Review: 'The Photograph', A Beautiful Snapshot Of Modern Black Love

While there has been a clear rise in studio romances featuring black stars, it speaks to the relative lack of them that we still reach back to 1997's Love Jones as the prime example of black love represented on the big screen. The comparisons came quickly for The Photograph, a soulful, sultry film featuring the gorgeous, dark-skinned duo of Issa Rae and Lakeith Stanfield. As directed by Stella Meghie (Everything Everything), the film never shies away from the hues of her stars, instead she makes them glow in a mature love story that could've done with turning up the heat a little more.

If you're wondering why such a big deal is being made about the movie's brown-skinned stars, it's because too often black romances have skewed towards the lighter side. That's not a knock against the people in those movies, but Hollywood would rather give you Common and Paula Patton if they can keep getting away with it. So it's definitely a refreshing change to see a cast that leans towards the darker side, and to give us a chance to see Stanfield and Rae in a way we've never had the chance to before.

The Photograph centers on the unlikely romance between Mae (Rae) and Michael (Stanfield), two busy New York professionals having their struggles with commitment. For Michael, a photographer frequently traveling between the city and Louisiana for work, he's just coming out of a long-term, long-distance relationship. For Mae, staying committed is as unfathomable to her as it was to her estranged, recently-deceased mother, Christina (Chante Adams), a Louisiana photographer who fled the bayou for larger aspirations in the big city. Christina left behind at least one broken heart, Isaac (Rob Morgan), which is where Michael first sees her picture, and gets in touch with Mae to learn more about this elusive photog.

The story drifts somewhat clumsily between the 1980s, where Christina and a young Isaac (played by Rae's Insecure co-star Y'lan Noel) grapple with their conflicting ambitions; and the present where Mae and Michael face similar problems. Mae worries that she is just like her mother, incapable of standing still, too committed to her work. But when she's with Michael, those thoughts seem to melt away. Their first actual date actually looks and sounds like an actual date, where people talk about the things that connect us, in this case Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar. The conversation is natural, funny, and revealing. When Michael asks if it's too early for a kiss, we already know that it isn't.

Passion radiates from Rae and Stanfield together, including a steamy encounter during a raging hurricane ("Blame it on the storm", he says.). But for those expecting a bit more sizzle, The Photograph keeps it to a minimum. The woman sitting next to me literally asked on multiple occasions "That's it?", expecting to see a lot more action between the sheets. I couldn't help but agree. Instead, this is as much a movie about Mae's reconciling with her mother, attempting to figure out if they're both so broken as to be incapable of love. To illustrate the differences between the two women, Meghie spends an inordinate amount of time in Christina's past in Louisiana, with the flashbacks given a surreal, Nicholas Sparks-esque quality. Unfortunately, those scenes are as emotionally thin as one of Sparks' many adaptations, and are so somber it has us yearning for someone to spice things up. Lil Rel Howery and Teyonah Parris add a much-needed dose of humor as Michael's married brother and sister-in-law, who try and fail to warn him against falling too quickly in love

The Photograph is a stunningly beautiful movie, with Rae and Stanfield always kept in tight, warm focus by Meghie and DP Mark Schwartzbard. While the central romance is just a snapshot of what it could've been, modern black love has rarely looked so good.

3 out of 5



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'Slice' Trailer: Chance The Rapper And Zazie Beetz Take On A Pizza Delivery Serial Killer

I guess in a world that has Ice Cube, Ice T, Common, and LL Cool J as major Hollywood actors, Chance the Rapper joining their ranks shouldn't be that big of a deal. Slice, the hip-hop artist and Kit-Kat spokesman's debut feature as well as that of music video director Austin Vesely, was basically shot in secret a couple of years ago, then dropped an animated teaser months after its completion. But now we have the first real trailer for it, and I have to say it looks like a lot of fun, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer levels of horror enjoyment.

Chance stars along with Zazie Beetz as a pair of pizza delivery drivers who have survived the murders of other pizza delivery boys. Together they team up to catch the culprits behind the crime spree, but one of them has a secret and clearly there's more than just murder going on here. The cast for this includes Stranger Things' Joe Keery, comedian Paul Scheer, Hannibal Buress, Will Brill (The OA), and Y'lan Noel (The First Purge).

Slice has yet to get a release date but expect A24 to announce that soon.

