My Top 25 of the Last 25: Sitcoms

So, this one is the list I feel the least qualified about writing because I've largely stopped watching sitcoms over the years since I abandoned linear network television.  However, I've dutifully gone back and sought out several of the series below recently, and I want to talk about them.  Sitcoms have diminished with the rise of the streamers, but by every metric they still make up a huge amount of the media we regularly consume.  I feel I'm writing this list in part to also spur myself to give more of these shows a chance in the future.

As with all the lists in this series, there are twenty five entries, but only the top ten get writeups.  I caution that there's a thin line between sitcoms and comedy series with an ensemble cast, and I'm probably going to make some categorization errors.  No "Extras," but I'm totally counting "Rick and Morty."

30 Rock (2006) - I have a strong bias towards NBC's "Must See TV" lineup and I always have.  "30 Rock," however, was one that I really had to warm up to over time.  I didn't become a fan until years after the show had stopped airing, and I made a conscious decision to binge large amounts of it at once.  And it was worth it.  "30 Rock," more than any other sitcom, has influenced the patter and pacing of modern TV comedies.  And I'm glad that Tina Fey is still making them to this day.

Arrested Development (2003) - The first three seasons, created by Mitch Hurwitz, comprise one of the best run of television episodes that has ever been made.  It's so specific in its idiosyncratic humor and wonderfully intricate web of escalating wordplay, running gags, odd characters and references that there's absolutely nothing else like it.  And this is also the show that supercharged the careers of Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Alia Shawkat, Tony Hale, and several other favorites.  

The Good Place (2016) - A high concept comedy about the afterlife from Michael Schur that gradually morphs into something much more existential and interesting over the course of its four seasons.  As Kristen Bell's Eleanor Shellstrop struggles to become a good person, the show earnestly explores philosophical concepts and systems of belief, culminating in one of the best series finales of all time.  Manny Jacinto as Jason is also my favorite sitcom dumbbell in ages.  

Futurama (1999) - Okay, this series started before my cutoff date and probably shouldn't count, but it was such a major part of the 2000s popular culture, the Matt Groening show that everyone moved on to after "The Simpsons" started going downhill.  References and memes abounded for years.  Also, "Futurama" was cancelled and revived so many times, in so many variations, I'm sure it set a trend.  At the time of writing, it's also the only show of the top ten that is still airing.

Parks and Recreation (2009) - I was late to this series too, which I dearly love for the cast rather than any specific jokes or clever bits.  It was so much fun to watch the ensemble gel and the writers to find their footing over time.  "Parks and Recreation" isn't really the optimistic, feel-good workplace show that we know and adore until the third season, an evolution that would be unlikely to happen today.  Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson remain two of my absolute favorite sitcom characters.

Malcolm in the Middle (2000) - This is the only semi-traditional family sitcom in the top ten, because it remains the only family sitcom that really felt like it did things differently.  Most of the other contenders are about different kinds of families while "Malcolm" is really distinguished by its irreverent tone, chaotic visual style, and narrative subversions.  If lessons are learned in the end, they're often inadvertent, and the victories are short-lived.  As the theme song warns, "Life is unfair."

Community (2009) - I've sung the praises of "Community" many times, for being one of the most ambitious sitcoms ever made.  The parody episodes, the meta episodes, and the drama going on behind the scenes, all helped this to achieve the kind of consistent quality and boundary-breaking innovation that few sitcoms could.  Honestly, the antics of the fanbase and creator Dan Harmon were often as entertaining as the show itself.  And I'm still holding out hope for the movie.

Fleabag (2016) - The Guardian calls this a sitcom, so I'm calling it a sitcom.  Phoebe Waller-Bridge's fantastic fourth-wall-breaking confessional where she plays a terrible, shameful woman, is still easily one of the best comedies of the millennium.  It's so brutally mean and honest, while acknowledging the cost of being mean and honest.  The second season with the Hot Priest might be seen as the show losing some of its verve, if it weren't simultaneously so utterly devastating.   

