Candice Frederick

Netflix
It’s odd that it’s 2020 and the writer-director Tyler Perry, someone who considers himself a progressive filmmaker, still makes movies that resemble the histrionic, “Lifetime: Television for Women” format of the ‘90s. While Perry has made fans primarily of black women and churchgoers, his persistent reliance on downtrodden female protagonists to point out issues of misogyny and infidelity undercuts the audience he aims to celebrate.
Even with the backing of Netflix and his own groundb...

The 2020 Oscar nominations were announced Monday morning, and they gave us one of the most frustrating lists of honorees on public record in recent history. But on the other hand, you might be happy to learn that South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s magnificent film Parasite has managed to clear any foreign language barriers and reigns as one of the most nominated films of the year. So, as the Bible says, the Academy giveth, and it taketh away.
Let’s unpack it all.
1 | The Best Picture catego...

It’s never good when you can figure out exactly what will happen in a movie — from the conflict to the pat resolution — within the first 15 minutes. But director Miguel Arteta’s new friendship comedy “Like a Boss” is just like that.
Aside from the charming chemistry between leads Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne, the film is a mostly forgettable romp that throws together recycled themes of female entrepreneurship, friendship, and rivalry without making any real impact. It’s a shame, too, becaus...

It may have taken us a while to get here, but the 2010s will go down in history as one of the most exceptional eras in Black movie history. Not just because we had some record-breakers (hello, Black Panther). But because many of the films were for us, by us, and dared to challenge the system.
There were first time directors who came out the gate with strong voices, as well as auteurs who dug deep into their own lives to tell a story that resonated with audiences across the globe. There were a...

After decades of watching cardiganed mothers and grandmothers in film and TV clutch their pearls at the thought of an orgasm (ahem, Diane Keaton in “Something’s Gotta Give”), single older moms are finally starring in unabashed, quivering sex scenes that would make the leading ladies of yesteryear blush. From “Mrs. Fletcher” to “Gloria Bell,” this year, Hollywood began to celebrate older mothers enjoying intercourse without shame — and, even more amazingly, without strings attached.
Why did it...

Alana Paterson for The New York Times

This interview contains spoilers for Season 2 of the Netflix series “You.”

Victoria Pedretti has played her share of women on the edge of madness lately: One might think that after embodying the tortured soul of Nell Crain in “The Haunting of Hill House” and portraying the Manson family member Leslie Van Houten in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” she would be keen to take a break.

But when the creators of the Netflix series “You” approached her about an...

This year, it’s been refreshing to watch films and TV shows like “Waves” and “Bojack Horseman” finally move toward exploring the systems that nurture bad male behavior. But while these contributions should be commended for adding nuance to deeply flawed male characters, they’ve done so at the expense of female characters who are killed off in order to feed their male counterparts’ storylines.
Sacrificing female characters is a p...

Writer-director Chinonye Chukwu deserves all kinds of acclaim for daring to tell a story about the death penalty through the eyes of one of its enactors — a prison warden, the kind of character that’s usually reduced to a one-dimensional villain on screen. And she also should get props for attracting high-caliber talent like Alfre Woodard and Wendell Pierce for only her second full-length feature. But despite those accomplishments, “Clemency” doesn’t quite resonate.
That’s mostly because beca...

As viewers continue to process that startling finale, the actor tells Playboy about how he tried to understand the racist politician he plays
You may not know it just by looking at him, but James Wolk has one of the most contemptuous faces on TV right now. Perhaps it’s the actor’s natural charm, signified by his Midwestern cadence and happy-go-lucky smile, that makes him a shoo-in to play characters whose malice isn’t easily detected. That certainly came in handy as the perplexingly cheery ye...

Following a cinematic year of reckoning on the heels of #MeToo and #TimesUp, 2019 films signified a time of great humbling, healing, and self-reflection. The last 12 months on the big screen have been less about rage and system shifting as they’ve captured a more resonant human experience today: inner conflict.
The most remarkable cinema of the year has centered on characters who are grappling with their mortality, blurring the lines between hero and villain, and complicating the limits of cu...

It’s not even the new year and I'm already bored to tears seeing the same 10 actors on every Academy Award predictions list. It’s dull and points to a lack of scope among the voting committees who routinely overlook obscure or less-discussed performances. In most cases, those are the ones we should be talking about instead. Let's take a hard look at this year’s acting achievements that flew woefully under the radar and give them the justice they rightly deserve.

10 Rob Morgan as Herbert Richa...

If there’s anything horror films have taught us this year it’s that the weirder they get, the harder we’ll fall in love with them. Maybe that’s because we’re at a point in history when bizarre situations (like, say, anything that’s trending on Twitter) have frightfully become our norm and what we eagerly debate. Whatever the reason, Hollywood has taken note and blessed us with an array of eccentric, horrifying films that are imbued with just enough reality to get us chattering about them—whether we ascertain each their many nuances or not.

In an era when "Black Lives Matter" narratives often focus on tragedy and violence, director Melina Matsoukas’s Queen & Slim, twists the formula, offering a surprisingly tender tale about two complicated lovers driven toward each other after a fateful police encounter. Written by Lena Waithe, this bold new drama refuses to either vilify or commend its lead characters, played by Jodie Turner-Smith and Daniel Kaluuya, who cling to each other after a frightening act of self-defense launches them...

Exploring what it’s like to be a black cop in conflict, especially in the #BlackLivesMatter era, has become popular fodder for filmmakers. But while it’s an interesting topic to pursue, the films that have dared to do so have been unsatisfying.
“Monsters and Men” struggled with determining a resolution, “Black and Blue” pivoted to a humdrum action saga and now director Brian Kirk’s new film, “21 Bridges,” also struggles to find its voice in the conversation.
Written by Adam Mervis and Matthew...

After breakthrough roles in 12 Years a Slave, Roots, Birth of a Nation, and Underground in a span of three years, there was a time when 27-year-old actor Kelvin Harrison, Jr. thought he’d set a world record for starring in the most movies about slavery. While these powerful stories taught him where he came from, he admits he was ready to explore other parts of himself. Then came the next era of his career, where he’s now starring in Trey Edward Shults’ Waves, a film that Harrison says is “abo...