I was resistant at first to the The Last Black Man in San Francisco. I couldn’t make sense of the movie’s tone. It seemed funny and serious, elegiac and silly; a study in contradictions. It is all those things and more. Once I gave myself over to it, when I fell into sync with its wavelength, it blossomed before me into the most moving, unforgettable experience I’ve had at the movies so far this year. Director Joe Talbot and his childhood friend, creative collaborator, and star Jimmie Fails have made a singular work of art here.
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Danny Glover
Hip-hop artist, music producer, teacher, and political activist and agitator Boots Riley has new talents to add to his resume: screenwriter and director. His electric film debut, Sorry to Bother You, announces a fresh and singular new voice in American cinema. The movie uses biting, politically charged satire to comment on a myriad of social justice concerns. Riley skewers issues like race, class, labor rights, toxic capitalism, and selling out with an outlandish and exhilarating premise that gets stranger with every passing minute. I can sum the movie up with one word: bonkers. The last time I used that word to describe a film I wrote about was over three years ago. The inventive science fiction (for lack of a better term) feel and unique sense of humor Riley employs in Sorry to Bother You makes it the first bonkers movie event since Mad Max: Fury Road.