TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS Review

Sixteen years removed from Michael Bay’s original foray into live-action robots in disguise and if one were to only watch that initial film and the latest from Steven Caple Jr. (Creed II) they would be accurate in feeling like we haven’t come nearly as far as the journey has felt. There would be more to it than meets the eye if you will. As the interim between these two films has offered four sequels and a spin-off though, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts doesn’t feel so much redundant as it does refreshing; the franchise growing from the humble reset that was Bumblebee while never allowing itself the arrogance of believing it takes anything near two hours and forty-five minutes (yes, that’s the actual runtime of 2014’s Age of Extinction) to tell what would easily be a three episode arc in the cartoon. 

Rise of the Beasts is, for all intents and purposes, another Transformers film where the thing a bad guy needs to complete/destroy/take over has somehow made its way to earth and the stranded autobots must help a couple of humans who’ve become tangled in the intergalactic mess defeat the antagonist and save the world. The film adheres to these familiar archetypes while executing them in clear and endearing ways. This is especially true when it comes to the action sequences as well as the human characters. Both Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback are so appealing with Ramos lending his effortlessly cool aura to the tone of the film while Fishback infuses things with a certain amount of gravity that feels more authentic than put upon. The New York-based nineties setting doesn’t hurt either as Caple and his set designers go all in on the pop culture references, specific car models, and of course - the soundtrack. Wu-Tang, Tribe Called Quest, Biggie, and LL Cool J tracks all drop at opportune times, enhancing the procedural nature of the plot points and invigorating the vibe again and again.

JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH Review

As we get older, we become more conscious of our time and the legacy we might leave. The long game no longer feels as long and therefore the implications of our actions become just as important as the ramifications. On the day of January 15th, 1990 William O'Neal was a forty-year-old man who'd been drinking with his uncle into the early-morning hours of Martin Luther King Day before running into westbound traffic on an expressway and jumping in front of a car that killed him. His death was ruled a suicide. Later that night, on PBS, the second part of the fourteen-part documentary series, Eyes on the Prize, would debut. The second part of the series chronicled the time period between the national emergence of Malcolm X in 1964 up through to the 1983 election of Harold Washington as the first African American mayor of Chicago. Included in this span of time is the year 1969 and in 1969 William O'Neal would turn twenty years-old. 1969 is also the year a twenty-one-year-old Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, would be assassinated. Judas and the Black Messiah tells the story of how these two men were connected to one another in a tale as old as scripture as indicated by its biblical title. 

The second part of the Eyes on the Prize documentary contains the only on-camera interview O'Neal ever gave. The interview itself was conducted on April 13, 1989 and in that interview O'Neal discussed his involvement with the Black Panther Party, how he was exploited by the powers that be and a puppet for the FBI who blackmailed him into infiltrating the Panthers and eventually laying out the floor plan of Hampton's apartment that would lead to the raid where law enforcement fired a total of ninety-nine shots, executing Hampton at point-blank range. The Gospel of Matthew 26:15 states that Judas committed his betrayal of Jesus in exchange for thirty pieces of silver, but as there's undoubtedly more to Judas' story and motivation than money the relationship between O'Neal and Hampton seems to have been equally as complicated. In that 1989 interview, O'Neal stated "I didn't feel like I had done anything. I didn't walk in there with guns. I didn't shoot him. FBI didn't do it. I felt somewhat like I was betrayed...I felt like, like perhaps I was on the wrong side. Yeah, yeah, I had my misgivings. I'm not going to sit here now and take the responsibility for the raid, you know, I'm not going to do that. I didn't pull the trigger. I didn't issue the warrant. I didn't put the guns in the apartment. So, I'm not going to take the responsibility for that, but I do feel like I was betrayed." O'Neal was clearly a tortured individual who was also very much in denial. According to Matthew 27:1–10, after learning that Jesus was to be crucified, Judas attempted to return the money he had been paid for his betrayal and committed suicide by hanging. Do we really blame Judas for Jesus' death though? No, of course not, just as O'Neal is only responsible for Hampton's death so far as being a young Black man in the midst of a race war who was targeted by J. Edgar Hoover's "America" as an "informant". 

THE HATE U GIVE Review

The Hate U Give might come off as a perfectly-timed opportunity given the "Black Lives Matter" movement and the unfortunate, consistent headlines that tell us a young, unarmed black individual was gunned down by a white police officer, but fortunately, director George "Notorious" Tillman's adaptation of the Angie Thomas novel is not an opportunistic publicity stunt aimed at an audience who are already well-aware of the points the film is making. Rather, The Hate U Give is a well-rounded and appropriately angry piece of filmmaking that tells of both these types of crimes and the reasons for the feeling of need for movements such as "Black Lives Matter" in our country at the moment.

Tillman luckily has a strong grasp on the multiple themes and rather epic scope of his film as Audrey Wells' adapted screenplay weaves in a multitude of challenges that face the black community outside of discrimination. Whether it be police brutality or white privilege or more universal issues that have become more associated with being black than is fair such as drug abuse, drug-dealing, and a lack of the traditional familial structure, Tillman is able to take each of these strands and weave them into a coherent narrative that, while maybe tying things up a bit too neatly at the end, is most admirable for admitting it doesn't have all the answers, but instead making plenty of suggestions on how to spark change.