Portside

First Man is a paean to American greatness. It does include a montage of protesters demanding that the money on NASA be spent to help the poor and hungry, set to Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey on the Moon”. That might have been a good title for the film.

Actress Stenberg lives up to her promise in a hard-hitting adaptation of Angie Thomas’ bestselling YA novel about a police shooting and racial strife.

Confronting Steve Bannon in a cold, empty room for the duration of an unsettling portrait, Morris presses the alt-right icon to justify the racist ideology behind the machinations that propelled Donald Trump to the White House.

Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs teamed up with lifelong friend Rafael Casal for a rhythmic, funny, earnest take on their native Oakland.

Where Hands Touch focuses so much on the idea that love can traverse any boundary that it forgets there’s no love strong enough to bridge a genocide.

Farenheit 11/9's strongest sections cede the floor to the progressive activists and insurgent political figures whom he paints as the country’s best, and perhaps last, hope for salvation.

O’Dell was a close, crucial adviser to Dr. King. The axe nevertheless fell with demands on King to drop this trusted adviser. Speaking softly, O'Dell minces no words about the role of anti-communism then, how much it cost him and the Black movement.

What Danny Glover wants that “White voice” to tell us and how we’ve gotten the American Dream so wrong.

BlacKkKlansman is a furious, funny, blunt and brilliant confrontation with the truth. It’s an alarm clock ringing in the midst of a historical nightmare, and also a symphony, the rare piece of political popular art that works in all three dimensions.

For Asian and Asian-American viewers, "Crazy Rich Asians" which opens on Aug. 15, is important not just as something of a cinematic Halley’s comet — before “Joy Luck Club” in 1993, there was “Flower Drum Song” in 1961, and now what?