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Review: 'The First Purge', Trumpian Horror Gets A Blaxploitation-style Origin

Through what are now four wildly successful movies, The Purge franchise has been plugged into the raw anger being felt in this country like nothing else before it. There's no coincidence that the previous film, The Purge: Election Year, dropped in 2016 during the most "deplorable" political campaign ever. Its premise of an annual event in which all violent crime is legal for 12 hours highlighting the split between the defenseless poor and the bloodthirsty one percent who both created the Purge and use it to advance their agenda. And now we have The First Purge, which takes us back to the night of murder's origins, and the biggest surprise isn't how the Purge was started, it's how the first one ends.

Franchise writer/director James DeMonaco handles scripting duties only this time, passing the directorial reins over to Gerard McMurray (Burning Sands), but you'll never know the difference. Dumpster fires still litter every street corner while masked killers stalk their prey, while rich white politicians in ivory towers plot the downfall of the less fortunate. As these movies have become scarily timely, DeMonaco's digs at our so-called democracy have become more overt. The marketing campaign for The First Purge featured prominently a red "MAGA" style Trump hat, and depending on who you ask these movies are the current Presidential administration cranked up to 11. In a sense they could be seen as a warning of what could happen if the most extreme, hardline strain of conservatism is ever allowed to go unchecked. There's undoubtedly an audience out there who see The Purge as the one good idea ever to come from Hollywood. They probably won't like the most blatant shot taken at Trump, a "Grab 'em by the pussy" moment that had the crowd howling.

No matter where you fall on the ideological spectrum, The First Purge will scratch your itch for politically-charged ultra-violence. The least complex and thus least creative film in the franchise since its debut, the inaugural Purge rolls out almost exactly as one might expect. With the economy in a shambles and crime at an all-time high, a third political party known as the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA)  get elected into office with the support of the NRA and other shadowy organizations. Newly-elected President Bracken, with the help of psychologist Dr. May Updale (Marisa Tomei, Aunt May created the Purge!!!?), decide Staten Island is the perfect test vehicle for the first Purge, taking advantage of the poor by paying residents to stay in town through the evening's killings. Or in other cases, paying residents to go out and do the dirty deeds themselves.

The city's residents rise up in opposition once the government starts taking steps to escalate the body count. There's local drug kingpin Dmitri (Insecure's Y'lan Noel) who is forced to reconcile his criminal activities with the love he has for his 'hood and the people in it, like Nya (Lex Scott Davis), his ex who has always stayed on the straight and narrow path. She fights to protect her brother Isaiah (Joivan Wade), who may be following too closely in Dmitri's footsteps. All of that gets pushed aside when there are roving packs of KKK members with military grade weapons, and entire squads dressed like members of Hitler's S.S.

The First Purge feels all too familiar until the final act when suddenly it starts to resemble an old school Blaxploitation flick. This gangbangers vs. Nazis riff is when DeMonaco is most inspired, and Noel does his best Wesley Snipes impression. There's something about a badass black action hero cutting a path through a bunch of Nazi assholes. It's a genius move both as a statement against those who foment the kind of racist hatred that gave birth to the Purge, but also just as a tonal change of pace for the franchise which could go on forever, shifting as the political winds so often do. It's funny to think back to how different these movies felt five years ago in the time of hope and change. And now they are the eerie reflection in a mirror. With a new TV series coming up this fall, it's a reflection we may be forced to look at a lot more, at least until DeMonaco gives us the inevitable Final Purge.

Rating: 3 out of 5

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'The First Purge' Trailer Makes America Deadly Again

While it may seem unfair, perhaps a little inflammatory, to compare the lawless political climate of The Purge movies to the current occupants of the White House, it doesn't come from out of thin air. The hit Blumhouse horror franchise has always been overtly political, but with the latest film in the series, The First Purge, explicit comparisons to the Trump era were quite literally drawn.

And it continues in the new trailer for The First Purge, which is a prequel of sorts revealing how our country got so twisted that our government would sanction a 24-hour "holiday" in which all violent crime is legal. Franchise director James DeMonaco sticks around as screenwriter while the talented Gerard McMurray (Burning Sands) takes over behind the camera.  Here's the synopsis:

Behind every tradition lies a revolution.  Next Independence Day, witness the rise of our country’s 12 hours of annual lawlessness.  Welcome to the movement that began as a simple experiment: The First Purge.

To push the crime rate below one percent for the rest of the year, the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA) test a sociological theory that vents aggression for one night in one isolated community.  But when the violence of oppressors meets the rage of the marginalized, the contagion will explode from the trial-city borders and spread across the nation.

Marisa Tomei is the biggest name in a cast that includes Y’Lan Noel, Lex Scott Davis, Joivan Wade, and Luna Lauren Velez. Celebrate your independence by checking out The First Purge on July 4th.

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