Film – Destiny Delights

The Best Chris Messina Roles in Movies and Television

August 11, 2022September 3, 2022Posted in Film, Home Page Posts, TVTagged 28 Hotel Rooms, Alex of Venice, Birds of Prey, Call Jane, Chris Messina, Dreamin Wild, Ira and Abby, Jenna Fischer, Marin Ireland, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Mindy Kaling, Netflix, Rashida Jones, The Giant Mechanical Man, The Sinner, Tribeca Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Victor ZsaszLeave a comment

A loving glance under beautifully thick eyelashes here, a dash of murderous tendencies there, and a whole lot of that undisguisable raspy Long Island accent everywhere, these are just some of the components that make up a classic Chris Messina performance. Looking through the credits of Messina’s nearly three-decade career, he has an actor’s filmography equivalent best described by the phrase: “always the bridesmaid, never the bride.” And in another multiverse, Messina would already be the go-to Hollywood leading man (and Italian short king) we deserve.

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Will An NC-17 Rating For ‘Blonde’ Hurt Oscar Chances?

August 5, 2022September 3, 2022Posted in Film, Home Page Posts, Mini-ThoughtsTagged Academy Awards, Ana de Armas, Andrew Dominik, NC-17, Netflix, Oscars, Venice Film FestivalLeave a comment

Move over diamonds; it seems ratings are a girl’s best friend. No stranger to controversy since the film’s announcement in 2019, Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde,” starring Ana de Armas as the infamous actress-socialite Marylin Monroe, continues to make waves in the industry for a myriad of reasons, but none more so than its controversial NC-17 rating. As more trailers invoke hype and behind-the-scenes photos showcase an impressively high-quality production value for a Netflix joint, combined with the impeccable talents of “Knives Out” and “No Time To Die” star de Armas, it’s clear that “Blonde” has all the makings of an Oscar contender.

But will its nuanced NC-17 rating prevent it from even entering the ceremony?

Not necessarily…

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How to Build a Southern Gentleman: An Interview with ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ Star Taylor John Smith

July 19, 2022September 3, 2022Posted in Film, Home Page PostsTagged Daisy Edgar-Jones, Reese Witherspoon, Taylor John Smith, Where the Crawdad SingsLeave a comment

How long can you protect your heart, especially when all you’ve known is isolation? This is a question both figuratively and literally posed upon Kya Clark (played as a young girl by Jojo Regina and as a young woman by Daisy Edgar-Jones), who finds herself abandoned by her family in a dilapidated shack hidden deep within the marshes of North Carolina. Considered an outcast by the neighboring well-to-do and working-class town of Barkley Cove because of her ‘wild’ upbringing, Kya doesn’t have any friends. Not until Tate Walker (played as a young boy by Luke David Blumm and a young man by Taylor John Smith) comes along and teaches Kya how to read and write and to properly identify the creatures and air fowl that reside on the banks of the marsh. Where the Crawdads Sing is both a beautiful and haunting southern coming-of-age tale told using two intermingling timelines that primarily focus on how Kya learns to navigate the harsh realities of life all while accepting the complications of love in the process. And with Tate by her side, Kya seemingly cannot fail.

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Tribeca 2022: ‘My Love Affair With Marriage’ Interview with Director Signe Baumane and Actor Dagmara Dominczyk

July 19, 2022September 3, 2022Posted in Film, Home Page PostsTagged Dagamara Dominczyk, My Love Affair with Marriage, Signe Baumane, Tribeca Film FestivalLeave a comment

[originally published on Medium]

Signe Baumane’s My Love Affair with Marriage is not your standard children’s animation. Though it does feature adults spewing lessons about purity, “Be a virgin until you’re married,” or how a young girl’s sole responsibility is to find love “Marriage is your destiny. You should patiently wait, you’re not a complete person without your soulmate.” Baumane’s feature is not here to reinforce those archaic and sexist ideologies, but instead, she’s here to examine and dismantle them, almost like an anti-patriarchal Sherlock Holmes.

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‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a ‘Goddamn Haunted House’ [spoiler review]

May 12, 2022September 3, 2022Posted in Film, Home Page PostsTagged Benedict Cumberbatch, Doctor Strange, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Elizabeth Olsen, marvel, Marvel Cinematic UniverseLeave a comment

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s a witch?… and oh look! It’s also Doctor Daddy Salt-N-Pepa Strange, back at it again with the stolen sling rings and sorcery!

