Popular reviews

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  Review by Jay ★★★½ 30

  a one, a two, dont step on his shoe

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  Review by karsten ★★★½ 32

  Chadwick's performance is seriously electrifying. Sure this has so much else to offer, but it wouldn't come close to being as enthralling as it is without him. All love to Riz, I know I just locked my prediction/pick this same week, but Chadwick has that award in the bag and it's absolutely deserved.

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  Review by demi adejuyigbe 14

  I don't think I like August Wilson very much. Maybe that's because his plays feel to me like any parody of a "black play," which is admittedly probably the snake eating its own tail and me only seeing his work after I've seen the parodies, but it's just not for me! Feels like every monologue in this movie suddenly reminded me that this was definitely a play and I couldn't help but picture characters dramatically walking to a spotlight on the edge of the proscenium. That said, I still liked this! Much more than I liked Fences!

  Viola and Chadwick are just stellar, and are both gonna deserve the nominations they get– I fully believe Chadwick would've gotten his nomination…

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  Review by James (Schaffrillas) ★★★★ 8

  I hope they cleaned that piano in the rehearsal room

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  Review by Scott Tobias ★★★½

  Perfectly fine adaptation of the play-- handsome, well-performed, beautifully written, etc. But this is Chadwick Boseman's show. The performance of a lifetime was his last.

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  Review by Ella Kemp ★★★½

  The film is one thing, Chadwick is another. The film feels a little trapped, a little incomplete – everything that's there and happens is compelling, but I wish it moved more freely and we had more time with the story of these characters. Not just them as people but the journeys they go on, the things they see. Chadwick is incandescent, ebullient one second and red-raw another. Everything is better, bigger, more alive and hopeful when he's around. We'll never stop missing him.

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  Review by Lucy ★★★ 3

  theater to film adaptations have never really been for me but what i know for sure is that viola and chadwick are absolutely sensational here, truly two of the best performances of the year that i’d be so excited to see honored at the oscars

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  Review by Gabriel Gundacker 3

  Watched at home with parents. During movies, Mother goes on Facebook and forgets we’re  watching a movie, then will turn to us and say “this is interesting — a couple in Atlanta are helping to nurse squirrels back to life!” or something and we nod or don’t nod depending on the time code. She did that once during this movie, too. Other than that, good movie!

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  Review by fran hoepfner ★★

  my brother texted me, “they should have called this Cutler’s Bad Day.” Chadwick is so special and the movie is fine.

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  Review by George Clark ★★★★ 7

  It's a sad fact that Chadwick Boseman gives arguably the best performance of his career in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Based on Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson's play, directed by George C. Wolfe and starring Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Colman Domingo, Glynn Turman, Michael Potts and Jeremy Shamos, the story follows a recording session in 1927 Chicago were tensions begin to rise between Ma Rainey, an ambitious young horn player and their management determined to control the uncontrollable "Mother of the Blues".

  The film takes place largely in two rooms, the recording studio and a dark basement where the band rehearses. For a film based off a play, it doesn’t feel stage bound at all as Wolfe finds the right…

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  Review by justmiaslife ★★★½

  what if everytime someone called ma rainey "ma" octavia spencer would show up

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  Review by john ★★★ 6

  Maybe in 2021, we can stop play-to-screen adaptations.