- Apple TV’s “Sugar” Reaches for the Stars in Grounded, Moving Second Season (June 19, 2026)
Even if you haven’t watched season one of Apple TV’s “Sugar,” you probably already know about its wacky end-of-season plot twist. Debuting in 2024, the series focuses on private investigator John Sugar (Colin Farrell), who specializes in missing-persons cases, inspired by his sister, who went missing years earlier. No matter the particulars of the case, Sugar remains driven by the anguish of not knowing what happened to her, diving headfirst into the dangers of Los Angeles’ slick city streets.
But John Sugar isn’t your ordinary detective; he’s not human at all. The man’s true self takes the form of a blue-skinned alien, and he has been sent to Earth to study and observe humanity. This twist alienated some, and engaged others—like myself—who saw it as a bold swing in a television landscape that in 2024 felt more lackluster than it does today. Once it was revealed, the eight-episode first season took on a whole new dimension, and the series continues to reach for the stars as Sugar finds himself on the hunt for Ji Moon (Raymond Lee), another victim of the promises of America’s most notorious city.
Initially dismissed as a drug-fueled binge, Sugar is hired by Ji’s up-and-coming boxer brother, Danny (Jin Ha). As Sugar plunges deeper into the dark recesses of Ji’s community, he discovers that while hiding out in a hospital after stealing drugs, the man witnessed a murder, prompting his hasty disappearance. As the threads of this case come together, and Sugar and Danny desperately try to locate Ji, our protagonist becomes exposed to the abject apathy of modern humanity. While worrying over how embedded he has become in this case, Sugar asks himself, and the audience, “If I walk away, who helps them?”
The group in question expands from Ji and Danny to LA’s homeless population, both of whom Sugar can’t seem to stray away from. Sugar is someone who spends his time fascinated by classical Hollywood cinema, with these films serving as his means of understanding Earth and the people who inhabit it. But what Sugar still doesn’t seem to get about the country he resides in is that it is wholly corrupt, and one that seldom ever changes for the better. His love for Earth and its inhabitants often leads him to act with his heart rather than his brain, putting himself and his newfound friends in danger.
This is where the season begins to take shape as a more refined and bolder version of the show that premiered in 2024. Each step Sugar takes threatens his safety, allowing the season to ramp up its stakes and take on the shape of an actual noir rather than a show that focuses on a man playing at one. The editing and pacing of the first couple of episodes may feel frenetic, but as we go back and forth between the past and present, the story that shapes up in season two is one of this year’s most engaging. Although there are points where the pacing wanes, resulting in some episodes that slog along, the majority of season two is a meaningful examination of loneliness in the modern age.
Sugar’s fascination with humanity stems from deep isolation, and by exploring this, season two exposes how fundamentally lonely modern life is. The characters he connects with this season are all broken people society has discarded, and while trying to protect them, he finds some satisfaction, yet he still longs to make these connections deeper. As he contextualizes relationships like sibling bonds and social activities like clubbing through movie scenes that flicker from his brain onto the screen, he slowly begins to open up and, in doing so, becomes one of the most interesting protagonists on television this spring.
Thankfully, this time around, the people whose lives he gets wrapped up in are just as fascinating as him, from the brothers he’s desperate to reunite, to his new partner in crime, Val (Sasha Calle). What makes this season stand out is new showrunner Sam Catlin’s understanding of what season one lacked, and his willingness to restructure this series plot structure as well as its character work. “Sugar” has proven itself not to be a detective drama driven by the wacky origins of its protagonist. Instead, it’s an exploration of how we can retain our humanity in an age when the powers that be seem so desperate to strip each of us of it.
All episodes were screened for review.
- Uncomfortable Truths: “Set It Off,” “Girl 6,” and “Naked Acts” at 30 (June 19, 2026)
By 1995, Black cinema had once again taken a foothold in mainstream culture. Young Black directors like John Singleton, Spike Lee, The Hughes Brothers, Ernest R. Dickerson, Doug McHenry, Reginald Hudlin, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Rusty Cundieff and Matty Rich had all made successful films with Black casts, telling a variety of Black stories across multiple genres. There were the gritty coming of age films like “Juice,” “Menace II Society” and “Boyz N The Hood”; comedies like “Boomerang,” “A Low Down Dirty Shame” and “Fear of a Black Hat”; horror films (“Tales From the Hood”), (“Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight”) and even romance (“Jason’s Lyric”).
At that point, auteur director Spike Lee was already in a class of his own, with a larger filmography than any of his peers, telling stories across different genres, sometimes even set in different decades. That year, Lee released the crime drama “Clockers,” based on the novel of the same name by Richard Price, to some critical acclaim. A few months earlier, music video director F. Gary Gray made the jump to feature filmmaking, adapting Ice Cube and DJ Pooh’s screenplay “Friday” for the big screen, which led to a surprise box-office success.
But despite this exciting time for Black film, few narratives centered on the lives and experiences of Black women. By that point, Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple” was a decade-old curiosity marred in controversy, despite its massive critical acclaim. The film, based on the Alice Walker novel of the same name, was one of the first mainstream American films to focus entirely on the lives of Black women. The first known feature film directed by a Black woman was Kathleen Collins’s “Losing Ground” (1982), but it was never given a theatrical release.