Veep (2012) - I had to have an Armando Iannucci show on this list, and "Veep" should count as a sitcom.  It's the most foul-mouthed, blisteringly sardonic piece of television that could only air on premium cable, but in the end it's a workplace comedy with a central cast of White House staffers who get into nutty situations in every episode.  And the satire was immaculate.  There are a couple of other cringe humor shows on this list, but "Veep" is the only one that got downright dark at times.

The Office (US) (2005) - This one was close, but how could I leave it off?  The documentary style, the uncomfortable humor, that cast - "The Office" slowly but surely became one of the cornerstones of the television landscape for a big part of the 2000s, and its influence is still felt to this day.  The original UK "Office" was revolutionary in its own right, of course, but it didn't have the bigger episode counts or the environment to grow into what the American version became.

The Next Fifteen 

Modern Family 

My Name is Earl

Rick and Morty

Superstore

Abbott Elementary

Brooklyn 99

The Thick of It

Vicious

Scrubs

Curb Your Enthusiasm

The Big Bang Theory

How I Met Your Mother

Schitt's Creek

The Office (UK)

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

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On "Obsession"

Half an hour into "Obsession," I was not impressed.  I'd spent what felt like an interminable amount of time watching the lead, a mopey twenty-something named Bear (Michael Johsnton) pine after his co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarette).  The two of them work retail jobs at a music store with their friends, including the boorish Ian (Cooper Tomlinson), and artsy Sarah (Megan Lawless).  Bear has been in love with Nikki for years, but can't bring himself to actually tell her he has feelings for her, even when she asks him outright if he's interested.  I didn't find Bear sympathetic or interesting.  Fortunately, "Obsession" is a horror movie and not a romantic comedy or coming-of-age story, so this was not a problem.

How "Obsession" became a word-of-mouth driven box-office breakout has been the subject of much interest.  Writer and director Curry Barker is having a real Cinderella moment, having made a horror film for less than a million dollars that went on to outgross major studio summer tentpoles.  And after seeing the film, I understand why.  "Obsession" offers a very good time.  It's a horror film that has genuinely surprising shocks, a good amount of nervy suspense, and some deadpan comedy too.  It's similar to last year's "Weapons" in that some of its most horrific moments are also wonderfully funny and absurd.  It uses a simple fantasy premise - Bear makes a wish on a novelty item called a "One Wish Willow" to have Nikki love him "more than anyone else in the world" - and takes it to twisted extremes.  

The movie really kicks into gear when Nikki becomes the post-wish "Freaky Nikki," the utterly obsessed and increasingly deranged version of Nikki who will do anything to be Bear's perfect girlfriend, but maybe doesn't have a good grasp on being a functional human being any longer.  Inde Navarette's performance is absolutely bugnuts insane in the best way possible.  She's a nice, normal girl one minute, then a creepily fixated freak trying to pretend that she's normal.  Whenever the mask slips, it's always a surprise as to how she's going to lash out next.  Will she start screaming in the middle of a restaurant?  Will she start telling you about her disturbing Hansel and Gretel incest fanfiction?  Will she just pull a comedic frown-y face at Bear in a way that defies description?  Freaky Nikki is a fabulous addition to the modern female monster pantheon, right up there with Monstro Elisasue and Aunt Gladys.

The unappealing intro is actually doing a lot to set the audience up to expect a certain kind of story with certain types of characters that are all going to be subverted.  We all know how this unrequited romance plot with the dorky guy and the hot girl is supposed to go, right?  "Obsession" feels very Gen Z in a good way.  There's casual drug use, mumbled line delivery, and Bear is a version of the increasingly common trope of the toxic "nice guy."  Thematically, the story touches on a range of relationship and mental health issues, and has sparked some interesting discussions online about Bear's degree of culpability for what happens.  Aside from Navarette, the performances aren't great, which actually adds to the verisimilitude of this film.  It's easier to accept that this insanity is happening to a regular group of people, all flawed and familiar in believable ways.        

