“Human Flow”: a film by Ai Weiwei

For a film with ‘flow’ in its title, the only surprise in this superlative documentary is that the most powerful images are those of stillness. An old refugee woman sits incongruously on a bench in the middle of nowhere. A young man stares out at us, daring us to enter his life. The implacable sea,…

“You can DO this, T’Challa!” The Hollywoodization of African speech in Black Panther

Black Panther is a massive box office success and a good movie. I liked the fact that the cast is predominantly black and that the plot deals with major issues: racism, colonialism, and one of today’s thorniest topics: isolationism versus open borders. Oh, and the film is a lot of fun, too. Joe Robert Cole and…