In the years since, Black female directors like Julie Dash (“Daughters of the Dust”) and Leslie Harris (“Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.”) saw modest success for their work, their films were overshadowed critically and financially by the work of their male peers. Director Ayoka Chenzira self-funded her debut feature, “Alma’s Rainbow,” in 1994, but the film never reached theaters. This would become a recognizable pattern in the male-driven Black cinematic landscape—films by Black men got their time in the sun fairly quickly, while Black women’s work barely registered outside film festivals, awaiting reassessment in the years to come by thoughtful critics and academics.
It makes sense, then, that when the ’90s finally got a successful film about Black women, it was made by a man—Forest Whitaker, in his directorial debut. The film was an adaptation of Terry McMillan’s novel of the same name, following four friends through a year of love and heartbreak in scenic Phoenix, Arizona. “Waiting to Exhale” went on to become the most successful film starring Black actresses since “The Color Purple,” with the added bonus of a Black creative team that included music by Babyface and the star power of four established Black actresses, including superstar Whitney Houston and Academy Award nominee Angela Bassett. Rounding out the cast are character actress and theater legend, Loretta Devine, and Lela Rochon.
The film also boasts an array of Black male suitors, including legendary actor Gregory Hines, Dennis Haysbert, Wesley Snipes, Wendell Pierce, Mykelti Williamson, and Leon. Though it’s never led to any sequels, reboots, or television series, Whitaker’s film continues to be the standard for female friendship on the big screen, calcified by its enduring presence on television throughout the late ’90s and ’00s.
In 1996, not long after the box-office success of “Waiting to Exhale,” directors Spike Lee and F. Gary Gray both released films that also centered Black women, telling fresh stories that highlighted their marginalized place in society. Lee was no stranger to films with female protagonists, having made the sex-forward dark romantic comedy “She’s Gotta Have It” and the family dramedy “Crooklyn” in 1994. Meanwhile, Gray was still pretty green and hungry to establish himself as a gritty, big-budget action director with a buzzy cast and hip-hop-heavy soundtracks. Lee’s “Girl 6” explored the sexualization of Black women in mainstream cinema and entertainment, focusing on the struggle of one Black actress who just wants to find good work without having to take her clothes off. In contrast, Gray’s “Set It Off” used a pulpy heist vehicle to highlight the way Black women are underestimated and marginalized by everyone around them.
The women in both films are fighting to be taken seriously and treated with respect—not just from white people, but Black men as well. Surprisingly, Gray is more successful in that regard, with nearly every man in “Set It Off’ pointedly failing the vulnerable women at the center. As they are pushed to more desperate action, they become bolder and more devoted to each other. The escalation feels motivated by the unhappy truths that create a gulf of misunderstanding between Black men and women. “Girl 6” is more sexually explicit, but its gender critique is much tamer in comparison. Star Theresa Randle is an island of a woman, with no female friends outside of work. Lee, playing Randle’s cousin, and actor Isaiah Washington are the only people who seem to know her. Washington plays her bizarre ex-husband, who curiously shoplifts items around New York City.
When “Set It Off” premiered in the fall of 1996, actress Jada Pinkett was the only bona fide movie star in the main cast. After breaking out on “A Different World,” Pinkett starred in “Menace II Society,” “The Inkwell,” “Jason’s Lyric,” “A Low Down Dirty Shame,” and “Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight.” And just that June, her star continued to rise when she played a love interest for Eddie Murphy in the family comedy “The Nutty Professor.”
Roland Emmerich’s blockbuster “Independence Day” set the box office on fire only a month later, introducing TV actress Vivica A. Fox to audiences everywhere. Actress and rapper Queen Latifah also made the jump from television after years on “Living Single.” Rounding out the cast, Kimberly Elise is the only true newcomer, with “Set It Off” being both her film debut and the first substantial acting role she’d ever had at that point. John C. McGinley and Ella Joyce (“Roc”) play the film’s interracial cop duo, pursuing the women with single-minded determination. Joyce’s performance adds an interesting wrinkle to the story, playing a Black woman cop who seems to have no empathy for the struggling women in her community. McGinley’s performance is fascinating as well, as he seems to be one of the few men in the film who understands what drove the foursome to crime.
“Set It Off” was a box office success, further proving that there was a market for Black women-centric stories, regardless of genre. Audiences came to see a film about four very different Black women who navigate their love lives and support one another. Why wouldn’t they come to see four working-class Black women who start robbing banks to get out of their poor Southern California neighborhood? A studio executive could describe “Set It Off” as “‘Waiting to Exhale’ meets ‘Thelma & Louise’” and they wouldn’t be too far off.
When Frankie (Fox) loses her job as a bank teller after a robbery, she comes to her best friends with a scheme: They all wear wigs and sunglasses, rob banks and make enough money to get them all out of town. Cleo (Latifah) takes to the work immediately, happy to impress her sexy girlfriend Ursula (Samantha Maclachlan) and live the gangsta lifestyle. Meanwhile, the timid Tisean (Elise) is only interested in providing for her child as a single mother. In the midst of all the madness, Stony lives out a romantic fantasy with a young, handsome banker (Blair Underwood), making a name for himself amongst the city’s white monied elite. Throughout the film, Stony questions whether she could ever belong in such a world, even if she put her criminal activities behind her for good.