Barker also does a great job stretching a limited budget, orchestrating some excellent creepy shots of Nikki with a few basic lighting tricks.  His editing choices and the sound design play a big role in the effectiveness of some of the reveals.  There are relatively few traditional jumpscares, but several shots that are more disturbing and uncomfortable the longer you look at them.  I don't know why the image of Nikki holding a bouquet of flowers over her face like a Matisse painting is so striking, but I couldn't look away from the screen.  And this is before anything really violent happens - a lot of very violent things do happen, by the way.  I worry that I've made this film sound lighter and more frivolous than it is, because the horror is absolutely dark, nightmare-inducing horror, and sensitive souls should approach with care.

For those of you who regularly enjoy such depravities, do seek this one out.  It's a keeper.

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"I Love Boosters" and "The Devil Wears Prada 2"

It can be exhausting to watch Boots Riley's output, and "I Love Boosters" left me feeling like I'd run a marathon.  It is two hours of big ideas, frantic exposition, eye-popping art design, political activism, over-the-top performances, and the most outrageous fashion choices that you've ever seen.  This time the heroes are a trio of shoplifting "boosters," the Velvet Gang.  Corvette (Keke Palmer), Sade (Naoimie Ackie), and Mariah (Taylour Paige), snatch clothes from boutiques like Metro Designers, run by the unscrupulous Christie Smith (Demi Moore), and sell them at affordable prices.  "I Love Boosters" has a lot on its mind, using the fashion industry as a jumping off point to offer commentary on unsafe working conditions overseas, capitalist abuses of retail workers, the commodification of art, dialectical materialism, and what to do if your latest romantic partner turns out to be a demon who sucks people's souls out of their vaginas.  Eiza Gonzalez, LaKeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, and Don Cheadle are also part of the ensemble.

Riley has gone all in on the visual gags and lavish productions design previously seen in "Sorry to Bother You" and "I'm a Virgo."  Why not have all the Metro Design stores each feature a specific distinct color, which changes from season to season, forcing everyone who works there to wear all lime green in one scene, and canary yellow the next?  Why not have Christie Smith live in a tilted skyscraper where everything has to awkwardly exist in a space with a steep incline?  Why not have the girls meet a newcomer named Jianhu (Poppy Liu), who has a stolen machine that not only acts as a teleporter, but can also deconstruct, or accelerate matter on a conceptual level?  At one point one of the characters is accidentally deconstructed, which replaces them with their parents having graphic sexual relations in the same spot.  There is so much going on that it can be difficult to keep track of it all.  The ambition is wonderful to see, and I admire that Boots Riley makes every movie like he's sure nobody will ever let him make another movie again.  However, the chaos wore on me the longer the movie went on.  Riley's work is well meaning, but not all that deep, and he favors flash and dazzle over coherence.  As good as the cast is, they couldn't get me to care about any of these characters.  And viva la revolución, but the message is rendered in such cartoonish terms that it feels like activism via coloring book.   

"The Devil Wears Prada 2" is also criticizing an industry, but it's journalism rather than fashion.  This movie is a whole lot less ambitious than "I Love Boosters," despite all the expensive lifestyle eye candy, and a lot more cynical.  Twenty years after the first movie, Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) is an award-winning reporter who finds herself out of a job after her whole newsroom is fired via text message.  Fortunately, a scandal over at Runway magazine means that they need a new features editor.  Andy is brought in to help the floundering fashion publication, and butt heads with her old boss Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) again.  Her right hand man Nigel (Stanley Tucci) is still at Runway, but former assistant Emily (Emily Blunt) is now working at Dior, and there are new characters played by Simone Ashley, Helen J. Shen, and B.J. Novak to contend with.  

Along with the main cast, the most important returning contributors are director David Frankel and screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, who give the sequel a real sense of continuity with the original, and even some real stakes.  I was pleasantly surprised at how even-handed the film is, taking a realistic view of the fortunes of a once iconic  fashion magazine like Runway as it struggles to survive in the 2020s.  Andy is once again in the role of overeager newbie, trying to be an optimistic team player while everyone around her is scheming and making backroom deals in order to stay afloat.  And once again, she has to buckle down and work smarter to stay ahead of the competition.  "Prada 2" has all the celebrity cameos, product placement, and callbacks that most sequels of this kind do, but I appreciate that there's some substance to go with it.  Meryl Streep's performance as Miranda Priestley has evolved wonderfully.  She can still tear someone to pieces with a few dismissive words, but she also allows herself to be a little softer and more vulnerable as she contemplates the inevitable end of her career.  