In what feels like the 3,000th entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially now that we’ve all got the Television Universe to worry about, the latest movie Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness at least added some good ol’ fashioned B-movie horror to the franchise. (And so you’ll have to excuse me while I make a horror-tinged comparison.) Like a haunted house, the movie is full of fun-filled surprises, genuine scares, and long dark corridors that not only the character, but the audience too, have to travel to get to the menial plot on the other side. What I’m trying to say is; that though we’ve all paid the price of admission for some twenty-odd years now, not all haunted houses are worth the price of admission. And unfortunately, the titular Multiverse lacks not in frights, entertainment, or villainy but instead coherent theming. Something akin to asking: why was the haunted house built in the first place?

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Jenifer Lewis Shines Bright at the 2022 Satellite Awards

April 24, 2022September 3, 2022Posted in Film, Mini-Thoughts, TVTagged Awards Season, Blackish, Jenifer Lewis, Satellite AwardsLeave a comment

Jenifer Lewis at the 26th Annual Satellite Awards looking good, Twitter

With a career that spans well over three decades and a personality as sharp and vibrant as a comedic actress and Black icon Jenifer Lewis — how could you not be pulled into her orbit? On Saturday, the 26th Annual Satellite Awards bestowed the actress with a special lifetime achievement award. “I want people to know that I care about the next generation,” Lewis tells The Black Cape. “I want them to know that I got the American dream — and so can they.”

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2022 Oscars Predictions: Me Running My Mouth

March 21, 2022September 3, 2022Posted in Film, Home Page PostsTagged Academy Awards, CODA, Oscars, Tick Tick BoomLeave a comment

It’s certainly felt like 94 years in the past three months since the long winding road to awards season began in January. Due to the lingering COVID-19 era setbacks; actors, studios, critics and other award shows have been running the gamut much longer than usual, and well… I know everyone has to be tired. And luckily awards season is finally coming to a close with the Oscars this upcoming Sunday, which are back in full throttle and in-person, baby! A cool side effect of the extended submission and voting period resulted in surprising nominations and egregious snubs. However, if you’re anything like me, a relatively medium-tier Oscars junkie (meaning you love awards season but aren’t good at strategy and math —just vibes), then you’ve trotted through the nominated categories and picked your favorites (or least favorites) and are ready—ballot in hand—for one of the most spectacular nights in Hollywood.

Let’s check out my predictions and probable winners for 13 of the 23 categories below.

(Don’t @ me!!!)

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“Strawberry Mansion” Sundance 2021 Review

February 3, 2021September 3, 2022Posted in Film, Home Page PostsLeave a comment

Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Tyler Davis.

If you were to drain the weird juice from Netflix’s original series “Maniac,” “Black Mirror”, extract the pulp from Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” add a dash of The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” and a scoop of hallucinogenic plot-laced bananas, you might come up with something close to “Strawberry Mansion.”

And one hell of a brain ache induced by the dizzying, genre-defying romance sci-fi film created by Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley.

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Three Best Latinx Short Films on HBO Max for Halloween 2020

October 20, 2020Posted in Film, Home Page PostsLeave a comment

Fall is undoubtedly the best time of year, well at least to me. I mean, who doesn’t love the end of summer? Seriously, if you’re one of those weirdos who like the heat and getting sand in your crotch at the beach, you can stop reading. I’ll wait. Like I said, fall is the best season. It’s a time where Pumpkin Spice Lattes are re-introduced for the white girls, Black folks like myself can start prepping for our Thanksgiving sweet potato pies, and sports junkies can start packing on the pounds with hot wings and Pabst Blue Ribbon for football, I guess? But more importantly, fall is home to my favorite holiday, Halloween. And since it coincides with National Hispanic Heritage Month, I ventured out to find which streaming services out of the four horsemen: Disney Plus, Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max. Coming in at over 20+ Hispanic/Latinx films, HBO Max was the clear winner.

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Swinging with the Finkels (2011)

March 22, 2020Posted in Film, Home Page PostsLeave a comment

2011 saw the release of the independent downtrodden comedy ‘Swinging with the Finkels’ come and go–probably because of the odd title–and then revive itself on Netflix. After months of passing it by and then flippantly adding it to my Netflix queue, I finally broke down and decided to give it a chance.

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