“Girl 6” plays like both a spiritual sequel to “She’s Gotta Have It” and Spike Lee’s female answer to Robert Townsend’s “Hollywood Shuffle”, pairing Hollywood satire with an exploration of the sexual politics of being a Black actress. The film even uses Nola Darling’s opening monologue in the audition scenes. Lee cast underrated actress Theresa Randle at the center, along with the legendary Jenifer Lewis, Debi Mazar, Naomi Campbell, Gretchen Mol, and Debra Wilson (“Mad TV”).
Randle plays a talented actress objectified by the male-dominated Hollywood machine. Unable to get any roles, she takes a job at a phone sex line to make money and practice her craft as an actress. This struggle seemed to mirror Randle’s real-life hurdles in the industry—even after “Girl 6,” the gifted actress was relegated to supporting and love-interest roles in films like “Space Jam” and the “Bad Boys” franchise. This reality adds a tragic layer to the narrative, proving its point without moving the needle.
The actress flourishes in the office, maintaining a nice roster of callers—all mostly white men who have no idea she’s a Black woman. Running alongside Randle’s narrative is a news story about a little girl who fell down an elevator shaft. At times, Lee will cut to the image of the empty shaft, plunging down into an endless abyss, illustrating the actress’s descent into the seedy world of phone sex. The screenplay for “Girl 6” was written by Black playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, marking her first foray into cinema. Neither Parks’s writing nor Lee’s direction softens the film’s judgmental tone, and it doesn’t help that we never truly seem to get to know Girl 6. Randle remains unnamed until the film’s end, when Washington calls her ‘Judy.’
Overall, “Girl 6” feels like experimental theater in the shape of a film, keeping us at an emotional distance as the story becomes more abstract. The film features original music by Prince—which adds to the film’s unique charm—and an impressive slate of actor cameos, including Madonna, Quentin Tarantino, Ron Silver, Halle Berry, Mekhi Phifer, and Lee regular John Turturro. But unlike “Set It Off,” “Girl 6” was not a critical or financial success–thankfully, Lee released another more successful film that year (“Get On the Bus”).
But there was another film made in 1996 that explored the struggles of being a Black actress in an exploitative world. Director Bridgett M. Davis wrote and directed her debut feature, “Naked Acts,” with no studio or distributor, and was forced to distribute the film on her own. The story follows Cicely (Jake-Ann Jones), an actress living in the shadow of her mother, Lydia Love (Patricia DeArcy), a Blaxploitation icon. While Lydia was becoming a star, Cicely was being preyed on by her mother’s smarmy boyfriend. Now Cecily is all grown up, with a new svelte body and something to prove. But when she finds out her new film role includes a nude scene, Cicely does everything she can to avoid it.
As she slowly comes to terms with her body and gains her confidence, Cicely confronts the way Black women are both marginalized and sexualized on and offscreen. Scenes of arguments between Cecily, the other actresses, the producer, and the director give the film a realistic feel. “Naked Acts” is a film about women, by women, and for that reason, it feels like the rawest snapshot of the mental, physical, and emotional hurdles Black actresses face when they perform. Weighed down by stigma and expectation, Cecily ultimately just wants to make peace with her body and cope with the trauma of her childhood. Despite the heft of her journey, “Naked Acts” retains a light touch. Its ending feels truly peaceful.
- How My Love for Film Saved My Life (June 19, 2026)
People underestimate the strength it takes to pull oneself out of the depths of darkness. In the Summer of 2022, I found myself suicidal due to the physical pain I was experiencing from injuries sustained in a car accident.
In June of that year, most of the world had just reopened after years of lockdowns and social distancing. Looking to reconnect with my community in familiar territory, I went to Tribeca (one of the first major film festivals to open in the US), excited to support a colleague’s film premiere. I left the festival feeling invigorated and inspired by the energy of being out in the world again.
Upon my return to LA, my life was changed in a split second. A drunk driver was driving in the wrong lane and rear-ended me. I saw my life flash before my eyes. My car (affectionately named Fussili because she was Italian and shaped like pasta) was totaled. I sustained several internal injuries, muscle contusions on my back and right hip, bruised arms, and a torn ligament on my right ankle. Suddenly, I was disabled and navigating the world with invisible injuries.
I naïvely thought I would be back on my feet in a month. But a month turned into a year, and a year turned into 3.5 years.
My poorly-insulated apartment in The Valley is like a hot box if not properly cooled down. During the first two months of my recovery, which were also peak summer, I experienced excruciating pain from my injuries as well as debilitating heat. I couldn’t walk without the support of a cane. I couldn’t sit for too long, lie down for too long, or stand up for too long. I was in a melting box without any relief and got to the point where I had suicidal thoughts, believing it would be better to depart this realm. In the darkness of it all, at the bottom, I kept looking for the light. A chance visit by a friend saved me from the depths of my depression when she encouraged me to go to TIFF, something I had written off as a possibility for that year.