 

I think the only major issue I had was that some of the humor is too broad.  Justin Theroux plays an eccentric billionaire who is dating Emily, and could be a possible savior of the magazine.  His performance is bizarre, and frankly took me out of the movie more than once.  Patrick Brammall and Kenneth Branagh are also on hand to play disposable love interests in disposable romantic subplots that didn't work for me at all, but at least they didn't eat up much screen time.  I highly doubt anyone was here for the romance anyway.

There's an unfortunate sense that this movie didn't really need to exist, but most of these nostalgic reunion-special type sequels are in the same boat, and "The Devil Wears Prada 2" succeeds better than most at convincing us that it's worth a watch anyway.  The pleasures are modest, but substantive enough that you can understand why everyone said yes to coming back.

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"The Pitt," Year Two

"The Pitt" has exploded in popularity over the last year, and the discourse is honestly as fun as the show itself at this point.  I debated whether I wanted to write up a post on the fandom's antics, but decided not to.  It's way too easy to read themes and conflicts into the show that aren't really there.  "The Pitt" may be topical and may address hot button topics head-on, but it's a pretty straightforward medical drama when all is said and done.  So I will review it like one.  

The second season picks up ten months after the first, on the July 4th holiday.  It's Dr. Langdon's first day back after a stint in rehab, and Dr. Robby's last day before a three month sabbatical.  He's planning on a cross-country motorcycle trip, but worryingly shows up at the start of the first episode not wearing a helmet.  There are some new faces: a young nurse, Emma Nolan (Laëtitia Hollard), and medical students James Ogilvie (Lucas Iverson) and Joy Kwon (Irene Choi).  Nearly everyone from the first season is back, though some noticeably in different circumstances.  Whittaker is now an intern, and much more confident and self-assured.  King is having a terrible day, rattled and distracted by an upcoming legal deposition.  She's not alone.  Robby seems particularly antagonistic and avoidant, and clashes with several people including Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi), who is supposed to be taking over for him as senior attending physician in his absence.  

Over the course of the day, there are technology troubles, interpersonal conflicts, plenty of interesting cases, and everyone seems to reach the end of their patience well before the end of the shift.  There's no single catastrophe that is as overwhelming as the mass casualty event from the first season, but instead a multitude of smaller ones.  The appearance of ICE agents in the ER made real world headlines, but the storyline is comparatively brief, and there are plenty of other pressing matters playing out at the same time.  Instead of going bigger, the show has elected to go deeper, letting its characters chafe against each other, revealing new fault lines.  Langdon tries to apologize to several of his co-workers, prompting mixed responses.  Evans and Mohan both bear the brunt of Robby's moodiness, which magnifies their own doubts about their career choices.  Several issues with family members crop up - King and her sister, Javadi and her parents, and Mohan and her mother.  

Still, "The Pitt" maintains its reputation for sticking to a certain level of realism, to the extent that several of the patient stories could double as public service announcements.  This season we get to see several scenarios play out in detail, including what happens to an abandoned baby, how an end-of-life directive is applied, the process for gathering evidence for a rape kit, and a what happens to a patient who leaves the hospital against medical advice.  Because it's the Fourth of July, of course there's a kid who blows off some digits with a firecracker in the mix too.  However, the show also puts medical professionals and administrators in the crosshairs as it spotlights burnouts, substance abuse, self-harm, risk-taking, and why AI is not the answer to every problem.  This approach might be too pedagogical for some viewers, but I accept it as part of the show's DNA, and the execution is good enough that I rarely feel like I'm being lectured to.    

