, on the other hand, isn’t interested in history at large. Instead, Peoples’ debut focuses on the personal history of Turquoise Jones , a single mother who used to hold the local beauty pageant crown of, named after the day when the last slaves, in Texas, learned they were free months after the Civil War. Now, one teenager named Kai later, Turquoise wants her daughter to follow in her footsteps while doing more with the pageant’s scholarship-to-any-HBCU prize that she did.
Of the many terms a cineaste could use to describe a Spike Lee joint, be it one of his best or one of his worst, subtle likely wouldn’t be among them. As is the case with Da 5 Bloods , which follows four combat veterans — played by Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and Norm Lewis, all outstanding — as they return to Vietnam decades after the war. Ostensibly, they’re there to recover the remains of their fallen squad leader . Truthfully, they’re on a hunt for the fortune in gold they found in a downed CIA plane and then buried before rotating home.
Worth the watch