I researched how to travel with limited mobility and how to navigate TIFF, since the festival has long lines. I figured out how to use a wheelchair to navigate the airports and made use of the festival’s accessibility services. While it was challenging for me to maneuver, being in that space truly saved my life as I was able to be in an environment that celebrates film. I absolutely love watching movies and can average 5 films a day, but that year, I could barely sit through a single film.
After TIFF, I realized that I needed to work diligently to get myself into communities that fed my soul. Through my injuries, I continued to pursue the opportunities that would foster my creativity. Living in California, where I have no blood relatives close by, I learned to ask for help and patience from the people around me. I found that I had friends who I can call family, who showed up for me consistently. Words could never explicitly express my deepest gratitude.
I was lucky enough to be accepted into the Presidential Leadership Scholars, Film Independent Amplifier, Red Sea Lodge, and the Realness Development Executive Trainee program. These fellowships and the various festivals I attended motivated me to keep championing my projects and to reintegrate into society in a way that allowed me to show up for my recovery. Through these opportunities, I met incredible people who genuinely leaned in with empathy and patience. They shared their own stories of overcoming obstacles and encouraged me to keep pushing forward.
All in all, as I reflect back on my recovery journey, I learned that recovery is as much mental as it is physical, and above everything, community is essential for succeeding at our healing and our wellbeing.
- Robert Daniels & Odie Henderson Talk “Baby Boy” at 25 (June 19, 2026)
The following is a conversation between Robert Daniels and Odie Henderson conducted over Zoom about John Singleton’s “Baby Boy,” the third film in his hood trilogy that features Tyrese Gibson as Jody, a young man living in Los Angeles with his mother Juanita (Adrienne-Joi Johnson) as he navigates a sticky relationship with his girlfriend Yvette (Taraji P. Henson), her incarcerated ex-boyfriend Rodney (Snoop Dogg), and with his mother’s new boyfriend Melvin (Ving Rhames). Strap in: We’re riding through South Central to Singleton’s “Baby Boy.” And read previous Robert/Odie conversations about “Wild Wild West,” “Sinners,” and “Highest 2 Lowest” here.
Odie Henderson: I have a question for you: Do you know a Yvette?
Robert Daniels: I know a couple of Yvettes [laughs]. I first saw “Baby Boy” when I was about 11 years old. I grew up on the west side of Chicago. So I went to an all-Black school, which, when I say that to people who aren’t Black, they never believe that’s such a thing as an all-Black school.
Odie: There are. Believe me!
Robert: Mhm. And of course, every so often, we’d get a substitute teacher, and that substitute teacher, usually they’ve just gotten their certificate, and they’re a white person from the north side, would wheel in the TV on the AV stand so we could watch movies. That’s actually the first time I saw Tyler Perry’s play “I Can Do Bad All by Myself.” We’d also watch family-friendly stuff like “Remember the Titans.” But one day, my friend Tyrone brought in “Baby Boy,” and the substitute teacher, who was some Gen-Xer with spiky hair, heard the title and thought it was all right for these kids. Within the first ten minutes of “Baby Boy,” he knew he had made a mistake and left the classroom for plausible deniability.
Odie: Come get me when the credits come! My middle brother, when they had a substitute, they said bring in your videos. My brother brings in “Pretty Woman,” which is far less dirty than “Baby Boy.” But it’s still an R-rated movie. The teacher didn’t know and put it on. My brother got in trouble, and we got sent to the principal’s office. They thought he was doing this intentionally. My brother’s like: Well, if I knew I was gonna trouble, I’d have brought in something that was nastier.
Robert: Well, we went all the way! When “Baby Boy” ended, all the kids looked around the class, pointed at one girl, and said, “You’re Yvette.” Black kids have no shame! She stayed Yvette for the rest of her life.
Odie: Yvette in training! I read too much into so many things, but “Yvette” is my cousin’s middle name. My older cousin’s middle name is Yvette. And LL Cool J had that song, “Dear Yvette.” When you’re Black, and you’re born, and they name you Hezekiah or Ezekiel, you just have to be a preacher. That’s your preordained name. Cleophis ain’t no accountant. He’s a preacher. So, I wonder if Yvette kind of stems from a certain type of around-the-way girl. Her name has gotta be Yvette.
When I saw this movie, I saw it with a bunch of younger heads I hung out with. I was always the youngest person around because I was ahead of myself in school—and then all of a sudden there was a point where suddenly I became the oldest person in the group. I don’t know how in the hell that happened. But I went with a couple of younger guys who were in their 20s, and I was already 31 at this point—and this movie made them so mad because they were Jodys.
It’s also interesting that this is John Singleton’s last movie that he wrote. With this film, he was kind of reading the neighborhood for filth. And it struck a nerve with some of these dudes. One of them was more like Rodney than anything else. But the other two dudes I hung out with were straight-up Jodys. They thought this movie sucked, man.
Robert: Funnily enough, my friend Tyrone was a Jody. But he loved this movie. I think he thought it was a documentary.
