Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories 

Dwayne Wayne and Whitley's youngest daughter takes us back to Hillman College in this iconic 90s sequel.

Lee Daniels’s Billie Holiday biopic The United States vs. Billie Holiday was released on February 26th, 2021, and my immediate reaction to it was one of discomfort.

The Bluff unravels its mystery slowly, opening on the capture of a ship captain named Bodden (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and the swift execution of his entire crew. Then, viewers are treated to a tranquil British settlement in the Cayman Islands in the 1850s, where a mother bakes a coconut birthday cake for her son in a house suspiciously rigged with makeshift tripwires and burglar alarms. As it turns out, that mother is Priyanka Chopra’s quick witted and resourceful ex-pirate Mrs. Ercell Bodden, and her husband’s captors are on the way to the island to hunt her down for abandoning them and stealing their loot. The pirates of the Libertas land on the beaches of Cayman Brac, and the scenes that follow show a Viking-esque slaughter of half the island.

I didn’t love Expecting Amy, the mini-series following Amy Schumer’s pregnancy, but it brought up a lot of great unspoken side-effects of working and growing a human in America.

Adam McKay might have been more concerned with cramming cameos than he was in this story which is a bloated criticism of the rich and famous… delivered unto us by the rich and famous. 

In addition to the cast being delightfully diverse this time around, the film was just loosely-plotted and action-packed enough to keep a casual fan like myself entertained. While I do agree that the writing of Cole left much to be desired for an original character thrust into a preconceived universe, none of the characters seemed particularly fleshed out in terms of personality; however, I think that's to be expected when you're watching a film literally inspired by a video game.