I don't think that the second season of "The Pitt" improves on the first, but it's a relief to find that it's holding steady and making a case for its own longevity.  Nothing wraps up neatly at the end of the shift, with lingering tensions everywhere, and Robby still on the brink of the unnameable.  However, the show has definitely found a good groove, and shows signs of being ready to push at the bounds of its formula.  Get a load of the credits sequence after the last episode for a glimpse of life outside of The Pitt.

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2026 Summer Movie Wrap Up

Here's the domestic box office rankings for this summer:

1. Spider-man: Brand New Day

2. The Odyssey

3. Toy Story 5

4. Obsession

5.  The Devil Wears Prada 2

6. Backrooms

7. Minions & Monsters

8. The Mandalorian and Grogu

9. Moana

10. Disclosure Day 

Here's what I predicted back in April:

1. Spider-man: Brand New Day (10 pts)

2. Moana (1 pt)

3. The Odyssey (7 pts)

4. Minions and Monsters (3 pts)

5. The Devil Wears Prada 2 (10 pts)

6. Toy Story 5 (3 pts)

7. The Mandalorian and Grogu (7 pts)

8. Backrooms (5 pts)

9. Disclosure Day (7 pts)

10. Supergirl

Wild Cards: Masters of the Universe, Scary Movie 6, Mortal Kombat II

53 points!  I don't think I've ever done this well before.  Only one of my predicted titles wasn't somewhere on the final list, and several of my iffier guesses came much closer than I would have thought, like "Disclosure Day," "The Mandalorian and Grogu," and "The Devil Wears Prada 2."  For the record, "Supergirl" ended up being 13th after "Scary Movie" and "Mortal Kombat II."  However, probably my best move was correctly pegging "Backrooms" as one of the big horror titles this year.  I regret not paying more heed to the pre-season rumbles about "Obsession" being a possible breakout, but I don't think anybody predicted the heights it would reach.  

Looking at the bigger picture, it was a very good summer at the movies.  Lots of good movies did well, while the more mediocre programmers, like the live action "Moana" and the "Mandalorian" movies, underperformed significantly.  Several titles I didn't expect much from, like the new "Spider-man," "Toy Story," and "Minions" movies were much better than I expected.  Even "The Devil Wears Prada" sequel was actually trying to be about something.  It was a great surprise to see "Obsession" and "Backrooms" climb the charts, signalling a new generation of filmmakers coming in, and proving that movie theaters are not dead.  Sure, inflation is a big reason why the box office numbers were up, but lots of smaller films like "The Invite," "Hadestown: The Musical," and even "Coyote v. ACME" did well.  And while "Obsession" and "Backrooms" got so much coverage for being the work of internet creators, we also shouldn't overlook the finale of webseries "The Amazing Digital Circus" racking up over $36 million worldwide over its very limited run.  The theatrical experience lives on, and this means that there will be many summer movie seasons to come. 

Five decades after "Jaws," it feels like Steven Spielberg is finally reaching the end of his cultural relevancy.  I appreciate the big swing that "Disclosure Day" was, but I'm not surprised that it didn't connect with audiences.  "Supergirl" was a strange beast, a movie that seemed deliberately pitched at the sensibilities of twenty-something men, and wound up alienating the younger superhero audiences that James Gunn's "Superman" managed to win over last year.  "The Mandalorian" and "Minions & Monsters" both took some risks that were not rewarded, sadly, though I expect that their respective franchises will be okay in the long run.  "Star Wars: Starfighter" is one of the big titles being readied for the summer of 2027.  And though the live action "Moana"dramatically flopped, a live action "Rapunzel" is on its way in 2028.

"The Odyssey" is easily my favorite film of the summer, which came with a significant amount of culture war controversy from multiple fronts.  I guess this is to be expected in the age of the outrage-loving social media algorithms, but it was also telling that the movie's box office performance seemed entirely divorced from the online vitriol.  "Obsession" and "Backrooms," on the other hand, seemed driven primarily by younger, very online audiences who finally had movies that aimed directly at their cohort.  And though the superhero genre is definitely seeing an ebb, "Spider-man" movies always make money, and "Brand New Day" was no exception.  Though there are currently no plans for future installments, I expect that Tom Holland will be swinging back to our screens soon enough, regardless of whether the rest of the MCU remains viable.