Odie: This was supposed to be Tupac’s movie. But then Tupac got killed. That’s why there’s that great little mural of him on the wall of Jody’s room. I think Tupac would’ve bought a different flavor for this movie. He would’ve been a little bit more like his character in “Poetic Justice.” In this, he would’ve acted opposite Iesha rather than Justice, because Regina King’s Iesha is kind of the origin of Yvette. But the “Baby Boy” version is from a more mature writer, which shows growth in Singleton’s writing because he tends to have a problem writing women.
Robert: I think this is some of his best writing of Black women. One of my big critiques of “Boyz n the Hood,” for instance, is how one-note all the Black women are. They exist only as mothers, lovers, and caregivers to Black men. That’s it. They don’t have any kind of world outside of that. That’s one of the ways Coogler is a modern Singleton: Black women fulfill those basic roles. Coogler also casts phenomenal actresses who can pull stuff out that might not necessarily be on the page. Still, I think Coogler is generally better than Singleton was at writing Black women.
Odie: He’s much better than Singleton! You can make the same argument, and I’m going to get struck by lightning here in a second, for Tyler Perry. Why do you think these great actresses, Cicely Tyson, Taraji, and even Janet Jackson, to a lesser extent, are busting their behinds for Tyler Perry screenplays? They’re bringing more to it than I guarantee you is on the page. But at the same time, why do y’all keep working for him? You’re gonna get this crappy script where you basically have to work overtime to get the depth you want. But I’m wondering if in his case, these actresses have done this for so long, making more out of less, that it’s almost second nature. No matter how hollow the role is, they’re gonna bring something to it.
Robert: Taraji P Henson, though, has such a meaty role in “Baby Boy.” And “Baby Boy” is also interesting because you see Taraji and Tyrese, these actors who become Singleton’s collaborators for basically the rest of his career. This is kind of the best that all of them are in his movies, particularly Taraji P Henson, who’s probably in her best role, which is saying something because there’s “Hustle and Flow” and “Hidden Figures.” And while the character is so fully written, in a lesser actress’s hands, Yvette would not be iconic. Yvette would just be a joke. But in Taraji’s hands, she’s given this realism and depth.
Odie: And this is an early role for her. It’s early in her career, and she’s already got the attitude. While watching this, I thought about her performance in Don Cheadle’s movie “Talk to Me.”
Her character in that movie is kind of like a big comedic stereotype for three-quarters of the movie. And then she has that one scene where she completely drops this facade, and all of a sudden, you really see what she’s doing and what her character is up to. It’s this gorgeous little piece of acting on her part. I think this movie has sequences like that, where she has moments of clarity and gravity about the situation. You can see her mind working: I know that Jody is no good for me. We got a kid. He’s cheating on me. In lesser hands, she’d just be a doormat, and you would not feel for her. You would be like, “Girl, get rid of him.”
But let’s talk about the other woman in this movie. Jody’s mom, Juanita. You can draw a line from Angela Bassett’s Riva in “Boyz n the Hood” to this character, who is obviously a lot more fleshed out because she has more screen time. She is the opposite of the big criticism of “Boyz n the Hood.” In some people’s minds, that movie was saying that Angela Bassett couldn’t raise a boy.
And so, with Juanita raising Jody and he’s still at home, I think people could say, well, the mother’s forcing him to stay at home. But she’s got a life. A lot of times in these movies, the mother’s supposed to just give up her life to take care of some badass kids, and you forget that she was a person and that she existed. But this movie does not have it at all. She wants to get her back blown out and to tend to her garden.
And so what I think Singleton intentionally does is that he doesn’t give her the lawyer on “The Boondocks.” That’s not what she got. She got a pimp named Slickback. Ving Rhames’ entire performance, up until the big scene where he has the gun and he kind of silently says, “I understand,” which almost makes me think of the scene in “Cooley High” between Ivan Dixon and Bill Duke where these two men come together, and Ivan Dixon as the elder statesman who went to jail is trying to stop the other person from doing it. But before that, Ving Rhames’ entire role is to emasculate Jody.
Robert: Every time I watch a Ving Rhames film, it makes me hate the day when he got really good at saying “Ethan.” He was once fantastic.
Odie: I will always love him for “Don King: Only in America,” which is one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen. I will die on that hill. I think it’s one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen given by anybody. But he’s also great in “Holiday Heart,” which is a completely different kind of role. He’s amazing in “Rosewood.” He is so versatile, which isn’t common for a big man. Especially not a big Black man or a big man of color. He’s not afraid to go places where another director, with an actor who looks like him, wouldn’t go at all.
Robert: A lot of actors with his kind of build will have their serious kind of crime roles, and then if they do something out of those confines, it’s strictly comedic. It’s something where they use their body as a kind of joke or as a pratfall. Outside of “Dave,” Ving Rhames never really did the latter. He had a string of eclectic roles through the 1990s up until “Dawn of the Dead.” And as you alluded to, in this movie, he was once Baby Boy. He was Baby Boy, and then his life fell apart, and he’s still trying to put it back together. He’s just now getting to the point of Zen.
Odie: To your point about Ving Rhames’ character being older and finally kind of realizing that he wasted his life with so much stuff, my late uncle Sterling would try to talk to me. And he’d say, and I say this to my niece and nephews all the time: You’re a hardheaded teenager. You don’t wanna listen to this nonsense. But one day, you’re gonna remember that we had this conversation. As I got older, it would click when I realized what he was telling me was right. One day, before he died, I went to him and asked him, “Unc, do you remember he used to tell me one day I’d remember we had this conversation?” He said: Which one?
