “Blue Velvet” and “La Dolce Vita”) that offer context for our host’s movie-obsessed single-mindedness.

For lovers of the nostalgia associated with the days when VHS was king, “Kim’s Video” joins “Rewind This!” “Adjust Your Tracking,” “Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project,” and several other movies that explore different aspects of rental, collecting, and/or taping culture. Certainly, a different film could have presented a deeper dive into something like the magic of a film education provided by a place like Kim’s, but the absurd sight of a robbery crew hidden behind masks of Hitchcock, Varda, Godard, and other auteurs should put a smile on the face of every clerk, projectionist, ticket-taker, and counter-jockey who dreamed of making a movie.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Beth de Araújo’s stunning “Soft & Quiet” plays out in real time, moving swiftly from its carefully calculated opening section to pick up speed as it rockets from one deeply unsettling sequence to the next. It is as terrifying as any film of 2022, a gripping thriller exposing grotesque anger and the jaw-dropping gears of the persecution complex embraced by the far-right. The first-time feature filmmaker wrote the screenplay after being inspired by the May 2020 confrontation between bird-watcher Christian Cooper and dog-walker Amy Cooper in New York City’s Central Park. The racially-charged interaction, like the murder of George Floyd that occurred on the very same day, was partially captured on video and posted online.

De Araújo introduces elementary school teacher Emily (Stefanie Estes) crying over a pregnancy test in a bathroom stall after nearly everyone else in the building has gone home for the day. The moment is shrewd and deceptive; the director misleads viewers by setting up the conditions for sympathetic identification. We’re inclined to like this person, or at least feel some pity for her. But Emily’s distress is followed by a strange interaction in which blame for a custodian’s freshly mopped and potentially slippery floor is wrapped in racist intimations. Something is not right, even if we’re not quite sure where all this is all going.

The mystery deepens as Emily walks along a wooded path, encountering another woman who turns out to be headed to the same destination. They enter a church meeting room populated by several others. Small talk and pleasantries give way to the sinister agenda as a growing list of ideas is recorded on a white board. It’s the inaugural gathering of the Daughters of Aryan Unity. Like Jeremy Saulnier’s excellent “Green Room,” the depiction of neo-Nazi adherents as essentially common, everyday folks you might encounter at the liquor store or a punk rock show sends a chill down the spine. Pointed hoods and burning crosses are not necessary to inspire terror – these monsters are neighbors and co-workers.

The combination of real time chronology with the nauseating escalation toward violence makes “Soft & Quiet” as powerful as it is difficult to watch. Although the final version of the movie is not presented as one unbroken take, de Araújo rehearsed and choreographed with her ensemble as if they were performing a piece of live theatre. Four consecutive shooting days were completed. And while the majority of what we see comes from the last day, small bits and pieces from the second and third attempts were incorporated in the cut.

Once “Soft & Quiet” leads the audience past the point of no return during a tour de force sequence set at an otherwise peaceful lake cabin, de Araújo enters the dark and suffocating territory inhabited by the likes of Haneke’s “Funny Games,” Noé’s “Irréversible,” and Christian Tafdrup’s “Speak No Evil.” The latter, another 2022 release, matches the brutality of “Soft & Quiet” but I think de Araújo has made the superior film. Her movie is brimming with ideas while resolutely avoiding the assumption of moral high ground. There are no sermons, only actions.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Marie Kreutzer’s “Corsage” reinterprets the historical biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the Bavarian royal assassinated in 1898. Popularly known as Sisi or Sissi, she married Emperor Franz Joseph I when she was 16 and has attracted ongoing attention in multiple theater, film and television productions over the years, including fiction and nonfiction, animation, operetta, and ballet. This past September, Netflix released the six-episode series “The Empress.” Ernst Marischka’s 1950s movie trilogy helped launch Romy Schneider to stardom and has been a longtime Christmas viewing staple regularly broadcast on German and Austrian television. Ava Gardner tried on her jewels in “Mayerling.” In Kreutzer’s movie, Vicky Krieps portrays the curious subject.

