Andy Trask

Nia DaCosta’s adaptation of an Ibsen play, HEDDA (2025) is great drama. Over the course of a nighttime party, it charts the self-destruction of a number of clever people doing awful things for petty reasons. Tessa Thompson is fantastic in the lead. It’s a modern RULES OF THE GAME, and it hits hard.

Charles Burnett’s THE GLASS SHIELD (1994) had the audacity to take on racism in the LAPD only two years after Rodney King. It follows a Black cop trying to make it in the Sheriff’s department, and is unapologetic about the allies he can’t rely on and the personal compromises he comes to regret.

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Being a news and politics junkie when undiluted evil dominates both kinda sucks.

Leave aside the fact that their taste is impeccable, this is still the best Four Favorites video ever.

This is George C erasure!

Jordan Peele’s GET OUT (2017) is a modern horror classic. Brilliantly plotted, expertly cast, but above all, just so well-directed. Peels uses unusual shot angles, offbeat performances, and even sound design to create an unbearable feeling of unease that culminates in a genuinely frightening climax.

Andrew "Rube" Foster, founder of the first National Negro League.

#ResistanceRoots
#BlackHistoryMonth

Today in history, 1920: Andrew “Rube” Foster organizes the first Negro National League in Kansas City, Mo. It was the first Africa American baseball circuit to last more than one season, providing a platform for stars such as Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell. /1

Comedies are hard; you either laugh or you don’t. Hangout comedies are especially hard, because all you have are the characters and the setting. F. Gary Gray’s FRIDAY (1995) makes it look easy, harnessing two great performances from Chris Tucker and Ice Cube, and coining an iconic line. Bye Felicia.

This partner kept telling me to “boil the ocean” and I didn’t know what he meant but this is what I should have said

First year associate me reporting back to that one partner:

Kasi Lemmons’s EVE’S BAYOU (1992) begins “the summer I killed my father I was 10 years old.” It takes its time delivering on that promise, which allows her to build a coming-of-age story with fascinating characters occupying a magical-realist setting. Like Toni Morrison if she did film.

I could have posted any of Antoine Fuqua’s EQUALIZER films starring Denzel Washington as an ex-CIA guy beating up bad guys for the less fortunate. They’re perfect dad movies where a competent man uses his skills to make the world better. I chose EQUALIZER II because it’s filmed where I grew up.

See, this is shortsighted and wrong. Those threats and ramifications are already there. Naming them doesn’t create them. It just means now you can recognize them for what they are.

D’Urville Martin’s DOLEMITE (1975) is uneven, but when it works—Dolemite getting out of jail, reciting dirty poems, anytime the crooked preacher is onscreen—it’s downright iconic. The script is full of sly, subversive wit. As an action film, it’s ok; as a slice of 1970s LA, it’s pretty great.

Carl Franklin’s DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS (1995) is a perfect neo-noir based on the Walter Mosley’s novel. Denzel Washington demonstrates why he’s one of the best leading men out there, but it’s Don Cheadle that steals every scene he’s in as the loyal psychopath Mouse.

Bill Duke’s DEEP COVER (1992) promises your standard conflicted undercover-cop story, where a good man struggles with betraying new friends. But it delivers so much more: a scathing critique of the drug war as a war on our own underclass. Fishburne gives a ferocious performance. So good.

I'm GenX. We grew up in an all-print world. We read really fast. So, my Millennial and GenZ peeps, I beg you for the love of Bananarama, please just send me the article and not the TikTok of the dude talking about the article. In Prince's funky name, amen.

DEAD PRESIDENTS (1995), directed by Allen and Albert Hughes, was marketed as a heist movie, but is really a Vietnam War movie along the lines of THE DEER HUNTER, following a young man’s flirtation with criminality, experiences in Vietnam, and postwar tragic fall. It’s unflinching but captivating.

Julie Dash’s DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1991) is a challenging watch: it’s non-linear, visually packed, and covers an unjustly obscure piece of American history. But the history is fascinating, the cinematography is gorgeous, and the density rewards rewatches. Which is why it’s considered a classic.

YouTube video by Japanese Cinema Hub Takako Irie (入江たか子) Pioneering Japanese Actress

The pioneering Japanese actress Takako Irie (入江たか子) was born 115 years ago, on February 7th, 1911. She was the most popular actress at Nikkatsu in the late 20s-30s and, in 1932, became the first woman to establish an independent studio in Japan.
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Wendell B Harris Jr’s CHAMELEON STREET (1989) is an impossible movie I’m glad exists. It’s an unvarnished portrait of a real-life sociopath who impersonated various professionals—including an ob-gyn. It’s CATCH ME IF YOU CAN without the feel-good redemption arc or the “charming rascal” take.

Sidney Poitier’s BUCK AND THE PREACHER (1972) deserves to be better known. It’s a Western buddy-movie pairing a Harry Belafonte’s rascally Preacher with Poitier’s strait-laced wagon-train leader. The story’s good, but the real appeal is watching these two charismatic actors just do their thing.

This sucks so hard. That thing really was invaluable.

John Singleton’s BOYZ N THE HOOD (1991) is a coming-of-age story set in South Central LA that avoids the mawkishness and preachiness of its genre. It’s funny, exciting, prescient (that gentrification speech), and compelling. It reveals a whole world through a few well-realized characters. Amazing.

Abolition and prosecution. And you should resign and let someone willing to fight for democracy take your place.

In Oscar Micheaux’s BODY AND SOUL (1925), Paul Robeson plays a con man posing as a preacher who robs and assaults members of his church. The melodrama can get over-the-top, but Robeson’s performance is brilliant, and Micheaux’s direction has surprisingly modern moments.