Directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Summer of Soul presents a powerful and transporting documentary—part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture, and fashion.
Over six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park — now Marcus Garvey Park.
The 5th Dimension performing at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, featured in the documentary SUMMER OF SOUL.
Never seen footage and largely forgotten — until now. The movie shines a light on the history of our spiritual well-being. It stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past and present.
The feature includes never-before-seen concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension, and more.
Produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, West Side Story follows the original 1961 film version from the original 1957 Broadway musical penned by Arthur Laurents, with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and concept, direction, and choreography by Jerome Robbins.
Tony winner Justin Peck choreographed the musical numbers in the film. The music team includes conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and composer and conductor David Newman arranged the score.
The cast includes Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, Ana Isabelle, Corey Stoll, Brian d’Arcy James, Curtiss Cook, and Rita Moreno.
Elgort and Zegler play the lead roles — Tony and Maria, as young lovers of forbidden love and the clash between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds.
Moreno starred in the 1961 film as Anita. In the current version, she plays Valentina.
Listen to the Director’s Cut interview with Steven Spielberg. He talks about using his iPhone to film the rehearsals. That way, he practiced, practiced and practiced until he felt he go the shot right.
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and based on Marvel Comics, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will focus on the story known as Shang-Chi: The Master of Kung-Fu, starring Simu Liu and Awkwafina. Tony Chiu-Wai Leung also stars as Wenwu.
Directed by Patrick Hughes, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard follows the world’s most lethal odd couple — bodyguard Michael Bryce, played by Ryan Reynolds, and hitman Darius Kincaid, played by Samuel L. Jackson. They return for another life-threatening mission. Still unlicensed and under scrutiny, Darius’s even more volatile wife, the infamous international con artist Sonia Kincaid, played by Salma Hayek, forces Bryce into action.
He’s driven over the edge by his two most dangerous protectees. The trio gets in over their heads in a global plot and soon finds that they all stand between Europe and a vengeful and powerful madman, played by Antonio Banderas. Joining in the fun and deadly mayhem is Morgan Freeman as a mystery man.
Salma Hayek as Sonia Kincaid in The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. Photo Credit: David Appleby
The cast is huge and includes Richard E. Grant, rank Grillo, Caroline Goodall, Rebecca Front, Gabriella Wright, Alice McMillan, Kristofer Kamiyasu, Tom Hopper and Blake Ritson.
Directed by the late Luke Holland, Final Account is his interviews of nearly 300 elderly perpetrators and witnesses of the Holocaust from the Nazi side.
Such an important documentary that shows how the Nazis viewed their rise over Europe and the atrocities they allowed to happen. Doing nothing is still a transgression, and this movie received praises from prominent newspapers worldwide.
FINAL ACCOUNT by director Luke Holland, released by Focus Features. Courtesy of Focus Features
Final Account premiered posthumously three months after the death of Holland in June 2020.
Directed by Taylor Sheridan, Those Who Wish Me Dead follows a teenage murder witness, played by Finn Little, who finds himself pursued by twin assassins in the Montana wilderness. A survival expert played Angelina Jolie, tasked with protecting him — and a forest fire threatening to consume them all.
Other cast members include Jon Bernthal and Nicholas Hoult .
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov, Profile follows an undercover British journalist, played by Valene Kane. Her quest is to bait and expose a terrorist recruiter, played by Shazad Latif, through social media while trying not to be sucked in by her recruiter and lured into becoming a militant extremist herself.
The unconventional thriller plays out entirely on a computer screen in the Screenlife format pioneered by Bekmambetov.
Directed by Phillip Noyce, Above Suspicion is about one of the most notorious crimes in FBI history. Based on a true story, this gritty crime-thriller follows Susan Smith, played by Emilia Clarke, a young woman desperate to escape a seedy life of crime and drugs in a Kentucky coal-mining town.
When a newly minted FBI agent named Mark Putnam, played by Jack Huston, recruits Susan as his informant for a high-profile case, she believes her lousy luck may finally be changing. But as Susan and Putnam’s relationship deepens, so does the danger, setting them both on a collision course with deadly consequences.
The rest of the cast includes Sophie Lowe, Austin Hébert, Karl Glusman, Chris Mulkey, Omar Miller, Kevin Dunn, Thora Birch and Johnny Knoxville.
Directed by Elaine Bogan and co-directed by Ennio Torresan, Spirit Untamed follows a headstrong girl longing for a place to belong. She discovers a kindred spirit when her life intersects with a wild horse as the sequel to the beloved story of Spirit from DreamWorks Animation.
Lucky Prescott, voiced by Isabela Merced, never really knew her late mother, Milagro Navarro, voiced by Eiza González, a fearless horse-riding stunt performer from Miradero, a small town on the edge of the wide-open frontier.
Like her mother, Lucky isn’t a fan of rules and restrictions, which has caused her Aunt Cora, voiced by Julianne Moore, no small amount of worry. Lucky has grown up in an East Coast city under Cora’s watchful eye, but Lucky presses her luck with one too many risky escapades. Cora picks up stakes and moves them back with Lucky’s father, Jim, voiced by Jake Gyllenhaal, in Miradero.
Lucky is decidedly unimpressed with the sleepy little town. She reconsiders when she meets Spirit, a wild Mustang who shares her independent streak and befriends two local horseback riders, Abigail Stone, voiced by Mckenna Grace, and Pru Granger, voiced by Marsai Martin. Pru’s father, the stable owner Al Granger, voiced by Andre Braugher, is the best friend of Lucky’s father.
A heartless horse wrangler, voiced by Walton Goggins, and his team set a plan to capture Spirit and his herd and auction them off to a life of captivity and hard labor. Lucky enlists her new friends and bravely embarks on the adventure of a lifetime to rescue the horse who has given her freedom and a sense of purpose and has helped Lucky discover a connection to her mother’s Mexican legacy — a heritage she never expected.
My daughter and I watched the original Spirit movie at least ten years ago, and it was a favorite that she watched repeatedly. We still have the DVD in our collection.