Unafraid to court controversy, Kreutzer stages a radical alternative to the recorded events surrounding Elisabeth’s life and death. Like any number of the filmmaker’s other choices, the movie’s climax suggests a cocky insouciance regarding careful fidelity to the “real.” This disregard for the traditional rules of the biopic will enrage some historians but delight fans of material like Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” and Pablo Larrain’s “Spencer.” Despite the overt parallels, Kreutzer has bristled at the frequent comparisons to the former, insisting that she does not like Coppola’s film.

The anachronistic placement of a harp-accompanied performance of “As Tears Go By” and other diegetic music picks – not to mention additional modern touches – align as closely to “Marie Antoinette” as the themes of a woman constrained by the regulations of the patriarchy. The spheres over which Elisabeth exercised any substantive control paled next to the formal obligations and expectations of her station. Like Diana, Kreutzer’s heroine suffers the whims of a faithless spouse. In one great scene, Elisabeth tracks down the object of her husband’s extramarital attention to encourage an affair.

Krieps, who brought the idea of an Elisabeth movie to an initially skeptical Kreutzer, makes for a compelling rebel. Whether holding her breath under water, cavorting for the motion picture camera of Louis Le Prince, sparring with her grown son or her young daughter, squeezing into a tightly-laced corset, or limiting her dinner to a slice or two of orange, the actor brings her character to vivid and vital life. Krieps fires up her sophisticated interpretation with all kinds of quirky tics and mannerisms that increase our curiosity. When she bursts out laughing at socially inappropriate moments, we sense that she’s struck by the incomprehensible madness of her circumstances.

As Kreutzer thumbs her nose, or, more accurately, gives the finger to the history books, it becomes evident that the director’s preoccupation with Elisabeth “coming apart” at the age of 40 is the key component of “Corsage” that transcends time to become a commentary on any era. Frustrations and anxieties threaten to erupt each time Elisabeth is silenced by her perpetually imperious husband. Kreutzer and Krieps leave the viewer to guess at the protagonist’s motivation for raging against her confinement by fencing, horseback riding, and flirting with the possibility of adulterous liaisons of her own. Elisabeth could be driven by forces both internal and external. Either way, she will faint and she will feint.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

With co-director Paul Sng, Celeste Bell celebrates the legacy of her mother Marianne Elliott-Said – known better to the world as the inimitable X-Ray Spex leader Poly Styrene – in an intimate documentary that is part memoir and part biography. Balancing the private and the public sides of the musician’s complex and complicated life, the filmmakers use their unprecedented access to cover both well-known and lesser-known dimensions of Poly Styrene’s remarkable career with sharp eyes and keen insights. Honoring the subject’s gift for future-thinking critiques of misogyny, commodification, consumer culture, class warfare, racial division, environment-choking petroleum products, and a range of other social concerns, Bell and Sng put together a worthy tribute to a deserving original voice.

Bell appears throughout the film as narrator and guide, drawing from her lovely 2019 book “Dayglo! The Poly Styrene Story,” co-authored with Zoe Howe, who is also credited as one of the movie’s writers. As Marianne’s only child, Bell acknowledges the heavy burdens and challenges of speaking for Poly Styrene following the singer’s death in 2011 at the age of 53. The second half of the film examines Bell’s unconventional childhood, when Elliott-Said struggled with mental illness, misdiagnosis, prescription medication, and institutionalization. Her participation in the Hare Krishna movement arguably exacerbated the inability to properly care for Bell. Following years of pain and mistrust, the two would reconcile.

As a woman of color, Poly Styrene’s incredible projection of powerful self-confidence was forged from the adversity of her childhood. Sng and Bell present an excellent explanation of the “nowhere land” inhabited by mixed-race children rejected as being neither Black nor white in the Brixton neighborhood where Mari often fended for herself while her single mother worked all day. The timing and conditions were just right for an awakening to the thrill and chaos of punk rock; Mari’s attendance at a life-changing Sex Pistols show led quickly to the formation of X-Ray Spex and the adoption of the Poly Styrene persona, which Elliott claimed to have selected from the Yellow Pages.

Styrene’s image helped make her and break her. Once X-Ray Spex began receiving airplay, turning up on television, and fielding interview requests, Styrene was constantly scrutinized for the braces on her teeth, her racial identity, her hair, and her weight. In several archival clips, we witness Styrene deflecting, defying, and dismantling the vacant probes, but her frustration is palpable. Additional context is provided from writings and diary entries performed by Ruth Negga. The toll of fame and the rock life would reach a flashpoint when X-Ray Spex came to America for a residency at CBGB.

