Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

It’s that time again: MONTHLY FAVOURITES. Succinct favourites across my consumption of film, television and novels, as well as what I’ve been up to creatively.

FILM 🍿

One I watched relatively late in the game this month was Aaron Sorkin’s THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7. I can’t quite say if this has a little to do with the fact I was already less than enthusiastic about watching it – but I ending up really enjoying this one to the point I’m deeply recommending it to others. This American Historical Drama is about the Chicago 7 – a group of protestors who were charged with intent to incite violence during what the defendants claim was a peaceful protest against the Vietnam War. A more poignant aspect of the movie was the storyline of Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party who got roped into the same charges with no evidence.

TELEVISION 📺

LOVECRAFT COUNTRY. That’s it. That’s the tweet.

When I started this series I went in – as I mostly do – completely blind, only to find myself blindsided by the surprisingly complex layers across the series and its characters as a whole. In 1950’s America, Atticus (Jonathan Majors) comes home from the war in search of his missing father. Soon along with his Uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) and old friend Leti (Jurnee Smollett), they are on a journey where they are faced with the monsters they know and the monsters they only thought existed in science fiction novels. It’s hard to say which of the two are the bigger evil.

DOCUMENTARY OF THE MONTH 🎥

There were a plethora of shows and documentaries available on Sky in honour of Black History Month here in the UK, one I watched and enjoyed was BET HER PRESENTS: EXCEPTIONAL BLACK WOMEN. A five episode documentary that looked at the lives of a range of successful American women including Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Collete V. Smith, the first African-American NFL coach in history, and long time actress Meagan Good. I watched this on Sky and for some reason they didn’t include the sixth and final episode which looked at the life of actress Regina Hall but either way, the stories of these women inspired and lit a spark under me to achieve and succeed.

BOOK 📖

Of the three books I read this month, ROOM BY EMMA DONOGHUE stood out by a mile and a half. It took me a little while to get into this one as it was written from the perspective of a five year old, but it was told incredibly well. It’s about Jack and his Ma who live in Room where the only person they ever see from beyond Door is Old Man Nick. Ma has told Jack that everything he watches on television exists only on the television to save him from the truth – He never has a chance of experiencing real life because nobody knows where they are – let alone that he even exists.

Room was my last book of the month, and also means I have officially met my reading target of the year, +1. November is always pretty hectic for me (#NaNoWriMo2020) but I still have about five more books I’d like to try and get through before the year comes to a close.

OTHER ⌨️

On Medium this month my two standout articles have got to be Rocks: The Abyss of Cultural Divide and 5 Tips After 5 Years of NaNoWriMo. As I don’t watch Horror movies, I decided to once again use October to celebrate Black History Month in the UK through Film – via my production company Sassy Jam. I wrote a Blog Post; Inspired by Black History Month, where I focused on Black British Talent, and then over on our Twitter we did a thread of 31 movies with Black leads/cast/creators under the hashtag, BlackMovieMonth.

Find me on Twitter, Letterboxed and Medium

Roll on November