STEVE TOUSSAINT
John Boyega isn't going to 'take the money and shush'
This year, Boyega has made it clear he doesn't feel that way, that he isn’t going to bite his tongue. The five-film series is playing on the BBC in the U.K. and on Amazon Prime in the U.S.; “Red, White and Blue” will debut Dec. 4 on Amazon. In the true story, Boyega plays Leroy Logan, an aspiring research scientist who gives up the lab to join the overwhelmingly white London police force in the 1980s. “Red, White and Blue” puts Boyega front and center and wrestles with many of the social issues -- race, change, belonging -- that he is grappling with, too. Since Boyega’s comments about “Star Wars,” he’s received a supportive phone call from producer Kathleen Kennedy that Boyega has described as frank and transparent.
Steve McQueen unveils an anthology of racism and resistance
NEW YORK – In a movie year mostly lacking big, ambitious releases, Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” anthology is an unqualified main event. For the filmmaker of “Hunger,” “Shame” and “Widows,” “Small Axe” is a shattering masterwork — a compendium, both damning and celebratory, of Black resilience. The only fictional tale of the bunch, it brings to vivid, pulsating life a blues party from 1980, when young London Black people found refuge, and love, at house parties. Casting “Small Axe,” he has said, was easy because of all the untapped talent just in need of an opportunity. But if anyone expecting a neat arc to “Small Axe,” McQueen says that’s not its shape.