What Is It? (2005)

Given Hollywood's history of racism and financial motivations, how much progress can we expect? Plus: a list of excellent films by Black directors.

Acutely funny and always well-intentioned, Last Week Tonight has a lot of heart for a satirical-news program.

There’s been a longstanding criticism of sci-fi films about its lack of Black characters. For the past few years, Anthony Mackie has been successfully representing Black masculinity in the otherwise homogenous genre and I am here for it.

Netflix’s new mystery thriller, The Marked Woman (released originally as La Desconocida), is confusing. More critically, though, it commits the worst mistake a movie can make: it’s boring. From Spanish director Gabe Ibáñez, the film squanders its premise at every turn, fills the story with unlikeable characters, and lacks emotional payoff.

The cultural insensitivity of 'Slumberland' is discreet, and can be easily overlooked in CGI extravaganza. 

Cursed is based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel, and is a retelling of the Arthurian legend with a twist. Instead of King Arthur gaining Excalibur, a teenage sorceress named Nimue (Katherine Langford) does. Her people — the Fey — are being hunted down, and so Nimue will do whatever it takes to save them.