Tag: Jharrel Jerome

Another week, and surprisingly, another new movie review.

Selah and the Spades I don’t believe was negatively impacted by the theaters going down. I didn’t hear about it until that started, but when I first heard the news, it was only to hear that it was being released on Amazon Prime instead of theaters, on April 17th.

This is not a film that you have heard of before likely, with a mostly unknown cast. It does have Jharrel Jerome as a supporting role, and he made waves last year starring as Korey Wise in When They See Us last year. You know, the kid who got screwed over the most.

And all of that has nothing to do with this movie!

There is a lot of fierce power in that chair.Selah (Lovie Simone) is a strong woman, a senior in high school. She goes to an elite boarding school in Pennsylvania, where most of the citizens are from wealthy families looking for a leg up into college. Other bright minds get in through scholarships and grants. Selah comes from an overachieving household, her mom wants her to go to her former school, and to load up on the best classes, the best grades, no matter what.

The school also has their own hidden clubs. They handle some of them ore illicit activities, like distracting the admin, holding parties, etc. Selah? She is the lead of The Spades group, who handle the illegal drugs and alcohol on campus. They do all of the deals, get the product, make the money. They split responsibilities and have council meetings to work together so that no more “wars” take place on campus, which usually lead to many expulsions, or worse.

When Paloma (Celeste O’Connor) comes to campus mid year, she is seen as a promising student who can join in their creepy club games, but Selah definitely takes a liking to her. Selah is strong, but hates having those under her excel. It is hard for her to trust, and she doesn’t have a backup to take over when she leaves. It is time for the grooming, and for her to sink or swim.

Also starring Jharrel Jerome, Ana Mulvoy Ten, Jesse Williams, Nekhebet Kum Juch, Francesca Noel, and Henry Hunter Hall.

This rock rocks. 

Selah and the Spades, on one hand, is another clique teenage film. I mean, these cliques don’t circulate the entirety of the campus (although, cliques are usually small anyways). It is a boarding school, so it can pretend to be like a college film with more underage problems. The cliques have cute names!

But here are some difference.

There is one very strong scene early on where the Selah and the other cheerleaders are talking to the camera, breaking the wall, about being strong women and it was really really good. It seemingly came out of nowhere, but it had important messages that needed to be discussed.

We do also have a predominately more person of color than most school clique films. Yes, they are all for most of history super white. It is great to see representation, even if this representation for the most part still talks about people with privileged.

I really enjoyed Simone in the lead role hear. Selah is not a one dimensional character at all. She is more than a strong woman. She has fears, she has definite trust issues, and definite weakness. I definitely sort of hated her at points, and it is great to realize she is in no way the hero of the story. O’Connor comes in and gives a very great performance opposite of Simone’s, that newcomer feel while also knowing full and well who she is at the same time.

Overall, Salah and the Spades gives us a unique perspective on a tired clique, and falls firmly in a drama category to tell a serious story. It reminds me in a bit of Dear White People, due to topics only, because in terms of genre and goals, they are very wide apart.

3 out of 4.

Shit, did you read my 6 Balloons review? I just had an introduction that would work for this film as well, First Match.

Except First Match came out a couple months ago on Netflix, while 6 Balloons was only a couple weeks ago. And for First Match, I actually watched it right when it came out on Netflix.

So why the late review? Eh. I forgot. And it got pushed back week after week after week. Another movie I watched the same day. I haven’t even wrote that review yet either, so that one might take another few weeks!

Don’t let any of that deter from this review. Unless I get some details wrong. Then blame it on memory loss because I am old as fuck.

I am pretty sure they are not in the same weight class.

Monique (Elvire Emanuelle) is a problem girl, but really, is it her fault? She is living in a foster home with a foster mom (Kim Ramirez), but she gets moved around a lot. Because of her own problems, because of her temporary homes, and because of her parents messing up her life and getting involved in crime.

She has her issues of course, but she is coming around. For example, her sudden interest in the school wrestling team. She feels like she can fight, so why not put it to a different skill set. They don’t have a woman’s wrestling team, so as long as she can tough it out, she would have to wrestle the boys.