Robert: Quick change of subject. I have to ask you: Who was the booster in your neighborhood?
Odie: There were a couple of people in my neighborhood, and there was one person on my grandmother’s block. My grandmother’s house was the meeting place for us. My cousins who were my age were there, and some of my aunties lived there at the time–they were adults. On Bergen Avenue in Jersey City, where my grandmother’s house was and still is, there are some bad blocks. Lexington Avenue was one of the more famous bad blocks. If you went down there or down on Clinton, you could find people who sold anything. In fact, when I wanted to get my Run DMC outfit, my mother said, “If you want some Run DMC clothes, you need to get yourself a Run DMC job.” So, I got two paper routes. I couldn’t even ride a bike back then. I was running from dogs on foot, and I made enough money to buy the jeans and the jacket from Delancey Street, but I got the sneakers from one of the boosters. I also remember one year we got a Nintendo from one of the boosters.
But I forgot that was a detail in the movie. Jody sold dresses out of his trunk. He’s good. There were several people in my old neighborhood who, depending on what you wanted, you went to them. It was like a network.
Robert: In my neighborhood, we had the sock man. White and black crew cut socks wrapped in rubber bands. He also had a scent business, and during Christmas, he sold toys. Once a year, my dad would give me $5 to go find the sock man because he needed more socks. He also got a lumberjack jacket from the sock man. And then, of course, at the currency exchange, there was the bootleg DVD man. Singleton’s cameo here is as the bootleg DVD man.
Odie: He was also the postman in “Boyz n the Hood.”
Robert: A month ago, I ranked Singleton’s movies for Vulture, and I nearly ranked them by his cameos.
We also have to talk about Snoop as Rodney. Rodney might be the most complex character of Singleton’s career in the sense that he is a terrible person—the first time we see him out of prison, he tries to rape Taraji—and in every interaction he has with Jody’s kid, he is the literal definition of ‘fuck them kids’. But Singleton doesn’t keep Rodney as the big bad. He’s clearly a foil to Jody in the same way Ving Rhames is. He’s a vision of what could happen to Jody if he doesn’t get his life straight. Snoop, consequently, plays him with surprising groundedness. And to my mind, the movie doesn’t get churning until he gets out of prison.
Odie: It’s funny because I’m thinking of another Rodney. This is Rodney, much more dangerous than Delroy Lindo’s character in “Clockers.” His name is Rodney, too. I wrote about the depths of immaturity that Delroy Lindo goes to in that role when he gets mad. He seems to be an adult until the moment he goes off. There’s that scene with Mekhi Phifer, where he’s in the car and he pulls Mekhi Phifer down into his lap and puts the gun in Mekhi’s mouth. Like, if you shoot him, you’re gonna hurt yourself too. But he’s so angry. He’s an 8-year-old kid having a tantrum.
Snoop Dogg’s Rodney is exactly that. He can be civil until the second he feels that he’s been dissed or disrespected. The idiocy of his character is what drives him to try to shoot Jody. It leads to his demise. He’s being stupid, and he’s being exactly what Ving Rhames’ character, Melvin, says to Jody. So I can see what you mean about Rodney being the most complex character. He’s the catalyst. He’s the linchpin in Jody’s maturity.
Robert: Rodney is the one who heightens everything to a Sirkian level.
Odie: Right? “Jungle Fever” is also Spike Lee’s Douglas Sirk movie. It’s his 1950s movie. It’s half “Marty,” half “Imitation of Life” because of Samuel L Jackson’s character. Everything else going on is kind of filler, and then when he shows up and he goes to the Taj Mahal, still the most phantasmagorical crack house I’ve ever seen in my life, the movie becomes about Gator. It’s the same kind of turn here. Rodney appears, and it centers on him.
What separates this movie from “Boyz n the Hood,” which I identify with a lot because of where I grew up, is that I think this movie widens the net on the Black experience. Because “Boyz” is set in such a contained environment, and even though the emotions are more universal, the reference points that you get here don’t need any explanation. You know a Yvette. The characters, their situations, and their interrelationships have a slightly more universal “Blackness” than in “Poetic Justice” or “Boyz.” And when you talk about influences that he used, this is his Sirk movie. “Poetic Justice” is his Éric Rohmer movie. When I did the tribute to Singleton at the site, I said that it meandered like Éric Rohmer and swore like Richard Pryor.
Robert: Other than “Love Jones,” “Baby Boy” might be the only film that’s gone from heavy rotation on BET to being in Criterion. And I don’t use BET pejoratively. “Baby Boy” has a massive audience. Only in the last 15 to 20 years has mainstream film criticism, for instance, really caught up to the fact that the lowest-tier Blaxploitation film says so much about its era and the people who lived through it. You could say the same thing about the populist Black movies of the 1990s and the early aughts. They say a lot about the period. The “Best Man” series says so much about the morals, beliefs, and aspirations of Black life. The same with “The Inkwell” and “The Wood.” Those movies say more than anything you’ll find at any distinguished film festival. And to your point, “Baby Boy” does the same thing.