 

Finally, I was happy to be proven wrong about the "Toy Story" franchise still being able to generate so much interest.  I feel like I've slipped out of the target audience for this series over the past few years, but it's nice to know it's still having an impact, and PIXAR is still handling it so well.

Next year, Bluey, Shrek, and Superman will be in the mix.  Until then, happy watching!

   

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Your 2026 Emmy Nominations

The Emmys are a barometer of who's hot in the television industry, more so than the Oscars are for the movies.  This is because television shows stick around longer, and the same names tend to come up year after year.  It's no great surprise to see "Abbott Elementary," "The Bear," and "Hacks"  in the race for Outstanding Comedy Series, for instance.  What's really intriguing are the newcomers - this year those familiar titles are joined by "Widow's Bay" and "Margo's Got Money Troubles," both from Apple TV+.  Over in Outstanding Drama Series, the newcomers are "Your Friends & Neighbors," "Pluribus," and "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms."  This is a rare year where I've actually seen more of the Drama nominees than the Comedy ones, and only two of the five Limited/Anthology nominees.

Frankly, the inclusion of  "Your Friends & Neighbors," and "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" in Outstanding Drama is a little odd, because neither series got any other major nominations in acting, directing, or writing.  It looks like "Task," which did get nominations in all those categories, would've been the next in line.  Meanwhile, "Widow's Bay" got a whopping nineteen nominations on its first time out, including one of Matthew Rhys's two lead performance nominations (the other is for the Limited Series, "The Beast in Me.") I'm very glad to see Kate O'Flynn and Dale Dickey in Supporting Actress too.  It looks like "The Chair Company" and "The Comeback" were other major contenders for Outstanding Comedy, from their nominations in other categories too.  No comment on Limited series until I see more of the contenders.  I guess I've got to subscribe to Peacock again for "All Her Fault."

The one-off nominations always offer some fun surprises.  The acting categories are full of them - Yahya Abdul Mateen II for "Wonder Man," Chase Infiniti for "The Testaments," Sally Field for "Remarkably Bright Creatures," Riz Ahmed for "Bait," and Nick Offerman for "Death By Lightning" - too bad that last one didn't get more recognition.  Bowen Yang, alas, is no longer with "Saturday Night Live" and no longer eligible.  However, the one I'm really intrigued by is Mary Lou Belli getting a directing nomination for an episode of "The Ms. Pat Show," a sitcom which is currently on its fifth season on BET+.  This show is so completely off my radar, I didn't know it existed.  And thus, until I did some digging it totally escaped my notice that this is Mary Lou Belli's fourth consecutive nomination in the category.  Good grief, talk about blind spots.

It looks like "The Pitt" is the new "Succession," with its sprawling ensemble cast dominating the Supporting Actor categories.  They won last year's Outstanding Drama trophy, and I expect that they'll win this year too.  In Outstanding Comedy, it's going to come down to the last season of "Hacks" versus "The Bear," which isn't being nominated for its last season that just came out, but the fourth season from way back last spring.  I expect "Hacks" will take it this year.  "Widow's Bay" is getting a lot of attention, but I expect that it's too much of a genre show for some of the older voters to handle.   I'll refrain from making predictions about the other categories, except that I expect that Stephen Colbert and "The Late Show" are going to be getting a lot of love.  

I don't want to spend too much time on snubs, but they are unavoidable.  "The Boys," "Stranger Things" and "Spider-Noir" only got nominations in the tech and craft categories.  I'm genuinely surprised that "Alien: Earth" and "Lord of the Flies" were almost totally ignored.  The lack of "The Lowdown" and "Industry" is just plain rude.  The Outstanding Movie (previously Television Movie) category feels like whatever Netflix and Prime felt like promoting when the nomination submissions were due.  

Also, disappointed fans should be aware that "Heated Rivalry" is a Canadian production and not eligible for Emmy consideration, unfortunately.  Connor Storrie's nomination is for hosting "Saturday Night Live."  They are, however, eligible for the Las Culturistas Culture Awards, and were prominently featured in the opening number of the most recent ceremony.  

