After controversy drove away all but a handful of congregants from the Wander to Greater Paths Baptist Church, pastor Lee-Curtis Childs (Sterling K. Brown) dreams of a new beginning. With his wife Trinitie (Regina Hall), AKA “The First Lady”, by his side he gets to work relaunching the church just in time for Easter. In his time, Lee-Curtis shared a prosperity gospel from a gold throne, sold worship DVDs, has laser shoes and did “praise miming.” All spectacle for what ended up being false righteousness when he was accused of sexual misconduct. As the story unfolds, we learn more about the details of both his controversy and his crumbling marriage. The couple and their church are the focus of a documentary series with a camera crew following their every move. And the person taking center stage is Trinitie/The First Lady, who feels forced to keep up appearances and support her husband despite all signs warning her to escape.
By filmmaking duo Adamma and Adanne Ebo, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul is a satisfyingly funny satire that features two wonderful performances from its stars Brown and Hall. Regina Hall especially shines in her portrayal of a woman falling apart on the inside but trying to hold it together for everyone else. The story loses steam in the last half and I wish the filmmakers had stuck to a strictly mockumentary style format rather than shifting back and forth from it.
Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
We need to be willing to have the difficult conversations about uncomfortable topics if we want things to change. Director W. Kamau Bell does just this with his 4-part documentary series We Need to Talk About Cosby.
Many of us who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s were part of the “Cosby generation.” We were raised on television programs like Fat Albert and The Cosby Show. Dr. Huxtable was a household name. Cosby was an inescapable fixture in popular entertainment. He was funny, likable, and confident. He projected this vision of Bill Cosby that we all grew to know and love. And that vision was shattered when the many allegations against Cosby came to light. As of today, over 60 women have come forward to tell their stories of being drugged and raped by Cosby. While some in the public rejected the notion that he committed these crimes, the rest of us had to grapple with a new reality: America’s dad was a monster this whole time.
W. Kamau Bell’s docuseries is a series of conversations with many individuals about Bill Cosby as an entertainer and a man in order to come to terms with all that’s been revealed about him. Interview subjects include writers, hosts, entertainers, professors, actors, critics, editors, producers, etc. Some knew or worked with Bill Cosby in real life, some are experts in subject matter relevant to the topic and others were his victims.
The docuseries does a superb job disseminating how Cosby came to be as an entertainer and a cultural icon. Cosby broke ground for black comedians while also being deemed “safe” by white audiences. In his early comedic career, he avoided jokes about racial strife and by doing so he cast his net to a much larger audience. Tressie McMillan Cottom PhD describes this in the documentary as “incrementalism” in which a black performer will become popular, gain wealth and help their community when they can all while “being the safe, compromised choice.” Bell’s docuseries tackles the history of black representation in entertainment, Cosby’s growth as an entertainer and his meteoric rise with his popular TV shows. It also reveals his downfall in recent years with his erratic behavior and controversial public statements. Through conversation we also learn about early red flags in which Cosby that we missed and how one black comic from Philadelphia, where Cosby was also from, whose viral stand-up act put the concept of Cosby-as-rapist into the public discourse. The most powerful and distressing moments of the documentary are the conversations with Cosby victims who bravely tell their own stories of sexual assault.
There’s a lot to unpack here and We Need to Talk About Cosby does so brilliantly. You can tell that Bell really focuses on representation with his selection of interview subjects. Some will call this docuseries a “hit job” which I think will be an unfair assessment. We Need to Talk About Cosby is an opportunity for us to really grapple with these two versions of a cultural icon that we have in our heads and come to the brutal understanding that they are one in the same.
Note to add: Cosby, family members, main cast members from The Cosby Show and Cosby representatives do not appear in the series.
We Need to Talk About Cosby premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Showtime will release the docuseries on January 30th.
We need women filmmakers. Desperately. The male dominated film industry has been shaping how we view women over time by objectifying them in a way that skews the power dynamic over to the men and away from the women. And according to filmmaker Nina Menkes, this has lasting effects on how women are treated in the workplace, in public and at home. One way to balance this is to bring women filmmakers to the forefront, give them a platform where they can not only thrive but where they can share differing perspectives and points-of-view.
Based on her lecture Sex & Power, The Visual Language of Cinema, Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power is an illuminating study on the history of the male gaze in film. The documentary includes footage of Menkes’ lecture, interviews with theorists, directors and actresses and 175 film clips that demonstrate the male gaze. The clips run the gamut from Metropolis (1927) to Titane (2021). Menkes analyzes the majority of them and also includes women directed films to demonstrate the difference between not only the male gaze and the female gaze but also the female gaze with internalized misogyny. Menkes breaks down the analysis of the male gaze into five categories: Subject, Framing, Camera Movement, Lighting and Narrative Position. This documentary serves as the feminist film course that anyone interested in the history of film and the future of the industry should take. Menkes doesn’t make any direct correlations to the male gaze in film and real life consequences however it is suggested throughout the film. Brainwashed can be a tough pill to swallow but when we learn we grow.
Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
Directed by Eva Longoria Bastón, La Guerra Civil expertly demonstrates not only the importance of the Chávez vs de la Hoya fight but also how the careers of these two boxing champions were intrinsically tied to their cultural identities. Both Chávez and de la Hoya were interviewed for the documentary along with sports journalists, latinx celebrities, family members and various experts. There is an air of familiarity in the film. Perhaps the friendly vibe prevented the documentary from going more in-depth into serious matters involving the two subjects including their drug addictions and various tragedies. These are briefly mentioned but not discussed at length.
The documentary is bilingual with interviewees speaking English and Spanish.
La Guerra Civil premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
Call Jane stars Elizabeth Banks as Joy, a stay-at-home wife pregnant with her second child. Joy and her husband Will (Chris Messina) soon discover that Joy’s pregnancy is causing her congestive heart failure. The doctor gives her two options: die carrying the child or have an abortion. It’s 1968, still a few years away from Roe vs. Wade, and abortions are illegal underground operations. After a scare, Joy discovers “Call Jane” a service involving a network of suburban woman who arrange abortions for women in need. The initiative is run by Virginia (Sigourney Weaver) who takes Joy under her wing. Corrupt doctor Dean (Cory Michael Smith) charges $600 per procedure which is out of reach for most women who seek the service. Joy and Virginia team together to make abortions available to more applicants but do so in a safe, affordable yet unconventional way. Joy does all of this while keeping it secret from her husband, daughter (Grace Edwards) and neighbor Lana (Kate Mara).
Based on the true story of the Jane Initiative, Call Jane is directed by Phyllis Nagy, best known for her stunning adaptation Carol (2015). Call Jane has similar pacing as Carol. The film takes its time telling its story. Patient viewers will be greatly rewarded. Call Jane shines a spotlight on the history of abortion but also offers us a look into a future where abortions may become illegal again. Women will seek out abortions regardless of their legality and while the Jane Initiative saw no casualties, many other women have died from botched back alley abortions. This film won’t change anyone’s mind about abortion. But it does serve as a reminder of how far we’ve come and what we have to lose.
Call Jane premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
