Every Tuesday, discriminating viewers are confronted with a flurry of choices: new releases on disc and on-demand, vintage and original movies on any number of streaming platforms, catalog titles making a splash on Blu-ray or 4K. This weekly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching. 

This week, we’ve got two late-2019 releases that didn’t get their due in the year-end mudslide, plus a sharp bio-documentary, one of the previous decade’s best action flicks, and an undervalued late-period entry from one cinema’s true masters.

Continue reading The 5 Best Movies To Buy Or Stream This Week: ‘Dark Waters,’ ‘Queen & Slim’ & More at The Playlist.

Like most actors, Michael K. Williams has a dream role. Unlike most actors, however, Williams might actually get a chance to play his. Williams has been talking about his love of jazz musician Miles Davis for years now, even describing the project as being “in production” in a 2014 interview with blackfilm.com. In that interview, the actor described the movie — or that iteration of the movie, anyways — as being called “Miles And Me” and focusing on the friendship between Davis and his biographer, Quincy Troupe Jr.

Continue reading Michael K. Williams Is Set To Play Miles Davis In An Upcoming Biopic at The Playlist.

Antoine Fuqua Says '24' Movie Is Dead, Still Waiting On The Script For Tupac Shakur Biopic

Continue reading Antoine Fuqua Says ’24’ Movie Is Dead, Still Waiting On The Script For Tupac Shakur Biopic at The Playlist.

Antoine Fuqua Will Apparently Direct Don Cheadle's Miles Davis Biopic; Hip-Hop Remix Album To Be Unveiled With Film's Release

Continue reading Antoine Fuqua Will Apparently Direct Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis Biopic; Hip-Hop Remix Album To Be Unveiled With Film’s Release at The Playlist.

Continue reading Don Cheadle’s Biopic Of Miles Davis Has A Completed Script But Is Now Waiting On Financing at The Playlist.

The actor has been kicking around the idea of a Davis biopic since 2007 and is currently working on the script with an unnamed writer. Much of what still has to go on the page though is already in Cheadle’s head.

“The story is really not… a biopic per se,” Cheadle told MTV.”It’s not attempting to be any cradle-to-grave depiction of [Miles’] life.

Continue reading Don Cheadle Talks Miles Davis Film, Says It Won’t Be A Traditional Biopic at The Playlist.

“It’s been a long time coming, but we’re working on the script right now,” the actor added. “I think it will happen. I love Miles, but you have to take everything he says with a grain of salt.

Continue reading Don Cheadle Updates On Miles Davis Biopic, Herbie Hancock To Score at The Playlist.

“I sat with the writers that came in for about three days just talking,” she very recently told the AP. “And I am waiting for a first draft.

Continue reading Aretha Franklin Not Totally Sold On The Unconventional Script Idea To Her Biopic at The Playlist.

First reported in Variety in March of 2007, there’s been little movement on what definitely seems like a passion project for Cheadle. However in November, in a piece about the up-hill difficulties in making film biopics, Variety checked in on the project and they noted interestingly enough that the project was actually the “brainchild of Davis’ estate, which very deliberately decided to expand its brand with a biopic, on the heels of the success of ‘Ray.’ “

The Davis Estate wanted him from minute one even approached the actor with the idea.

Continue reading Is The Miles David Biopic With Don Cheadle Getting A Little Closer To A Reality? Script Sounds Ready at The Playlist.

In 1958, Malle released his feature-length debut, “Ascenseur pour l’échafaud,” aka “Elevator To the Gallows” starring the startling beautiful Jeanne Moreau, who became an international star after the film and would continue working with him for years afterwards in such classics as the existential ennui blueprint, “The Fire Within” and the controversial and scandalous for its time,”The Lovers.”

Blah, blah, blah, right?

Continue reading Miles Davis’ ‘Elevator To The Gallow’ Score Is The Lonely, Rain-Soaked Musical Muse For Louis Malle at The Playlist.