Audra, please make more movies

by Cláudio Alves

With Rustin now on Netflix, cinephiles worldwide can enjoy one of the season's top Best Actor contenders. However, one shouldn't presume there's no more to George C. Wolfe's picture than Colman Domingo's spirited turn. Indeed, there's a vast pool of brilliant Black actors around him, breathing life into civil rights icons left and right. Among them, Broadway's First Lady and Tony champion Supreme stands out, the one and only Audra McDonald as Ella Baker. She's only in a couple of scenes but leaves a lasting impression, embodying strength and conveying a rich history between the activists that goes beyond the narrative's limited scope.

As of late, that's McDonald's big screen specialty, serving excellence for a scene or two, and then – poof – she's gone. Just look at her other 2023 movies…

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Colman Domingo could make Oscar history

by Cláudio Alves

Rustin is now in theaters, enjoying a limited qualifying release before it hits Netflix on November 17th. With this biopic on civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, Colman Domingo may earn his first Oscar nomination, in the Best Actor category. His hopes seem amply justified when you look over the production's premise and early reviews. It looks like a project calibrated to appeal to the Academy's taste, finely tuned for the campaign trail. After all, it's telling a real-life story full of inspirational details and a sense of great social importance, directed by George C. Wolfe from a screenplay coauthored by Dustin Lance Black.

That last name is especially interesting for it recalls Milk's triumph in 2008 and contextualizes Domingo's Oscar as a chance to make history…

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Yes No Maybe So: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

by Nathaniel R

Chadwick heading for a posthumous Oscar nod?

How about them songs I give you?

Netflix is trying the shotgun approach this year by releasing one buzzy potential Oscar contender after another. Perhaps they felt emboldened by landing two (The Irishman, Marriage Story) of the nine Best Picture nods last year and coming close to a third with The Two Popes.  Of course no studio ever has only hits but they've already released Da 5 Bloods, i'm Thinking of Ending Things, The Boys in the Band, and Da 5 Bloods and still to come are The Prom, The Life Ahead, Pieces of a Woman, The Midnight Sky, Hillbilly Elegy, and tonight's topic: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom so they'll probably do well this year with an overall nomination tally. How many actual Best Picture contenders is a more difficult question.

About Ma Rainey...

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