Candice Frederick

Here are the best movies at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
Illustration: HuffPost; Photos: Courtesy of Sundance Institute/Getty/Andre Jaeger/Jeong Park/Parisa Taghizadeh
Not every film festival can boast such a wide variety of talent and narratives as Sundance. This year was no exception. The event’s eagerly awaited return to in-person screenings and conversations after a three-year break marked a host of provocative, thoughtful, original and beautifully specific movies that closely mirror ...

Illustration: HuffPost; Photos: Sundance Institute/Jeff Hutchens/Showtime/Getty
A question that often comes to mind for many underrepresented filmmakers is whether or how the reality of systemic racial trauma and abuse shows up in narratives centering on their people. Native storytellers are no exception, particularly at Sundance, a festival that built its mission around supporting their work and celebrating the humanity of the ancestral landowners.
Quiet as it’s too often kept in American me...

The 2023 Sundance Film Festival premiered a variety of celebrity documentaries, including ones on Bethann Hardison, Michael J. Fox, Little Richard and Brooke Shields.
Illustration: Jianan Liu/HuffPost | Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute/Bruce Weber/Getty
Nary a day goes by without an announcement that Hollywood is churning out another documentary on the life and career of [insert any celebrity name here]. For instance, PBS dropped one on singer-songwriter Roberta Flack this week, and Netf...

New films premiering at this year's Sundance Film Festival reframe the narrative around sex workers in cinema and beyond.
Illustration: HuffPost; Photos: Sundance Institute/D. Smith/Sara Falco/Getty
When it comes to performances Hollywood considers prestige, sometimes enough to earn the actor an Oscar, there are a few familiar stereotypes: an enslaved person, a nondescript “wife,” a criminal, a white savior. But less often discussed is the reverence actors are shown for playing sex workers.
T...

The work of Nikki Giovanni and Judy Blume transcends generations.
Illustration: Damon Dahlen/HuffPost; Photos: Getty
It’s almost without fail that whenever you talk about a renowned, older work of art, someone will feel the need to qualify it by saying, “It actually holds up well.” As if to say good art expires or somehow becomes inconsequential once it reaches a certain age, and can’t possibly stand as a pop culture document of its era as it’s supposed to. It’s reductive.
But this thought ca...

Velma (voiced by Mindy Kaling) gets in a little over her head in a haunting scene in the "Scooby-Doo" spinoff.
Courtesy of HBO Max
Despite, shockingly, just not being weird enough, Netflix’s “Wednesday” did succeed at following in the footsteps of the CW’s “Nancy Drew” in that it helped usher in a new era of female teenage TV sleuths who specialize in creepy crimes. And now, that torch has been passed to “Velma,” HBO Max’s entry into the iconic “Scooby-Doo” universe that premieres Thursday.
A...

If you were flipping channels around 1 a.m. in the late ’90s, you most certainly recall the infomercials starring “Miss Cleo,” your favorite Black psychic friend. “Call me now,” she bellowed the clever catchphrase in a heavy Jamaican accent as a 1-800 number for viewers to dial would linger on screen.
She was the epitome of cheap nighttime entertainment. She was usually seated at the center of the TV frame behind a stodgy table, inside a hideously decorated room, and donning Caribbean garb wi...

Amara Granderson in “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf,” Farah Tahir and Amir Arison in "The Kite Runner," L Morgan Lee in "A Strange Loop" and Corey Hawkins in "Topdog/Underdog."
Illustration:Jianan Liu/HuffPost Photo: For Colored Girls: Marc J Franklin; The Kite Runner: Joan Marcus; A Strange Loop:Marc J Franklin; Topdog Underdog: Marc J Franklin
It’s been centuries since Broadway’s grand opening, and yet so many productions this year seem entirely fresh...

Yoshiko (Shiori Ideta) assembles an all-woman baseball team in a scene from "Little America."
Courtesy of Apple TV+
Often when we think about “prestige TV,” the idea is wrapped around onscreen violence, Twitter buzz or a sparkly, A-list cast. “Little America” doesn’t have any of those ― but it still has a type of cachet to which not many shows right now can attest.
The first season of the Apple TV+ anthology series premiered in January 2020, just before several prominent issues converged in t...

Brendan Fraser as Charlie, a depressed, 600-pound teacher, in "The Whale."
Courtesy of A24
Not a whole lot of people are going to really enjoy “The Whale.” Director Darren Aronofsky’s new drama is the kind that leans into relentless agony, demoralization, rage — and mostly within the confines of a single living room, the space where we watch a 600-pound teacher deteriorate emotionally and physically.
Stifling is the word that comes to mind when thinking about the film. That, and brutal. Becau...

Viola Davis in "The Woman King," Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan in "Everything Everywhere All At Once," Daniel Kaluuya in "Nope" and Robert Pattinson in "The Batman"
Illustration: HuffPost; Photos: Sony/A24/Warner Bros/Universal
There’s been a lot of talk about on-screen representation that is too often misunderstood as characters that are more symbolic of a reckoning or an issue than human ― subjects that are more righteous than complicated. The great films in 2022, however, have largely obli...

Illustration:Jianan Liu/HuffPost Photo: Mo:Netflix; This Fool: Hulu; Reboot: Hulu; Inside Job: Netflix
It’s an uncertain time in TV right now, with megamergers and a looming recession creating seismic shifts at many studios, networks and streaming platforms. Periods of cost-cutting and belt-tightening too often lead to the jettisoning of bold and singular work, many times from underrepresented voices.
A lot of the HuffPost culture team’s picks for the best TV of the year are shows that are re...

When Sophie B. Hawkins sat at her piano to write “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover,” she recalls, “I honestly knew that this was the moment I had been working for.”
Illustration: Damon Dahlen/HuffPost; Photos: NBC/Getty
If you were around during VH1’s countdown-show heyday when series like “I Love the ’90s” aired on heavy rotation, you may recall D-list celebrities waxing poetic about their favorite songs from the era (read: exchanging snarky remarks about every tune).
It’s on a show like this — ...

Nick De Noia (Murray Bartlett) and Somen "Steve" Banerjee (Kumail Nanjiani) in a scene from "Welcome to Chippendales."
Erin Simkin/Hulu
Leave it to A&E to help bring back sensationalized true stories about sex and greed with its “Secrets of” series, which premiered early this year and includes “Secrets of Playboy” and “Secrets of the Chippendales Murders.” Both are tales of debauchery, sexuality as a proven business model, and the criminal men at the helm reaping all the financial benefits.
E...

Colleagues Sophie (Rosanny Zayas) and Alice (Leisha Hailey) are perfect examples of women from different generations supporting each other on "The L Word: Generation Q."
Troy Harvey/SHOWTIME
There’s often a bitterness implied when a person calls someone “Boomer.” It’s immediately considered an insult; a dismissal of their experience or overall point of view. While this prevails on social media, we also see it replicated on series like the “Saved by the Bell” reboot and Netflix’s “Blockbuster,...