Odie: His films after “Boyz” are also messier. They’re more ambitious. “Higher Learning” is ambitious, but to its detriment. “Poetic Justice” is one of his most ambitious, in my mind, because it’s so unlike what you would expect a movie with a bunch of Black people in it to be like. It takes its time. It doesn’t really have a purpose or a sense of where it’s going. It’s a kind of foreign film. People are sitting around talking about life in a mail truck. “Poetic Justice” and “Baby Boy” are his most ambitious. After that, he stopped, and I don’t know why, but he stopped really telling his stories or writing his screenplays. All of a sudden, he became a director for hire.
Robert: “Baby Boy” came out right at the tail end of that new Black film wave. At that point, Spike would make “Bamboozled” around that same time, but many of Singleton’s ’90s contemporaries were trying to figure things out. If you were part of that generation, you had to wait until the resurgence of the 2010s, which is when Spike began his comeback. I think what happened with Singleton was that he probably did have original stories he wanted to tell, but the cycle of getting budgets for those stories was over. And so he started seeking out studio work, gun for hire things that still kind of had his sensibility in the heart of the idea, like “2 Fast 2 Furious,” which is still very much a Singleton movie.
Odie: Final thoughts on “Baby Boy”?
Robert: I’m glad we got to talk about “Baby Boy.” I think you can tell in these conversations that I’m interested in Black cinema from the 1990s and the early aughts, and in what they say about Black life and the specificity they show. But these films have mostly been kind of relegated to low, crass art. But in actuality, “Baby Boy” is probably the high art of his career. It just so happens that there are these very specific references to a neighborhood whose story isn’t following the agreed-upon narrative conventions that something like “Boyz n the Hood” is following.
Odie: It’s been a while since I’d seen “Baby Boy,” and I realized while watching it again that it immediately brought me back to when this movie came out. It came out on June 27th, which is a Wednesday, because it was a Black movie. And I saw it literally a 10-minute walk from where I am right now at the Newport Mall. I went to see it there.
Watching it took me back to everybody I knew who was like a character in this movie. I remembered friends that I’ve lost and friends that I still have. The Yvettes stuck out for me. I just had so many memories of my cousin, the girl my cousin was messing with—together they were Jody and Yvette. It made me really sit here. I wasn’t watching a movie anymore.
And so it struck me how ingrained this movie became in me over the years, and how closely it related to my life. I think a lot of Black people feel the same way. So at the end of the day, I mean, I started thinking about, well, maybe I was wrong to have “Boyz n the Hood” as my number one Singleton movie.
Maybe this is how I felt about “Pulp Fiction” versus “Jackie Brown.” For a while, I thought “Pulp Fiction” was Tarantino’s best movie. And then I realized that without question it’s “Jackie Brown.” I just wasn’t ready at that moment to make that assessment. I think here, I’m ready to make that assessment. Yes – It’s messier. Yes – It didn’t get any Oscar nominations. But at the end of the day, I think this is his definitive statement on the life that he wanted to write about.
- Hard Knocks and Rebirth in the Bayou: Alfre Woodard in “Passion Fish” (June 19, 2026)
In a storied career that spans six decades, the incomparable Alfre Woodard has been a formidable onscreen presence, delivering finely etched performances across a variety of film and television projects.
Whether the Oscar nominee (for 1983’s “Cross Creek”) and four-time Emmy winner is playing a legal secretary in 1990s-era Los Angeles who is being romanced by a smitten tow truck driver (Danny Glover, doing career-best work) that she meets on a blind date in writer-director Lawrence Kasdan’s “Grand Canyon”; or a nurse in the Jim Crow-era South who quietly devotes her life to care for hundreds of Black men unknowingly being used as human guinea pigs by their own government in the powerful, fact-based HBO television movie “Miss Evers’ Boys,” directed by Joseph Sargent; or a burnt-out, emotionally-drained prison warden at a crossroads in writer-director Chinonye Chukwu’s sophomore feature “Clemency,” Woodard always plays the reality of her characters and the situations they are in.
So, it’s rather fitting that she has described herself as a pragmatic actor.
Thirty-four years ago, she delivered one of her most indelibly pragmatic performances in writer-director John Sayles’ “Passion Fish,” an underappreciated gem that deserves far more attention than it has received in the decades since its December 1992 theatrical release.
Sayles has written and directed some of the finest American independent films of the past 40+ years, including “Return of the Secaucus Seven,” “Lianna,” “The Brother From Another Planet,” “Matewan,” “Eight Men Out,” “City of Hope,” “Lone Star,” “Limbo,” and “Sunshine State,” among others. His filmography is an embarrassment of cinematic riches. That said, for my money, “Passion Fish” is his best film.
Inspired by Sayles’ love of the 1966 Ingmar Bergman classic “Persona,” as well as his time working as a medical orderly, “Passion Fish” casts Woodard as Chantelle, the last in a long line of live-in, private care nurses, sent by an agency to assist May-Alice Culhane (Mary McDonnell, also in top form), a popular soap opera actress in New York City recently paralyzed from the waist down following a freak car accident en route to get her legs waxed.
