Throwback Post: It's a Movie Roundup!

For the past few weekends I've been really lazy and that's given me an excuse to watch a few movies that I either hadn't seen before or just came out. So here's to the entertainment that's made me laugh, cry, and shout!

First up is A Thousand and One on Prime. I'd read a few reviews on Twitter talking about how incredible Teyana is in this film. I never knew what it was about, just that she was in it. To my surprise Will Catlett was also in the film. I've already mentioned how happy I am to see him in movies when I saw him 10 years ago in web series grinding it out in LA. But to stay on task, A Thousand and One takes place in Brooklyn and Harlem, New York where Inez, a woman fresh out of prison, hustles her way back to stability while caring for a young boy, Terry. The movie goes through a few time jumps where we watch Terry age, experience loss and seeing gentrification happening. The meat and potatoes of this movie is between Inez and Terry though, mother and son. I think it's safe to say that similar to real life, they challenged each other through this film  to be better. The bomb that was dropped at the end is still what has me gagged personally because the ending left left open to me. Will there be a part 2 to this?? I must know what happens to Terry and Inez with her always perfect French tipped nails after the last scene.

Sitting in Bars with Cake on Prime was a movie I was interested in because of Yara Shahidi. For some reason I feel like she's always playing the same role even if the characters are different. I just always seem to see her as Zoey from Blackish and that might just be my fault, but this movie here was about friendship. To be honest this movie was almost exactly like the "In Five Years" book I read in February. A story of childhood friends, one with a slightly controlling family and the other who's a bit more...kooky. They're in their twenties just starting their careers in LA and like most in their twenties they're on the prowl! The idea comes about to go the bars with cake in hopes to meet men! And meet them they do. A makeout sesh here, a dick pic there, just loads of time being had! As the story progresses an...emergency halts the cakebarring mission. To put it plainly I sobbed in the last hour to 30 mins of this movie. Especially knowing it was based off a true story. All I can say is if you're in need of a good cry, go ahead and turn this on.

Hopping on over to Hulu for a second, the thumbnail for Rye Lane caught my eye while on the site because it was giving Juno but with black people, but it wasn't enough to stop and see if I was right. Thanks to the Twitter girlies I read it was a "really cute romcom" which was great because I needed something to cleanse my palette from Sitting in Bars with Cake. Rye Lane takes place with the innits across the pond! Starting out at an art gallery for a friends showing,  Dom is crying in a bathroom stall because of a breakup. What an opener! This is also where Dom and Yas meet. From there have a day filled with lots of laughter and a little payback. I usually don't like movies from London, but this one had me cheesing by the end of it!! I love a good love story and to see 2 dark skinned people starring in said love story?? Baby, I ate it up! More of these very cute and probably never-gonna-happen-in-real-life stories please.

I was going to stop there, but I should mention that I also saw The Burial with Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones and as a Floridian, I was shocked to have not heard of Willie Gary until this weekend. I called my mom after watching and apparently she knew a few people who had used his services. I'm not going to spend much time on this film because I'm almost positive the awards are already being made as we speak. Just an excellent performance from the entire cast. Jurnee Smollett? ACTED DOWN! Alan Ruck? ACTED DOWN! Mamoudou Athie, Pamela Reed, Jurors number 1-10??? ACTING!!!!! And to think I was mad that I was about to spend 2 hours on a movie just because I wanted to see Jaime in a new film, but it was 2 hours well spent do you hear me??

Welp, that's all for now...byeee!