The movie’s title, “Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché,” references one of the classic songs that identified a particular kind of self-reflection present in the original wave of popular punk recordings. Anthems of self-loathing were commonplace amidst the nihilism being explored by the angry and disaffected progenitors of the movement, but Styrene – as her very name implied – would regularly contemplate the thin line between the artificial and the authentic (one of the genre’s ultimate preoccupations). The film is not a critical deconstruction of the music of Poly Styrene and X-Ray Spex, but enough time is spent and enough awesome performance footage is included to send newcomers in search of “Germfree Adolescents” and more.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Just as “Aftersun” explores the contours of a father-daughter relationship, Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter” laser-focuses on the particulars of a parent-child bond. In this case, Hogg’s longtime friend, collaborator, and all-around force of nature Tilda Swinton plays both mother and daughter in a film linked to Hogg’s “Souvenir” series as a kind of spiritual/spirited sequel. In an interview with David Sims in which the notion of the “Hogg-verse” is proposed, the filmmaker indicates that she opted to use “Souvenir” monikers Julie and Rosalind “late in [the] development” of the movie. “The Eternal Daughter” can be viewed independently from the pair of stories starring Swinton’s own daughter Honor Swinton Byrne, but the in-world connections provide an extra layer of enjoyment.

“The Eternal Daughter” is, among other things, a ghost story. The fog-shrouded onetime manor/current hotel where the now middle-aged Julie takes mom Rosalind for both birthday celebration and potential film research is a spectral presence situated in the Welsh countryside. We discover that Rosalind spent time there years ago when it belonged to the family of her aunt as a private residence. Like the Pevensie siblings in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” young Rosalind was sheltered in the manse with other relatives during World War II. As the elder shares recollections with Julie (who often records the audio without her mother’s knowledge or consent), Hogg asks the viewer to pay close attention to the two women, simultaneously intensifying the bond between them and outlining their stark differences.

Despite the seriousness of mortality, history, and things now lost, Hogg and Swinton never take themselves too seriously. “The Eternal Daughter” is often hilarious, the laughs in balance with the disconcerting feelings of dread brought on by nervous dogs, odd sounds in the night, empty hallways, and the driver who warns of a figure glimpsed standing in a window. Our first strong indication of a sense of Hogg’s playful fun – outside Swinton’s terrific double role – is the scene introducing the sour receptionist played by Carly-Sophia Davies. The check-in exchange, in which Davies’s unnamed clerk gives Julie a hard time about specific room availability even though every room in the entire joint appears vacant, is just one absurdly funny exchange.

Both Davies and Swinton deadpan their way through several low-stakes irritations and indignities – the inn is so short-staffed, the insolent character played by Davies also waits on guests at mealtime. We wouldn’t be surprised to learn she is also preparing the food in the kitchen. Hogg is a master at hinting at unseen worlds. Each night, Julie watches the clerk in and around the car of a visitor (perhaps a lover?). We share Julie’s voyeuristic thrill, even as the act of looking humanizes and enhances someone we know so little about. A couple other people pop in and out – there’s a great scene with the groundskeeper played by Joseph Mydell and another diversion with the unwanted visit of a relative (Crispin Buxton) – but the heart of the tale takes place in the conversations shared between Julie and Rosalind, brought to life so exquisitely by one of our finest screen performers.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Shimmering like a mirage that retreats and dematerializes the closer one gets, “Aftersun” may just be the best movie of 2022. The self-described “emotionally autobiographical” feature debut of Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells, the film is a treasure for those viewers who prefer ambiguity and understatement. The deceptively straightforward story follows the low-key father-daughter holiday of 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) and about-to-turn-31 Calum (Paul Mescal). Their vacation at a seaside resort in Turkey, filled with seemingly carefree time in the swimming pool, billiards and arcade games, moonlight dining, and DJs spinning the hits of the late-90s period at dance parties, veil feelings of frustration and darkness that trouble Calum.

