Jamal Joseph/Daniel Beaty's CHAPTER & VERSE: a film James Baldwin might have loved

Perhaps it's because TrustMovies only a few days ago watched Raoul Peck's new documentary about James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, that Baldwin and his beliefs kept coming to mind during my viewing of another new film that takes in Harlem and the Black experience: CHAPTER & VERSE. All about a parolee living in a halfway house as he tries to come to terms with being a semi-free man once again, the movie places us squarely in the shoes of this decent and struggling fellow.

As played by an actor new to me, Daniel Beaty (seen above and center on the poster at top), who also co-wrote the film), both this character, S. Lance Ingram -- his father named him Sir Lancelot, so he has shortened that -- and the performance by Mr. Beaty stand out by being different from many other black characters we see on film. Lance is neither super-heroic nor super-violent, and Mr. Beaty himself looks much more "real" than many of his contemporaries. He's not toned nor buff, and his face, while attractive enough, is nothing special. Yet his quietly persuasive performance will lock you into this tale of connection and sacrifice.

Directed and co-written by Jamal Joseph, shown at right, the movie generally forsakes anything approaching florid melodrama to concentrate on enough believable and interesting specifics of our hero's daily life to offset the occasional coincidences that crop up (characters running into each other or computers breaking down a bit too conveniently).

The society that Lance is struggling to become fully a part of is not all that welcoming: The fellow in charge of his halfway house (Gary Perez) is casually racist but no ogre, and his female boss (Orange Is the New Black's Selenis Leyva, above) at the welfare kitchen where he labors daily is all too happy to coerce him into a sexual relationship. Yet these characters, too, are not shown as villains; they're simply doing their job and making things as easy/pleasurable for themselves as possible.

When one of the clients (the wonderful Loretta Devine, above, who never seems to age!) to whom Lance delivers food becomes a good friend, and he sees that her grandson (Khadim Diop, below) is moving toward street-gang life, the movie builds toward its difficult conclusion. Among the film's strengths is the fact that Joseph and Beaty do not push too hard in any direction; their film seems simply to unfold.

Nor do the filmmakers feel they must tie up all loose ends. Lance has an ex-girlfriend who left him for another while he was in prison. He sometimes watches this woman from afar, but nothing comes of this. The finale, too, while downbeat, does not overdo it. Our man has done what had to be done and now will pay for it. And the audience comes closer to and better understands a word that, for the most part, seems to have disappeared from our society: sacrifice.

Even this is leavened with hope: The phrase "I got you" has seldom resonated as it does here. (That's Omari Hardwick, left, playing Lance's friend from prison who has done well for himself on the outside.) This is small film, and I make no grand claims to anything approaching greatness. But it is real, moving and often even funny. I suspect that James Baldwin would have appreciated this movie.

Chapter & Verse, from HFC and Paladin and running 99 minutes, opens tomorrow, Friday, February 3, in New York City at the New York MIST Harlem and the following Friday, February 10, at the AMC Empire 25, and in Los Angeles at the Cinemark 18, Promenade at Howard Hughes Center; in Chicago at the AMC River East 21; and in Atlanta at the AMC 24 South Lake.

Another "mothering" lesson in Peter A. Dowling's Irish horror thriller, SACRIFICE

Just yesterday we got an oddball lesson in mothering via Bulgaria, and here again today, we have another one from Ireland in the new horror thriller, SACRIFICE. Yesterday's tutorial came by and for women, but today's arrives via the guys, god bless 'em, and a more nasty, crazy, blood-thirsty and uber-patriarchal bunch of sleazebags, you're unlikely to find. This is thanks to director and adapter (of the novel by S.J. Bolton) Peter A. Dowling, shown below, who has done a pretty credible job of bringing this especially grizzly tale to the screen.