None of this has to do with her father coming back into her life of course. Her dad (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) was a wrestler, and she is saying he is her coach, but won’t show up to her games and doesn’t want to take her back into his home. Maybe if she wrestles real good, she can win his heart as well?

Or maybe he will just use her like she is always used.

Starring Colman Domingo, Jared Kemp, and Jharrel Jerome.

This school is different from the East Compton Clovers, but close.

First Match is not a movie made for people like me to relate to or to necessarily enjoy, but to see a different sort of culture and view in the US. Lower socioeconomic class films are pretty common, but they always feel like sort of fantasies at time, and rarely have an extremely realistic portrayal. First Match probably is extremely realistic.

I don’t recall a lot about this film after a couple of months (my bad!). I do remember that this is the rating I picked, probably due to its slower moments, and a bit more of a lackluster ending than I would have liked.

But again, going for realism doesn’t always mean it will be very entertaining.

It is okay acted, an okay story, but not one that will change my own life in any meaningful way.

2 out of 4.

The only reason I am late on seeing the film Moonlight is mostly out of confusion. I was definitely invited to a pre-screening, it looked good to me, but then the date kept getting changed around, so it got lost in the shuffle.

I also thought I had to choose between Moonlight and Doctor Strange, and I have to go for the giant blockbuster a lot of those times. Especially if the blockbuster is something I have been wanting to see for years.

Another fun fact about Moonlight is that two of the stars in this film were also in big roles in Hidden Figures. That on its own isn’t weird, it is just amusing given the subject matter of this movie, compared to Hidden Figures, a PG Disney real life film.

Enough mindless stalling, lets get on to the crack.

No no no, I said crack, not smack.

Moonlight is broken into three parts of a Chiron’s life. We have 9 year old Chiron, or Little (Alex R. Hibbert), teenage Chiron (Ashton Sanders), and adult Chiron, now going by Black (Trevante Rhodes). It takes place in a lower class area of Miami, not Chicago which I assumed, allowing the film to make a lot more sense.

When Chiron was growing up, he was picked on a lot for his size (See: Nickname of Little). He didn’t like going home to his mom (Naomie Harris), who doesn’t care for him and is getting into drugs herself. By accident he runs into Juan (Mahershala Ali), who decides to give him a meal, since he finds a frightened boy who wont talk and is lost. He even gets to spend the night and meet his wife (Janelle Monáe). And yes, Juan is a big time crack dealer.

When he is a teenager, Chiron gets bullied (by Patrick Decile) a lot more, which leads to a rougher home life. He only has one friend his age, Kevin (Jaden Piner, Jharrel Jerome, André Holland), and their relationship is a very close one.

Needless to say, Moonlight is a story examining the choices in a man’s life. What led him to his decisions, how those decisions affected him later down the line, and the internal struggles he had to deal with mostly on his own.

The good news is he turned into a not so little adult.

Moonlight is certainly a hard movie to talk about, for those easily distracted they will watch it and assume not a lot actually happened. There are longer shots, there are long moments of silence, there are only a few characters, and so on. But what drives Moonlight is how deep it gets into our main character, how much it shows through his face and through his surroundings.

The themes that Moonlight explored I certainly didn’t expect, as they didn’t really explain a lot in the IMDB synopsis, so I will avoid going into explicit detail. But part of the plot is not just growing up in an emotionally abusive household, where the nicest people in your life deal drugs. It is also exploring his sexuality, figuring out how to be true to himself, and deal with issues in his own way.

All three Chiron’s give deep, personal performances. It is strange how three different people can feel so connected. But it works.

Moonlight feels like a dream at some point, branching out into some Terrence Malick territory. Nothing too out there, but visually it was unexpected given what many might just assume is another “gang/drug” adolescent movie.

Basically what I am getting at is that Moonlight is full of surprises. It defies the genre you think it will play into, and it gives a few powerful but subtle performances.

4 out of 4.