'Spelling the Dream': Film Review

Jimmy Fallon is learning about the importance of Juneteenth.

Jimmy Fallon is attempting to educate Americans on the history of Juneteenth in the most Jimmy Fallon way possible: by crashing Astronomy Club's virtual Juneteenth BBQ and then revealing he knows very little about Juneteenth. The Tonight Showclip is both funny and educational, but it's also a depressing example of how much energy Black people are being asked to expend educating white people on Black history.

While a new deadly pandemic continues to grip attention worldwide — understandably — the documentary Wake Up: Stories From the Frontline of Suicide Prevention throws the spotlight back on an ancient and no less complex scourge: suicide. A major contributor (along with substance abuse) to the inexorably rising number of deaths of despair in the United States, suicide is now a leading cause of death for several demographics, particularly young men.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticWith “Da 5 Bloods,” Spike Lee follows his long overdue Oscar win for “BlacKkKlansman” by revealing a side of the Vietnam story that’s seldom told. Through the Trojan horse of a treasure-hunt adventure movie, the director explores the mindset of Black soldiers who fought for their country at a time when African Americans were being oppressed at home.

A poorly imagined crime flick that comes nowhere near justifying its 2.5-hour running time, Olivier Megaton's The Last Days of American Crime adapts a graphic novel in which the U.S. government has built a mind-control ray — maybe this is that 5G conspiracy the Alex Jones crowd has been ranting about? — that will soon prevent would-be villains from breaking the law.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticThese days, searching for solace amid a global pandemic and nationwide protests, film critics frequently find themselves referring to “the movie we need right now,” lavishing that cliché description on anything that offers the slightest comfort or context in a world turned upside-down. Let me assure you, Netflix’s “The Last Days of American Crime” is not that movie.

Words abound in Sam Rega’s “Spelling the Dream,” which follows the winning streak of Indian-Americans at the National Spelling Bee. The Netflix documentary celebrates a group of young contestants who have dedicated their lives to outsmarting the dictionary, and nearly succeed.

Jimmy Fallon addressed anger over his past wearing of blackface during the latest episode of his late-night talk show on Monday night.

Jimmy Fallon used Monday night’s episode of his late night show to address anger over his past wearing of blackface with National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) President Derrick Johnson.

You’ve seen Kevin James play a Queens delivery man, a mall cop, a retired cop, a biology teacher turned MMA fighter, a zookeeper (in Zookeeper), the president of the United States, an animated Frankenstein, and a straight firefighter pretending that he’s gay. But it’s fairly certain that you’ve never quite seen him as he is in Becky, a stylish and very gory home-invasion thriller from the directing duo of Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott.

Dream Hampton, the executive producer of Lifetime’s record-breaking documentary “Surviving R. Kelly,” has been attached to direct and executive produce a Cineflix Productions mini-series on the Tulsa race massacre.

By Jake Kanter

By Dino-Ray Ramos

Milkwatertakes its title from "The Consecrating Mother" by Anne Sexton, the Pulitzer-winning mid-20th century American poet who wrote with stark confessional candor about the intimate physical and emotional experience of womanhood. That makes it natural to expect a singular focus in Morgan Ingari's likable first feature about a directionless young woman who impulsively decides to become a surrogate for an older gay man she barely knows.

The phrase “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey,” which has often (and perhaps erroneously) been attributed to American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, was a familiar saying by about 1920. And it makes perfect sense that the phrase roughly coincides with the dawn of cinema, because filmmakers have been cinematically paraphrasing it for much of the last 100 years.

In a recent piece for The New Yorker, Bill Buford movingly recounts the kind of romantic apprenticeship most aspiring chefs imagine when they hear the word "stage": Having moved to Lyon to absorb French food culture, the American humbly offered himself as a student hoping to learn from the crusty character who made the town's best bread. A skill was passed from master to learner, a friendship developed, and a new evangelist for the region's traditions was born.