Since the shit I wrote on my site about this flick was more homophobic than preferring prostate cancer to a prostate exam, I decided to give this movie the genuine review it deserved.
First tho, let me start with some full disclosure: initially, I ain’t even wanna see this shit myself.
My actual sentiment was, “Great. Some critical acclaim for a Black movie and its gotta be about some gay shit.”
Then, one day on Youtube I saw this:
I used to love the song ‘Hello Stranger‘ by Barbara Lewis back when I was a kid, back when the radio would play it during its “oldies” moments. Used to actually think the name of the shit was ‘Seems Like a Mighty Long Time’ way back when I was young enough to fantasize about what falling in love would be like. The soundtrack to the emotion and all kindsa crazy shit that kids think about when sex is kinda a fuzzy idea, and you’re probably about as much afraid of eventually having to do it as you are excited about it.
So I thought, “Shit, if they got a song this dope in the movie right, maybe they took a couple of other chances that worked.”
And yeah, they did.
Moonlight is the best film of the decade. It’s the best film, in fact, going back at least 16 years to Almost Famous which is as much of a favorite for me because I simply dug it as a flick as the fact that I’ve actually been William Miller, that young celebrity (Hip-Hop) journalist experiencing his first real assignment and feeling like everything, roadies and PR people too, is famous.
Moonlight also gets a lot of things right.
And I think that too many niggas are missing this flick because they’re on the same shit I was on and, seeing it at BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I was literally surrounded by white people and a few Black homos who seemed to go out of their way to make me feel like an interloper.
I didn’t mind the homos so much—I have experience with those people…. no, not that kinda experience, you freak, I’ve written about their movement—but the white people made me feel, well, almost indecent to be sharing with them this, well, Black movie.
There’s only one overtly gay scene and if it causes you to masturbate, we won’t judge, but moreover there are subtleties that director Barry Jenkins gets right that rocket him way past Spike Lee and Tyler Perry as far as technique and nuance are concerned.
Stuff like—and this is just a simple one—when Juan arrives on the scene, he’s playing one of his classics, ‘Every Nigger is a Star‘. Then, decades later, and after Black has effectively patterned himself after Juan, he pulls up, car tricked out the exact same way, bumping one of his classics, Goodie Mob’s ‘Cell Therapy‘.
Or the fact that after dissing wine, Kevin asks Black what he does drink and Black says simply, “Water.”
White people were probably shocked to learn that the best trappers are the “Keep your body clean” type that Juvenile rhymed about and that not everybody selling drugs is living like Caligula.
And I know I said this last year, but you fucks fucked up by running that #OscarSoWhite bullshit.
Now, if Moonlight wins all the gold that is rightfully should:
- Best Picture
- Best Director
- Best Screenplay
- Best Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali
We’ll hafta listen to assholes claim that they were all “Affirmative Action” Oscars.