Despite just a small handful of student films completed during her time in NYU’s graduate film program, Wells demonstrates the confidence and command of a veteran storyteller. “Aftersun” has drawn multiple comparisons to the cinema of fellow Scot Lynne Ramsay in both thematic and stylistic approach – a genuine compliment to the emerging talent. The filmmaker has acknowledged the influence of Chantal Akerman, Edward Yang, Todd Haynes, Sylvia Chang, and Barry Jenkins (who served as an “Aftersun” producer). Wells is certainly no slavish imitator, though. She constructs her very own universe with an eye and ear for the particular and the unique.

“Aftersun” joins a short list of films that successfully use the father-daughter relationship as a means to examine the liminal state between childhood and adolescence as well as the inevitable recognition of flawed personhood that manifests once we begin to see a parent as an individual. “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Paper Moon,” and “Leave No Trace” are just three examples that explore different dynamics unique to childrearing. And despite the obvious differences in depictions of wealth and privilege, “Aftersun” rhymes with key aspects of Sofia Coppola’s beautiful “Somewhere.” In one similarity, both Calum and Stephen Dorff’s Johnny Marco are encumbered with casts while they nurse broken bones back to health.

Those parallel rhetorical signifiers in the two movies suggest splintering and fragmentation beyond the physical circumstances that necessitated trips to the emergency room, and both daughters will, in ways particular to their circumstances, grapple with the unfair burden of looking after the dads. Wells and Coppola are also both deeply invested in the observational. In “Aftersun,” camcorder footage links past and future and glimpses of Calum as imagined by the grown-up Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) strobe in a haunting dreamscape motif.

Wells distances Calum from both Sophie and the viewer, dropping hints throughout the narrative regarding the extent of his depression and an unspoken inclination to self-harm. With director of photography Gregory Oke, Wells often chooses to partially obscure Calum, framing him in compositions that hide or cut off our view of the whole. The cumulative effect is potent, even heartbreaking. Several scenes qualify as moments out of time: a lost diving mask, a visit to a rug merchant, a karaoke performance, a spine-tingling application of “Under Pressure.” All these and many others charge “Aftersun” with a quiet devastation and poignance that linger long after the film ends.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

How many “Babylon” reviews and essays will at some point use the words orgiastic and overlong to describe Damien Chazelle’s raucous Hollywood fable? To date, the filmmaker remains the youngest winner of the Oscar for Best Director, which he received for “La La Land” during a ceremony enshrined in Academy legend for the embarrassing Best Picture envelope gaffe at the end of the telecast. That film, which also mines movie-mad dreamscapes, cemented Chazelle’s status as a top-tier storyteller following sophomore barn burner “Whiplash.” His latest, a wild and uneven quasi-epic that ogles stardom and cinephilia through the eyes of a group of characters during the tumultuous transition from the silent era to the advent of synchronous sound, is certainly hungry for attention.

The film’s length, a whopping three hours and eight minutes, could test the patience of ticket buyers who might opt instead to watch at home, where bathroom break pauses can be made on demand. “Babylon” goes big and refuses to be ignored, even if a much better, much shorter movie exists somewhere inside the messy sprawl. Among the ensemble, Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt command the most scrutiny based on star power, but Diego Calva’s Manny Torres serves as the point of audience identification. Several other supporting players, including Jovan Adepo’s jazz trumpeter and Li Jun Li’s intertitle writer/chanteuse, seem at first to point in the direction of an interlocking narrative structure that never fully materializes.

Despite good intentions, Chazelle’s approach to the inclusion of historically marginalized characters of color partially backfires. Calva ends up with more screen time than either Adepo or Li – whose Lady Fay Zhu was based in part on Anna May Wong – but the climactic “Cinema Paradiso”-style montage that Chazelle offers as an affirmation of the magnificent, life-altering power of the art of the motion picture is something of a curiosity given the dark and grim critique of the soul-crushing production conditions preceding it. Are we supposed to sympathize with the once optimistic Torres, who grows increasingly bitter, disillusioned and unpleasant as he rises through the ranks?

For maximum enjoyment, movie lovers will make a sport of identifying Chazelle’s many homages and intertextual acknowledgments. Obviously, “Singin’ in the Rain” serves as inspirational sunshine to the “Babylon” thunderstorm, and Chazelle pays his respects in multiple scenes. The tragedy of the unfairly maligned Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle is used as the basis for a sequence of events that will launch the career of Robbie’s “wild child” Nellie LaRoy. The ghosts of Murnau, Griffith, Wellman, von Stroheim and others haunt the productions mounted at the Kinoscope studio and the milieu surrounding it.

