So a week ago, Amazon Prime started their "Black Lives Matter" advertising and put up a couple dozen black oriented films, offering a title called "Just Mercy" for free. (Discounted from 2.99). I cast it as a simple-minded commercial ploy but also defended it to a knucklehead who said that anyone or any institution that says "Black Lives Matter" is racist.
Last night we finally got around to watching Harriet, with my favorite young black pop star Janelle Monae, but not after running through the offerings of Prime, Netflix and Apple TV. Prior to going to Apple TV, the only standout films I noticed were Glory and A Soldier's Story.
During this time, my eldest daughter the most conservative and blackified of us, raised up something of a continuing issue for her as not having been raised in the same cultural milieu as some her other black friends. So she began checking off a list of films one of these friends explicitly gave her as representative. The included:
- The Wood
- Higher Learning
- Boyz n the Hood
- Set It Off
- Waiting to Exhale
- Rosewood
- Love & Basketball
- Juice
- Poetic Justice
- Friday
- New Jack City
With the exception of New Jack, I didn't see any of these films as worth the time and started to grumble about her friend's taste in film. But I didn't say anything. You see, the second context of this reading off of film titles was that I was trying to explain to them what a big deal Tyrese Gibson (who? they said) had been back in his day. He recently squared off against Jamie Foxx in some controversy or other on Instagram. I remember taking Gibson's side. But I was trying to explain that he was all the hotness back in the day along with Morris Chestnut, Taye Diggs and the older Denzel Washington. But I couldn't remember what the popular movie was with Chestnut. (It was The Best Man)
With that concession, I recalled a few more that I started to see on a YouTube search. That was a short list of films which is something of a unique category of black film: rom-dram. Romantic Drama, which is what I think best describes Jason's Lyric and Eve's Bayou which were two smoking hot romances I recall.
Finally we got around to checking out the collection on Apple TV. Damn, it was impressive. They had about 10 different categories of black film and there had to be at least a dozen in each category. So now just this moment I'm going to give 50, 4 and 5 star films that I think are worth anybody's time and a couple others worth seeing as canonical pop, like Coming to America and Sprung.
| Fine | Black | Films |
|---|---|---|
| Glory | Daughters of the Dust | To Sleep With Anger |
| She's Gotta Have It | Malcolm X | A Soldier's Story |
| Killer of Sheep | Carmen Jones | Bird |
| Training Day | Man on Fire | Cry Freedom |
| Sankofa | Hustle & Flow | Akeelah & the Bee |
| Hoop Dreams | The Color Purple | Paris is Burning |
| Do The Right Thing | The Green Book | Amistad |
| Us | Get Out | Thelonius Monk |
| Fun | Black | Films |
|---|---|---|
| Friday | Strictly Business | Drumline |
| Boomerang | Coming to America | A Rage in Harlem |
| Django Unchained | Purple Rain | Stand By Me |
| School Daze | Set It Off | Tales from the Hood |
| New Jack City | Sorry to Bother You | Crooklyn |
| Just Another Girl on the IRT | The Defiant Ones | Jackie Brown |
While I'm at it, here are some ripe old stinkers.
- Three Brothers
- Dead Presidents
- Rosewood
I have no opinion on the following, either because I haven't seen them or I basically have no judgment
- Love & Basketball
- Love Jones
- Precious
- 12 Years a Slave
- Claudine
- Hidden Figures
- The Best Man
- The Wood
- 1 Angry Black Man
- Moonlight
- I Am Not Your Negro
- Mahogany
It also goes without saying that there are a lot of standout films starring Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Sam Jackson and Sidney Poitier that ought to be considered, but you already know that. Also I would also say that my favorite younger contemporary black film dudes are Harold Perrineau & Jeffrey Wright. Either of them could do my biopic.
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