If Beale Street Could Talk (2019) - Movie Review

I really hate my review for Moonlight. This isn’t me at my usual self-deprecation; I genuinely don’t like how it turned out. I’ve always had a policy of utter honesty, even if it meant getting into uncomfortable shit in the process, but that review showed me at my ugliest. It’s just about the whitest thing I’ve ever written and it shows, coming across as racist at certain times. The suburban white kid-in-adult-clothing in me saw Moonlight’s incredible honesty and rawness and just didn’t know how to respond; it’s like I just read through someone’s private journal, something that is both true and something I myself wasn’t meant to see.

That’s the closest I can get to a rationale on why it turned out how it did, and I can only hope it’s something that hasn’t persisted since then. And since we’re dealing with the latest from the same writer/director, and it indeed carries that same heavy feeling I left Moonlight with, I’m hoping that this review will show that.

Moonlight (2017) - Movie Review

I digest films the same way I digest food: Quickly and without it even touching the sides. I make it a point not to toot my own horn where I can, but when I comes to films, I often pride myself in how quickly I’m able to process films as I watch them, a skill that has grown significantly over the last 7 years. With all that said, in a way, I hate films like this; there’s a reason why I mainly stick to mainstream films on this blog with the odd indie/foreign release here and there. Films of this nature go against my sort-of instant gratification approach to media, and for the first time this year, it’s a film where I am still trying to sort out my opinions on the thing as I’m writing it. So, join me on what I’m sure is going to be a long, winding and occasionally navel-gazing attempt to break this film down in my usual style.