Robert Daniels, Author at The Playlist

‘Atlanta’ Season 4 Review: The Struggle To Recapture That Surreal, Donald Glover-Led Black Comedy Magic Is Real

September 21, 2022 5:30 pm

It’s the nature of most television to lose its edge, for a series to tumble backward as new shows push the envelope further than that original series could ever envision. When star and creator Donald Glover’s ...

‘A Jazzman’s Blues’ Review: Tyler Perry Surprises With A Strong, Heartbreaking Romance [TIFF]

Robert Daniels

September 12, 2022 12:10 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

It should come as a surprise to no one that I’m not a Tyler Perry fan. For a myriad of reasons: from the inconsistent quality control, the harmful stereotypes that proliferate his movies, and the rampant misog...

‘Sidney’ Review: Reginald Hudlin’s Sidney Poitier Documentary Is A Hagiographic Disappointment [TIFF]

Robert Daniels

September 11, 2022 12:01 am

Festivals, News, Reviews

Sidney Poitier wasn’t solely a pioneer or merely among his generation’s best actors; he was a complicated, flawed human, prone to mistakes and foibles. But you wouldn’t know the depth of those flaws or how las...

‘Brother’ Review: Aaron Pierre Gives A Star-Making Statement In A Clement Virgo Gem [TIFF]

Robert Daniels

September 10, 2022 5:40 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

Two Jamaican-Canadian brothers hailing from Scarborough, a neighborhood in Toronto, look up at a soaring transmission tower. The older sibling Francis (Aaron Pierre, “The Underground Railroad”) explains to his...

‘Saint Omer’ Review: Alice Diop’s Courtroom Drama Paints A Crushing Portrait of Motherhood [TIFF]

Robert Daniels

September 9, 2022 9:48 am

Festivals, News, Reviews

On the inhospitable shores of Berck-sur-Mer, France, where the sounds of the tide mingle with a woman’s breathless running, is where Alice Diop’s narrative-feature debut “Saint Omer” begins. It is a taught, be...

‘The Inspection’ Review: Jeremy Pope Is Heartbreaking In An Otherwise Unremarkable Queer Military Drama [TIFF]

Robert Daniels

September 9, 2022 9:15 am

Festivals, News, Reviews

The sincere desires that inspired “The Inspection” — the semi-autobiographical narrative feature debut from documentary filmmaker Elegance Bratton — aren’t enough to save his film from being unexceptional. A s...

‘Mike’: Hulu’s Mike Tyson Series Starring Trevante Rhodes Could’ve Been A Contender

Robert Daniels

August 25, 2022 12:35 pm

News, Reviews, Television

When Mike Tyson (Trevante Rhodes) greets his audience out for his one-man show, he greets them as a hero and as a victim, and as a champion and a punchline — but not as a villain. His theatrical confessional, ...

‘Devil In A Blue Dress’: Carl Franklin On His Classic, Denzel Washington-Starring Noir Now On Criterion [Interview]

Robert Daniels

July 27, 2022 12:22 pm

Features, Interviews, News

For too long, writer/director Carl Franklin’s neo-noir “Devil in a Blue Dress” existed as a little-known gem. Then two Blu-ray releases through Twilight Time and Kino brought the film to a new generation of ci...

‘Spiderhead’ Review: A Delightfully Weird Chris Hemsworth Lifts Joseph Kosinski’s Dystopian Sci-Fi Thriller

Robert Daniels

June 13, 2022 10:00 am

Features, News, Reviews

Chris Hemsworth can hide so much behind a smile. Best known for his brawny role as Thor in the MCU, Hemsworth has quietly built himself a multifaceted, character-driven niche playing morally ambiguous manipula...

‘Good Girl Jane’ Review: Sarah Elizabeth Mintz’s Piercing Debut Tracks The Grooming Of A Young Teenage Girl [Tribeca]

Robert Daniels

June 12, 2022 11:18 am

Festivals, News, Reviews

Set in the Fall of 2005, Sarah Elizabeth Mintz’s piercing feature debut, “Good Girl Jane,” tracks the grooming of the title character (Rain Spencer), Jane, an outcast teenager enduring an endless summer that n...

Author Robert Daniels