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Showing posts from September, 2021

#1107: PARKS, Gordon: The Learning Tree (1969)

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PARKS, Gordon (United States) The Learning Tree [1969] Spine #1107 Blu-ray With this tender and clear-eyed coming-of-age odyssey, the renowned photographer turned filmmaker Gordon Parks not only became the first Black American director to make a Hollywood studio film, he also served as writer, producer, and composer, resulting in a deeply personal artistic achievement. Based on Parks’s own semi-autobiographical novel,  The Learning Tree  follows the journey of Newt Winger (Kyle Johnson), a teenage descendant of Exodusters growing up in rural Kansas in the 1920s, as he experiences the bittersweet flowering of first love, finds his relationship with a close friend tested, and navigates the injustices embedded within a racist legal and educational system. Exquisitely capturing the bucolic splendor of its heartland setting, this landmark film tempers nostalgia with an incisive understanding of the harsh realities, hard-won lessons, and often wrenching moral choices that shape the road to

#1106: KING, Regina: One Night in Miami . . . (2020)

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KING, Regina (United States) One Night In Miami . . . [2020] Spine #1106 Blu-ray Adapted by Kemp Powers from his acclaimed play, the feature directorial debut of Academy Award–winning actor Regina King puts viewers in a room with four icons at the forefront of Black American culture as they carouse, clash, bare their souls, and grapple with their places within the sweeping change of the civil rights movement. February 25, 1964, has gone down in history as the day that the brash young boxer Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) defeated Sonny Liston, but what happened after the fight was perhaps even more incredible: Ali, civil rights leader Malcolm X, NFL great Jim Brown, and “King of Soul” Sam Cooke all came together at a Miami motel. Electric with big ideas and activist spirit,  One Night in Miami . . .  plunges us into the midst of an intimate, ongoing conversation—and a defining moment in American history. 114 minutes Color 5.1 Surround 2:39:1 aspect ratio Criterion Relea