The Emmys are on NBC this year, with Mariska Hargitay (nominated for Outstanding Directing For A Documentary/Nonfiction Program) hosting.  Happy watching!  

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My Favorite Oscar Micheaux Film

There are directors I write about because I admire their talent, and there are directors I write about because I want to examine their impact on film history.  In that second group, there are a lot of the early film pioneers that I've been trying to figure out how to best feature, and today I'm going to try and check a big one off the list.  

Oscar Micheaux is arguably the most important black filmmaker of the twentieth century, the first major African-American director with real artistic freedom.  He formed his own production company based in Nebraska in the silent era, and produced dozens of films with black casts, featuring the talents of many of black filmmakers behind the scenes.  Though Micheaux successfully transitioned from silent to sound films, it's his silents that have best stood the test of time.  Of the few surviving ones that are still in circulation today, I find "Body and Soul" the most watchable, a melodrama about a mother and daughter pair who are deceived by a phony reverend.  The reverend and his twin brother are both played by Paul Robeson in his first screen appearance.  

To modern eyes the story and performances are unremarkable at first glance, and the filmmaking falls short of the technical sophistication of Hollywood features.  However, if you're familiar with silent films, Micheaux's work is a stark departure from the kinds of features that were being made at the time about African-Americans.  They totally eschew the grotesque stereotyping of the black characters that was popular in the era, and the performances have a dignity and poignancy to them that white directors' attempts to portray African-Americans too often lacked.  Even Robeson's monstrous convict in disguise evokes sympathy as well as scorn when he meets his tragic downfall.  One of Micheaux's major goals in creating these films was to help uplift black audiences, as well as entertain them.  He used plenty of the tropes common in Hollywood films at the time - biracial coded characters were always having miraculous last-minute revelations about their parentage - but to his own ends.  He was also determined to show black life as it really was, reflecting his own experiences.        

Many of Micheaux's plots center around the plight of unfortunate women in some fashion, who fall victim to a terrible crime or injustice, or occasionally choose the wrong path in life and have to face the consequences.  "Body and Soul" stands out for centering the mother and daughter relationship, with the ignorant but loving mother, played by Mercedes Gilbert, unwittingly orchestrating her own unhappiness by pushing her daughter to marry the false reverend instead of the man she truly loves.  Neither woman is idealized, which grounds them wonderfully.  The daughter, played by Micheaux's sister-in-law Julia Theresa Russell, is mousy and awkward.  Her mother is rough and overbearing -  at one point the daughter timidly chides her for using a racial slur.  All the performances in the film are very exaggerated and theatrical, which was typical of silent films, but they also feel unusually modern.  These women wouldn't be too out of place in a Tyler Perry movie made today.  

Because of the unflattering portrayal of religious elements and instances of violence and vice, "Body and Soul" encountered some controversy from both black and white audiences.  The original version of the film, now lost, was nearly twice as long as the surviving edited version.  Many of Micheaux's films were similarly challenged, as he often explored themes of crime, corruption, and racial unrest.  In his quest to show that African-Americans could be better, he also showed the darker sides of their lives.  And he was never one to shy away from confronting social injustices as he saw them.  Micheaux's best known film is an earlier silent picture, "Within Our Gates," which has often been characterized as the anti- "The Birth of a Nation" for portraying KKK members as destructive villains.

I prefer "Body and Soul," however, which is smaller scale, more focused, more intimate, and gives the three leads the space to create more emotionally complex characters.  Micheaux was obliged to give their story an unreasonable happy ending, but manages to depict a few moments of heartbreak and humanity that are right up there with the cinema greats.  

What I've Seen - Oscar Micheaux

Within Our Gates (1920)

The Symbol of the Unconquered (1920)

Body and Soul (1925)

The Exile (1931)

Ten Minutes to Live (1932)

The Girl from Chicago (1932)

Murder in Harlem (1935)

Underworld (1937)

God's Step Children (1938)

Swing! (1938)

Lying Lips (1939)

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