‘Sidney’

A warm, modest homage to the late Oscar-winning actor Sidney Poitier, Sidney provides a context to the groundbreaking Hollywood career that, in a few short years, saw Poitier labelled as a sellout Uncle Tom by the burgeoning civil rights movements of the late 1960s.

From an illiterate, dirt poor Bahamaian childhood to a close call with the Florida KKK as a young teenager, Poitier’s trajectory into stardom did not follow the obvious path. But a chance performance with the American Negro Theatre in New York as the understudy to Harry Belafonte resulted in an invitation to Hollywood. And, with the backdrop of racism in the US in the 1950s and ’60s, Poitier’s career developed to include becoming the first African-American male to win an Oscar (Lilies of the Field in 1964) and biggest male box office attraction in 1967. But his successes backfired in the more politically active black communities.

Sidney is more a context to Poitier’s significance in the history not just of Hollywood but a wider United States – as born out by the likes of Morgan Freeman, Spike Lee, Denzel Washington and Oprah Winfrey. In spite of interviews with his six daughters and two ex-wives, Sidney, as directed by Reginald Hudlin (The Black Godfather, Marshall), never sufficiently plumbs the depths of the more personal difficult life lived. The result is both enjoyable and informative yet a carefully curated immortalisation of the man himself.

Rating: 64%

‘Da 5 Bloods’

Spike Lee’s latest – a bold, broad brushstroke commentary on the black experience in the American intervention in Vietnam – sees four black Vets return 50 years later in search of the remains of their squad leader (Chadwick Boseman) and hidden gold.

Older, not altogether wiser, each has been impacted in the ensuing years and the lack of change towards racism in the States. And this changes their attitudes to each other and the world around them. As they trek through the jungles in search of their treasure, factions emerge as a bitter, embattled Paul (Delroy Lindo) takes charge – and places them in danger. They are being watched by heavily armed ex-Viet Cong who are only too aware of why the Americans have returned.

Switching time frames between Vietnam of the 1960s and today, Spike Lee emphasises his point. But the film is a long, odd and unconvincing mishmash of adventure and polemic. A series of unlikely scenarios arise. Paul is angry – very angry, anger that is hard to get past. Even the likes of longstanding friend, Otis (Clarke Peters) finds a changed Paul impossible. Trust is lost between the friends: few survive.

Da 5 Bloods, verging at times on the point of hysteria, is a banal, overly laboured feature that, in its message of racism within the military, overlooks the disrespect it shows towards contemporary Vietnam. But it’s also ultimately rather boring with just too many shoot outs.

Nominated for best soundtrack (Terence Blanchard) Oscar in 2021.

Rating: 46%

Director: Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, BlacKkKlansman)

Writer: Danny Bilson (The Rocketeer, Trancers), Paul De Meo (Trancers, The Wrong Guy), Kevin Willmott (BlacKkKlansman, Chi-Raq), Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, BlacKkKlansman)

Main cast: Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Black Panther), Delroy Lindo (The Harder They Fall, The Cider House Rules), Clarke Peters (Harriet, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri)

Best of Year (2018 – Film)

The final list of the year – the top 10 films, and, to my mind, it’s something of a stunner, with non-English language films dominant. And just failing to make the top 10 were a number of much praised indie films – including Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, The Florida Project and Lean on Pete. Last year’s Oscar winner for best film, The Shape of Water, just missed out on the top 10, as did my only animation for the year, Isle of Dogs.

My top 10 films of the year:
10: The Rider
9: BPM (Beats Per Minute)
8: Loveless
7: 1945
6: The Favourite
5: Roma
4: Custody
3: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2: Shoplifters
1: Foxtrot

The final film I saw at the 2018 Melbourne International Film Festival slipped into 10th spot – an intense indie film of bravura performances beautifully controlled by director Chloe Zhao.

The winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival (essentially the runner up for the Palme d’Or), BPM is a powerful, lyrical, emotional narrative that resonates on a much wider political level than its ACT UP AIDS awareness setting.

In Loveless, director Andrey Zvyagintsev continues to comment on contemporary Russian society as a Leningrad couple look to divorce. Their 12 year-old son, caught in the vindictive and argumentative maelstrom, disappears in the stark yet rivetingly sincere feature from the director who is responsible for the equally devastating Leviathan.

In seventh spot, a film that was completely under the radar and barely received commercial distribution. But this black and white story of two Jews returning to a small Hungarian village days after the end of World War II is a picaresque narrative of startling beauty and powerful commentary.

One of the favourites in the current Oscar race, The Favourite is a ribald delight as the English court of Queen Anne is the setting for the locking of horns by three women in an attempt to win the royal favour.

Another Oscar favourite (and odds-on to win the foreign language film nod) is another black and white beauty. Roma by Alfonso Cuarón is the gorgeously shot year in the life of Cleo, a maid to a middle-class family living in Mexico City in the 1970s.

Devastating and disturbing, debut director Xavier Legrand’s claustrophobic tour de force is no easy watch, but with superb performances from a relatively small cast, Custody is heart-wrenching in its pain, fear and anger.

The runner-up for best film of the year is Shoplifters, the Palme d’Or winner at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. It’s a deft, emotionally delicate feature from socially conscious filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda.

But my favourite film of 2018 is the Israeli film, Foxtrot, a sublime mix of intense drama interspersed with flashes of surreal brilliance. It’s bold, it’s imaginative, it’s powerful – an appropriate follow-up from director Samuel Maoz and his visceral debut feature film, Lebanon.

‘BlacKkKlansman’

An extraordinary story of two local detectives, one Black (John David Washington), one Jewish (Adam Driver) infiltrating the Colorado Springs chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s.

Director Spike Lee has not gone uncriticised for his loose adaptation of the true events (‘that story points are fabricated in order to make a Black cop and his counterparts look like allies in the fight against racism’ at the time of Black Lives Matter). But his hybrid period piece/comedy/cop drama with more than a hint of polemic is a hugely entertaining yet angry film that deftly highlights racism within the establishment.

It’s not necessarily an easy-watch – the racist and abusive language, the shocking violence of news footage – but it is an important watch.

Nominated for 6 Oscars in 2019 including best film, director & supporting actor (Adam Driver) – won 1 (adapted screenplay).

Rating: 81%

Director: Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X)

Writer: Spike Lee (Summer of Sam, Chi-Raq), David Rabinowitz, Charlie Wachtel (TV’s The Tinsel Zone, Horror Haiku), Kevin Willmott (Chi-Raq, Jayhawkers) – based on the book by Ron Stallworth

Main cast: John David Washington (Monster, Monsters & Men), Adam Driver (Paterson, Star Wars: The Last Jedi), Alec Baldwin (The Departed, It’s Complicated)