Chazelle pays tribute to more contemporary heroes, too. The influence of Scorsese and Altman is unmistakable and one scene straight-up copies the anxious “Jessie’s Girl” drug deal gone sideways in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights.” Pitt relishes the tragedy and the comedy in perpetual bridegroom Jack Conrad, his Clark Gable/John Gilbert mashup. Like Cliff Booth in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” – another metanarrative blending Los Angeles fact and fiction – Conrad never has to think about how incredible he looks. The actor wears the role of silver screen royalty like a finely-tailored suit.

With an explosive elephant, a golden shower, and cocaine-fueled, money-to-burn decadence, the Dionysian bender that opens the film is rivaled only by the frenetic sequence in which Nellie becomes an overnight sensation, summoning tears at will and upstaging the irritated headliner while a nearby battle scene rages before a different crew. Even though Nellie’s accent and affinity for sewer-mouthed profanity veer close to Harley Quinn, Robbie sinks her teeth into the role. To paraphrase the sentiments expressed by Jean Smart’s gossip columnist/critic Elinor St. John in the movie’s best speech, Margot Robbie will live forever.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Veteran critic Elvis Mitchell’s excellent documentary/essay “Is That Black Enough for You?!?” gazes deeply and lovingly at the rich and varied historical contributions of African American film artists, focusing especially on the vibrant and tumultuous 1970s. Extending beyond Blaxploitation to consider the complete cinematic spectrum from independent productions to the output of the major studios, Mitchell’s guided tour is every bit as indispensable as “A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies.” Like that sprawling 1995 gem, Mitchell’s work comes from a place of intense cinephilia and personal knowledge. If you can’t live without the movies, “Is That Black Enough for You?!?” is one of the year’s essential experiences.

The film’s home on Netflix follows an October premiere at the New York Film Festival, where Mitchell and producer Steven Soderbergh engaged in a conversation moderated by NYFF executive director Eugene Hernandez. During that discussion, Mitchell says that at one point he pitched the project as a book and was subsequently turned down by every major publisher. Fortunately for viewers, the artifact that ultimately came to fruition brings to bear the very same storytelling tools of sound and vision that the director highlights through dozens of electrifying movie clips and choice music selections.

As the festival program points out, Mitchell’s approach is both “personal and panoramic.” “Is That Black Enough For You?!?” consistently finds the right tone and balance even when one wishes certain movie titles, filmmakers, or performers were afforded more time on the screen. The vibe is so fluid – in terms of quantity and quality – you’ll want to frequently pause, rewind, and review the incisive assemblage. One imagines scores of wannabe directors feverishly scribbling notes and making to-see lists while Mitchell lays out one astonishing lesson after another.

The talking-head subjects, including Harry Belafonte, Samuel L. Jackson, Charles Burnett, Whoopi Goldberg, Zendaya, Antonio Fargas, Billy Dee Williams, Glynn Turman and others, follow Mitchell’s lead by outlining their own relationships to hallmark movies and silver screen gods and goddesses. Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Pam Grier and Richard Pryor are better known by mainstream (read: white) audiences than Rupert Crosse, Diana Sands, Sheila Frazier, Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln, but Mitchell seamlessly transitions among assessments of these talents and others without skipping a beat. The expert curation makes you feel like you are at a party where our generous host is making warm introductions to old friends.

With editors Michael Engelken and Doyle Esch, Mitchell illuminates dazzling and enticing moments from too many films to name in a short review. “Nothing But a Man,” “Save the Children,” “The Education of Sonny Carson,” “Cornbread, Earl and Me,” “Abar,” “Watermelon Man,” and “Ganja & Hess” are just a fraction of the total. In one example of Mitchell’s brilliance as an educator, the lasting influence of Burnett’s “Killer of Sheep” is presented in side-by-side diptychs, a terrific technique also used to great effect this year in “Lynch/Oz.” Mitchell returns to the device to mark the way that the opening strut and swagger of “Saturday Night Fever” cribbed from “Shaft,” illustrating just how much big-budget fare for white audiences borrowed and stole – Mitchell goes with “expropriated” – from Black cool.