Kimberly Lawrence

The one star is for the technological advances allowing for the beautiful cinematography of the water scenery and landscapes…. that you ultimately couldn’t enjoy bc this was essentially a war movie. There was nothing pleasant or good about this movie. Why they decided to release it during the holidays under the guise of it being a family film is beyond me. There was so much death and destruction…killing/wounding of animals and people. You kept thinking things would eventually get better in the end but the movie devolved into something worse. My daughter literally cried from the obscenely loud war scenes. I have PTSD from actually deploying to a war zone and had I known this is what the majority of this movie was about I would have happily skipped it. Without giving anything away, this movie left my daughter and I nervously and uncomfortably anxious, upset and emotional. This is not a movie you want to bring children to. We literally came home in silence and put the Christmas channel on and watched 2 mindlessly happy movies to get this movie out of our system. Awful, awful movie.

Awful. The extra star was for the fabulous wigs. Couple of things you should know... 1) This story is, obviously, told from Wendy’s perspective. It’s interesting to see how she views herself. As a native NYer who remembers this time vividly, Wendy was always messy and not very well put together, stylishly. 2) This movie glossed over huge scandals she created in an effort to make a name for herself. 3) This movie targets her National tv fan base. Anyone that was around in the late 80’s, early 90’s in NY knows what was going on with her and this movie addresses nothing. That being said, Wendy is a successful hustler business wise and a sexual assault survivor and that is to be commended. She kicked her drug habit and was subjected to horrendous body shaming by her own family. I get it. It’s therapeutic to tell her story but her story should have been a miniseries to tell the whole interesting truth. * Side note: Why does the actress playing Wendy sound like Margo Robie in Suicide Squad?! That sounds nothing like Wendy and wasn’t a NY/ NJ accent. So distracting.

Riveting, thought provoking, heavy foreboding! A true triumph for Regina King! I felt the desperation, sadness, disappointment in the Nation of Islam, particularly Elijah Mohammed and silent plea for help in Kingsley Ben-Adir’s portrayal of Malcom X. It wasn’t so much a stark difference to Denzel Washington’s masterpiece performance but a nuanced look at how he might have been feeling towards the end of his life. Bravo!

This series is a travesty. The wigs, the acting, the flippant way they portray the mom and more importantly the actress looks about as much as Selena as Zoe Saldana looked like Nina Simone. Nothing against the actress but Selena was a healthy type of curvy. This actress is on the thinner side. It’s just really, really bad.