travishouze

Jesus is King's success for you will solely depend on your honest views of Kanye West himself as the film leans on both sides of praise as well as criticism.

If you like Kanye for his visual presentation, Jesus is King will satisfy that need. There are some stunning wide shots of the Sunday Service group within the art installation Rodden Crater. The choir as well sound amazing together and the IMAX format makes you feel the echoes of the acoustics of where they recorded.

If you don't like Kanye and find his work pretentious with no reason behind it, Jesus is King won't change your mind either. The film lacks any real backstory of Kanye's train of thought in the film, which is severely needed in this era of his. There are many shots that feel like it's leading to a larger narrative, but ultimately don't go anywhere.

Whichever way you may swing with Kanye, it's still worth a watch in IMAX. Maybe you will feel the praise or maybe you won't. It's all open to you as the viewer.

Canal Street

While Canal Street boasts the hope for the audience to look beyond racial views, instead shoves it in your face harder than snowplow. It's a shame since in the age of films like The Hate U Give, BlacKkKlansman and other groundbreaking films like this in 2018, Canal Street lacks any of the emotional weight to hang onto.

The film tells the story of a young black male named Kholi who recently moved to the neighborhood and befriends another male named Brian. After dropping Brian off from a party, he was found dead in the middle of the street and Kholi standing over his body. Then the world will find out in a highly publicized case will another black male fall under the court's decision.

While the inclusion of having well-known radio DJ's sharing their opinions brings a sense of realism to the film, it becomes too repetitive as it cuts back and forth constantly throughout the film.

The biggest problem I have with the film lays with the reveal of how everything came to happen to Brian. When we find out who does it, not only is it very unsatisfying and left me with the belief that none of the characters learned or grew from the situation. There was no changes or growth in the development of how characters see one another.

Canal Street boasts a star-studded cast but doesn't really challenge them as it should have. Nothing was learned, nothing was emotionally felt outside of the status quo and nothing left to say after seeing the movie.

Rating: 2.8 / 10

There are a few bands I look back and wished I had the opportunity to see perform live, and Queen is one of them. While I haven't yet journeyed into the deep cuts of their music, I did find myself impressed with what I head from Another One Bites the Dust and Under Pressure. So I was pretty excited to see a Queen biopic, but I found myself complaining about the same things I did about All Eyez on Me. It gets the performances and highlights, but severely lacks connective tissue.

Where the film excels is Rami Malek giving a very solid performance is Freddie Mercury and giving an extremely thrilling finale at their iconic Live Aid performance (which is worth the price of admission alone). The problem the film doesn't develop the other band members at all or even the creative process. And while the film addresses Freddie Mercury's private relationships with men, I feel the movie plays it almost entirely sexually driven and hedonistic with no real thread of intimacy.

Bohemian Rhapsody has some thrills, but ends up being a major disappointment for me as a whole. While it's great to hear Queen's songs on display, it gives little to no context and is quick to move on from the song before the chorus. I just wished the movie rocked as much as the movie did.