Veronica, Linda and Alice have lost their husbands in a tragedy. They discover their husbands were professional thieves. To add to their grief, they find their lives under siege, specifically from Jamal Manning. While he is running for public office, Manning is also a local crime lord…and it so happen’s the women’s husbands died stealing from him. He wants his money and gives them a month.
When she discovers her husband’s records of all her heists, Veronica brings the other widows together to try and complete the next heist that her husband had planned.
Widows is one of those movies that you don’t really get prepared for from the trailers. Most Heist films are heavily focused on the planning and the heist. Widows is more interested in setting up its characters. Everyone feels important. We walk with them as their lives intersect. This is to the film’s benefit. We get to really know everyone involved, both the heroes and villains of the tale.
Viola Davis gives a great performance as Veronica. She is both vulnerable and tough as nails. Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall play son and father of a political dynasty that are at each other throats. Daniel Kaluuya is riveting and immensely terrifying as Manning’s right hand man.
Director Steve McQueen makes some bold choices in the film (one sequence takes place within a car, and we only hear the actors as the camera stays outside, as the focuses on the car itself). The end result is a very compelling character film that happens to feature a heist. Managing some excellent surprises before it ends, I found Widows a very satisfying watch.
Created by comic book icons Jack ‘the King’ Kirby and Stan Lee, Black Panther has seemed like a character Marvel wants to really make active…but struggles to figure out how to make him work best. Initially being a guest star in the pages of the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, T’Challa (the titular Black Panther) got solo stories starting with 1973’s Jungle Action # 5. The series was not a top seller, and Marvel cancelled it. They tried to continue the Black Panther in his own series, which lasted until 1979. They tried again in 1988, with a mini-series. This was followed by an appearance in Marvel’s anthology series Marvel Comics Presents in 1989. 1990 saw another series. But it was 1998 where Black Panther found some footing. Christopher Priest began his run and truthfully, he cracked the code with an incredibly engaging series. It lasted 62 issues (Priest wrote 60 of those issues). They worked on a new series in 2005 with Reginald Hudlin. 2016 brought back the Panther in his own series led by Ta-Nehisi Coates. This, for me, has come the closest to rivaling Priest’s terrific run.
Get Out is about a young photographer named Chris meeting his girlfriend Rose’s parents for the first time. He is a bit nervous that they might be upset that their daughter is dating a black man. When they arrive, he finds that there is something a bit…off. Her parents are white progressives, who would have voted for Obama for a third term if they could. The only black people he meets seem to be in a daze.
Tripping Through Gateways 