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Review: "Mudbound" Is a Racial Epic Tuned to Black Lives, and White Guilt

A.O. Scott New York Times
"Mudbound" is about how things change—slowly, unevenly, painfully. It is also, as the title suggests, about how things don’t change, about the stubborn forces of custom, prejudice and power that lock people in place and impede social progress. Set mainly in the Mississippi Delta in the years just after World War II, when Jim Crow was still enshrined in law and practice, the film tests and complicates Faulkner’s much-quoted claim about the not-even-pastness of the past.

film

Film Review: 'Bessie' Is the Most Honest, Revealing Biopic About a Black Woman We’ve Ever Seen

Aisha Harris Slate
Looking for a decent, memorable biopic about a black woman is like waiting for Haley’s Comet. To find one, you’d have to jump all the way back to Halle Berry’s Emmy-winning turn in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge in 1999, and before that, Angela Bassett as Tina Turner in 1993’s What’s Love Got to Do With It, and before that, Diana Ross as Billie Holiday. Dee Rees’ feature about blues legend Bessie Smith on HBO joins the ranks of those aforementioned films.
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