Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)

You may think I prioritized this new Netflix release because it's popular right now and/or because it has the final role of the late Chadwick Boseman. In truth, I hadn't known about the casting. No, the main reason is that I was familiar with the title among plays and have been rather missing live theater this year. It hardly matters that I saw another August Wilson adaptation produced by Denzel Washington half a year ago.

In summer 1927, real-life singer Gertrude "Ma" Rainey (Viola Davis) and four instrumentalists gradually assemble at a Chicago recording studio to make a blues album. This is not as uneventful as it sounds. Ma is in full diva mode, upstart trumpeter Levee (Boseman) is possibly even more annoying in his cockiness, the ceiling fan doesn't work, and they are all keenly aware that social conditions aren't great for Black people even up north. Studio owner Mel (Jonny Coyne) and manager Irvin (Jeremy Shamos) show no overt racism or rudeness, unlike the glaring bystanders outside, but you can bet they'd pay White performers better and put them in a more comfortable room.

Get on Up (2014)

Having just arranged to see Ain't Too Proud on stage next month, I was in the mood for another musician biography in the meantime. On a whim, I went to the library and picked this out. I knew that it had a somewhat lower IMDb score than anticipated, but with Chadwick Boseman as James Brown, how bad could it be?

Like probably most viewers, I knew Brown's music better than his life. This telling goes from his ill-treated, impoverished preadolescence in 1939 to his aging stardom in 1993, so we miss the one scandal I already knew of: his 2004 arrest for domestic abuse. In truth, we miss a lot of details, which is the most common complaint about the film. But it would take far too many hours to cover every item of interest pertaining to this larger-than-life figure, so I for one am content to get an incomplete yet duly varied picture. And the inaccuracies noted so far on IMDb aren't too important.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

It's finally happened: My dad has had his fill of superhero movies, for now at least. Black Panther was only two months ago, after all. I think it's just as well that he didn't come to this one, partly because it's hard to sit through 150+ minutes without a break (I barely made it myself -- good thing the credits ran long enough to let me catch the scene afterward) and partly because he doesn't retain as much memory of prior Marvel Cinematic Universe entries as I do. This one does hark back to several.

Previously lurking in the periphery of the series was brawny alien Thanos (Josh Brolin), now all the more powerful for having acquired one of the six artifacts known as Infinity Stones. Some Guardians of the Galaxy already had the misfortune of knowing him, but only when he defeats the Asgardians at the start of this movie do any of the (ex-)Avengers learn of him. He's out for more Stones, two of them on Earth, and plans to use them to kill half the universe, not counting the many people he and his army have already killed. Thus, Earth's mightiest heroes reluctantly put aside their Civil War rift to combat him, while the Guardians respond belatedly to Asgard's distress signal. I think the only living MCU action heroes who don't play a part this time are Hawkeye and Ant-Man, off on some other business and presumably out of contact.

Black Panther (2018)

Two years ago, I would've had reservations about an adaptation of a character who clearly came out of the blaxploitation era. Thankfully, not only did his screen debut in Captain America: Civil War show how promisingly cool he was, but TV's Luke Cage reassured me that Marvel blaxploitation could avoid looking like old-fashioned moderate racism.

Although Prince T'Challa of Wakanda (Chadwick Boseman) had already donned the royal stylized catsuit, only in this movie does he officially become king and take the Black Panther title, along with a substance that enhances his physical abilities. Soon afterward, he learns of a murderous international museum heist that put secret Wakandan technology in the hands of smuggler Klaw (a hammy Andy Serkis), and he assembles a team to recover it at a rendezvous intended for a black-market sale. Naturally, a mere illegitimate businessman could hardly be the main villain in a work like this; he has a temporary partner with a vision for the global future....

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

The comic book adaptations have been coming fast and furious, but this is the first 2016 entry I've seen. What can I say? My dad didn't feel like joining me for Deadpool, and the reviews for Batman v. Superman and X-Men: Apocalypse have been worryingly mixed. For this reason, I'm in no good position to compare CA:CW to BvS, and maybe that's just as well.

I had heard before that the theme of the infighting concerned new legislation that would put the Avengers under UN oversight, with Captain America leading the antis and Iron Man leading the pros. (Only Thor and the Hulk are sitting this one out.) But that conflict is rather incidental to the real reason: Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. the Winter Soldier, formerly Hydra's greatest brainwashed assassin, is the #1 suspect in a subsequent UN bombing. Cap wants to give his old friend Bucky more of a chance than the conventional authorities would. There's actually a third side: Newly minted hero Black Panther, wishing to avenge his father, would rather kill Bucky than let him get arrested. As it turns out, vengeance is a bit of a running theme....