"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"

The story told in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", the movie based upon the August Wilson's 1982 play, takes place in one day in a Chicago recording studio in 1927.  The famous Ma Rainey (Viola Davis), legendary "Mother of the Blues" has come to town to record some records accompanied by her quartet of musicians, Levee (Chadwick Boseman), Toledo, Cutler, and Slow Drag.  Only horn player Levee would like to write his own songs and arrangements, and play the music his way, "like the people in the big cities" want to hear, only Ma, a diva unlike any other, is having none of it.  

Like all great plays - and director George Wolfe films this very tightly, you can tell that this was a play - lots of exposition takes place from different characters, particularly Levee, as we learn the backstories of the characters.  Like all great dramas, this story makes you think and at times makes you uncomfortable.  I'll not say more other than tell you that the final seen is ironic and tragic at the same time.

It's a great story, but you really want to see this movie for the performances of Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman.  

Both are sure to receive Oscar nominations for their performances.  The performance of Boseman is particularly wrenching when you realize what he was dealing with and nearing the end of a years long battle with cancer.  That he could give such a performance is remarkable and a great testimony to a career and a life that ended way, way too soon.

The Grandstander gives this one Three and One-Half Stars, and will leave you with a scene from the movie...

https://youtu.be/SwkStUxtGkI

"Widows"

We had missed this highly acclaimed and highly recommended movie when it was out in the theaters late last year, so we finally caught up with it last night via Amazon Prime.  Glad we finally got to it.

Three women - Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, and Elizabeth Debicki - get caught in the crossfire of Chicago racial tensions and crooked ward politics when a heist-gone-wrong ends up in the death of their husbands and leaves them as, well, widows.  To save themselves, they have to pull off a heist themselves.  I'll spare you the details; just watch the movie.  A terrific cast also features Liam Neeson, Robert Duvall, Colin Farrell, and Daniel Kaluuya.  Consummate old pro Duvall pretty much dominates every scene that he is in.

Like a lot of heist flicks, it gets kind of murky at the end, you know, like what happened to all those bags of money, so you just have to take some of it on faith.  It is directed by Steve McQueen, who directed the Oscar winning "Twelve Years A Slave" of a few years back, and there are some terrific action scenes in it.  One of my favorite scenes, though, was a subdued one between alderman candidate Farrell and his assistant while they are driving down a street in a car, and all that you see is the outside of he car as it drives down the street.  You only hear the conversation.  Doesn't sound like much as I write this, but it's pretty neat on screen.  To me, anyway.    

The screenplay was by McQueen and Gillian Flynn, author of "Gone Girl", so the blood lines for this movie are pretty good.

Really good movie.  Three Stars from The Grandstander.