At the top of the film, May-Alice is wallowing in pity and regret, barely keeping her head above water at a rehabilitation facility she’s a patient at following the accident. Day in and day out, we see glimpses of her lashing out against the doctors and therapists who are trying to be of help. Suffice it to say, the facility is just not a good fit for her.
So she hastily retreats to her long-vacant childhood home in rural Louisiana to seemingly finish her recovery, yet instead, her pity party continues as she quickly goes through (or rather, repeatedly butts heads with) a series of nurses that prove incompatible in one way or another. That is, until Chantelle enters the picture. At first, Chantelle doesn’t rock the boat too much, as she finds her own footing in a new, foreign place. Then, seeing the lack of progress being made, coaxes a still-reluctant May-Alice to start doing the necessary work to regain her independence. Naturally, that’s when a more pronounced conflict arises between them.
As the film progresses, important personal details about each woman are revealed. I’m not going to spoil any of them here, but it speaks to Sayles’ talents as a writer just how much mileage he manages to get out of each reveal. In Chantelle’s case, there’s one particularly powerful reveal that highlights why she was the right person to help May-Alice.
The underlying power dynamic in “Passion Fish” is like a third character throughout. The socio-economic differences between Chantelle and May-Alice are touched upon in the film.
Chantelle is an able-bodied Black woman working for a disabled Caucasian woman in the deep South. The Jim Crow era may long be over, yet the stench still lingers. Chantelle, a Chicago native, needs this nursing job for reasons that aren’t made immediately clear. So, regardless of how tricky it is navigating May-Alice’s initial combativeness, Chantelle has no other choice but to roll with the punches and hope for the best.
May-Alice used her acting talent to escape her rural, working-class Louisiana environment, and it took her all the way to daytime TV soap opera stardom in New York. As the old saying goes, “If you can make it there (i.e., New York), you can make it anywhere.” Approximately 7%- 10% of professional actors manage to make a living from their chosen craft. Not an easy feat. May-Alice has clearly lost sight of that in her post-morbidity funk. She’s mourning the loss of her mobility. Plus, her acting career is in limbo. But she’s keenly aware that she’s got the financial advantage, and isn’t above flexing that power. Chantelle is painfully aware of that fact, too, so the stakes are especially high for her.
In his four-star review of the film, Roger Ebert said, “There are elements here of a vaguely similar relationship in ‘Driving Miss Daisy,’ but Sayles has his own film, direct and original, and in the struggle of wills between these two characters he creates two of the most interesting human portraits of the year.”
Part of the genius of Sayles’ film is how the middle-aged malaise of these two disparate women is so believably written and played. Life, the way they once knew it, is over; their present-day realities seem stagnant and damn-near insurmountable. Yet they slowly but surely develop a bond much stronger than one might expect as they get to know each other, which yields some surprising results.
Sayles remains the only director with the good sense to pair Woodard onscreen opposite Angela Bassett, who was still a rising star at the time.
Bassett had already worked with Sayles previously on “City of Hope,” and had made a big impression in writer-director John Singleton’s feature directorial debut “Boyz ‘N The Hood,” both from 1991. She was a year away from playing Dr. Betty Shabazz, the widow of slain civil rights leader Malcolm X, in writer-director Spike Lee’s big screen biopic, “Malcolm X,” and two years away from her star-making performance as Tina Turner in 1993’s “What’s Love Got to do With It,” directed by Brian Gibson.
Bassett makes a brief appearance in the film as a former soap co-star of May-Alice’s, paying her a visit while in the area on a publicity tour for the show with two other former co-stars (Sheila Kelly & Nancy Mette). Woodard and Bassett share a wonderful, too-brief scene together where they bond over their Chicago roots.
McDonnell has been a frequent co-star of Woodard’s. They’ve been in three other films (“Grand Canyon,” “Blue Chips,” and “Mumford”) together, as well as a television show (Netflix’s “The Boroughs”).
“Passion Fish” is the one project they’ve done that’s afforded them the opportunity to work directly opposite each other. Woodard and McDonnell’s performances are so intertwined in the film that it’s a fascinating fusion of talent, craft, and material.
That said, it still boggles the mind to wonder how Woodard’s revelatory work was overlooked by the Motion Picture Academy in the best supporting actress category. Admittedly, 1992 was a pretty stacked year for supporting actresses with the likes of Judy Davis (“Husbands and Wives”), Joan Plowright (“Enchanted April”), Vanessa Redgrave (“Howards End”), and Miranda Richardson (“Damage”) all securing nominations, with Marisa Tomei winning the Oscar for her breakout, movie-stealing turn in “My Cousin Vinny,” still one of the few performances in a comedy to do so.
McDonnell did receive a richly deserved Oscar nomination for best actress, though. The film received a total of two Oscar nominations, overall, including best original screenplay for Sayles.
Woodard has always been an expressive actor. She’s capable of speaking volumes with just a look or a shrug. In “Passion Fish,” her quiet observations are every bit as telling as her vocalized ones. She delivers such a rich, lived-in, top-tier performance that you want to spend more time with Chantelle after the film concludes. If that’s not the mark of artistic excellence, then what is?
