Regina King’s ‘One Night in Miami,’ for the most part, happens on the night of Feb 25, 1964. Cassius Clay isn’t Muhammad Ali just yet, and he has just became the Heavyweight Champion of the World from Sonny Liston. Sam Cooke has just flopped at the Copacabana in New York City, and Jim Brown is contemplating leaving his football career behind because of what he feels as exploitation of black players. And Malcom X is Malcom X. the film is an adaptation of Kemp Powers’ play of the imagined conversation between the two legends inside a motel room on that fateful night.

And most of the time, it feels like a play (that’s not a complaint here) King is an actor, so she gets great performances from all the actors, but for some reason Leslie Odom Jr. (of ‘Hamilton fame) stood out for me. I have to say that the film felt just a little claustrophobic for me, and I wish King had opened it up more. I think maybe the performances were at times too intense? I also have to admit I am not the biggest fan of these four legends. i respect them as legends, surely, but I am not enough of a football or boxing fan to feel terribly excited. But on this Martin Luther King Jr weekend, I give them all props.

I don’t know how I ended up watching ‘Mr Mayor’ on Hulu – It was suggested to me, and I just pressed play, not knowing anything about it. Well, it turns out it stars Ted Danson (ok, I guess) and the show was produced by Tina Frey and Robert Carlock (yay)

The premise of the show is ‘novel,’ if it were 2013, I guess. A businessman runs for mayor of Los Angeles… and wins! (He only did it to impress his teenage daughter) And of course, he surrounds himself with ‘wacky’ incompetent characters, a la Veep. Holly Hunter plays his nemeses, an ultra-progressive who he makes deputy mayor.

The pilot wasn’t really that funny (is it me, or are pilots mostly horrible?) But I have to admit I laughed somewhat on the second episode, where the mayor goes to events stoned. I think the show has a lot of potential, if the characters are given enough room to breathe and develop. I sometimes have long stressful days where I want to watch something light, and this show just might do that trick.

This is how I described Hulu’s ‘The Ultimate Playlist of Noise.’ – Imagine is Amazon’s ‘The Sound of Metal’ was produced by Netlix, and more specifically Netflix’s teen universe (except that if Netflix did this, it probably would have starred Noah Centineo)

The film is about a teenager, (Keann Johnson) who learns that because of a tumor, he will have to lose his hearing. So in order to prepare for it, he goes on a quest to record noises (bowling pins hitting, fireworks, etc) and go on some kind of road trip to accomplish this. He embarks on this with a young woman he falls for, and there is a back story of how, when he was a kid, he was rescued from a fire by his older brother, who perished from it.

There’s a lot to unpack there, but the approach is YA, so most of this is easy to digest. It helps that Johnson is a good actor, so it all goes down easy. But a lot of it is mindless, and the road trip part felt very formulaic for me. But the last part packs a lot of heart, so this isn’t as worthless as you would initially deem it to be. You could do worse.

I have a friend who despises Frances McDormand. I think his beef with her is over a style issue – McDormand doesn’t really come off as the fashionable sort, and when she attends events such as Oscars, he finds her appearance lacking, or in his words, ‘disrespectful.’  Though I admit to agreeing with him on that front, she is also not my favorite when it comes to acting – her style strikes me as overly technical, every tic and word rehearsed. But she has won two Academy Awards so what do I know? She is in almost every frame in Chloe Zhao’s ‘Nomadland,’ and I think here she gives a masterful performance and is the heart and soul of a movie that is chock full of heart and soul.

I didn’t think I would like this film when I first heard about it. I didn’t know if a movie about nomads would hold my interest. But surely the film is much more than that. It’s a meditation on loneliness, of freedom, of what to do when you don’t know what to do next. Fern lost her husband, her home, and everything else she has known and seeks to find meaning in the open road. And the film isn’t really about what she finds – it’s about the acceptance of the choices you make based on the situations you are in. As Fern, McDormand gives an open-eyed weariness and vulnerability that will capture you. She learns more about herself in each interaction she has with people on the road. When she strikes a connection with someone you think will give her stability, the film doesn’t give you tropes, it challenges you in where it takes the story.This film has won the top prize in Venice and Toronto film festivals, and I surmise more forthcoming. It’s the perfect film for the times we live in – it offers insight on all the uncertainties we are experiencing in the world today. It doesn’t give us answers, it gives us a path to a road to it.