Most of the violence is kept off-screen, actually, but via a discovered corpse or two (and more to come) we fairly quickly learn the specifics of what happened (they're pretty ugly), if not quite why. Uncovering the latter is up to the film's star, Australia's always-willing-and-able Radha Mitchell, who plays a doctor who desperately wants to have a baby with hubby (Rupert Graves). But this is not to be, it seems; instead the pair travels to Ireland and a little island where hubby's wealthy family has quite a nice set-up going.

Ms Mitchell (above and below) is front and center throughout the film, and she handles her duties with her usual skill. From the film's particularly impressive opening scene in the hospital where she works as a gynecologist and has a very unusual session with a pregnant patient, the star proceeds to the island on which she very quickly determines that something is terribly wrong and begins investigating.

As usual in films like this, the townspeople, including the authorities, are not helpful, and so our heroine (Tora is her name) must tackle everything from the detective work to operating heavy machinery (below).  Just who -- if anyone -- is among the good guys is up for grabs here, which adds to the suspense and danger, all of which gets sorted out within the appropriate 90-minute running time.

A few red herrings turn up, the ensemble cast does everything required, and the movie overall plays out as swift, scary and (somewhat ghastly) fun. TrustMovies is making no claims to greatness here, but as horror thrillers go, Sacrifice is perfectly presentable, though it's something one might be inclined to view at home rather than making a pricier, more time-consuming trek to the cinema.

Which is all to the good, since the movie, from IFC Midnight, opens simultaneously on VOD and all digital platforms, as well as in a theater or two. In New York City, you can find it at the IFC Center (at a single late-night screening only) beginning tomorrow, April 29. The following Friday, May 6, it opens in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema in Hollywood.  

Erik Poppe's 1,000 TIMES GOOD NIGHT tackles art, death, sacrifice, family, career and more....

...and the best thing about this movie is that it does not cheat or trivialize any of the subjects it touches. That the film deals especially with what we might call terrorist bombings (while the bombers themselves would undoubtedly call it freedom fighting) makes 1,000 TIMES GOOD NIGHT an especially fraught experience. When it is good, which is often, it is superb, and even at the times in which the movie lessens, it is never less than worthwhile. It is also one of the most serious and moving films about sacrifice that I have ever seen.

The Norwegian filmmaker, Erik Poppe (shown at right), a few years back gave us the excellent Troubled Water, and his new film is a fine follow-up. It stars the nearly always terrific Juliette Binoche as Rebecca, a famous war photographer and a woman considered among the best in her field who loves and understands her work and what it means and why she does it about as well as she possibly can. That she is married and has two children, whom she sees too seldom, is the point upon which the movie turns. Her husband, played by the hot and talented Danish actor, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (in the second and third photo below, and at bottom, left), has determined, after the shocking event that begins the film, that his wife must finally choose between her family and the ever-possibly-fatal career she pursues.

Mr. Poppe allows us to view Rebecca in the midst of the most dangerous parts of her work, and we see that she does it very well. She does not love it, exactly; rather, she experiences it as a necessity to help this dangerous world in which we live.

We can also understand the feelings of her family members. There are no villains here, not even -- and this is the film's most miraculous effect -- those people with bombs planted on their person, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. (I could have done without the candle-lit balloon lift off, below, but that's a minor quibble.)

In order to bring mom and elder daughter closer together, a trip to Africa (don't worry, they are told: It's a safe location) is planned. The result of this brings the film to its climax and proper close. Nothing goes quite as planned, but neither do things dissolve. Rather, the events that happen seem appropriate and important, and the decisions made are reached via genuinely felt and understood experience.

I think Mr. Poppe is one of our better directors -- interested in what is happening in our world and why, and what is to be done about it. If possible. He gets fine performances from his entire cast (Ms Binoche is, as always, sterling), and best of all, he addresses our world honestly, effectively, and without rancor or any of the feel-good cheating that is the hallmark of so many of our movies.

1,000 Times Good Night -- a Norway/Ireland/Sweden co-production released here by Film Movement -- opens theatrically this Friday, October 24, in New York City at the Quad Cinema and in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal, among other major cities now, and in the weeks to come. You can view the entire list of currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters, by clicking here and then scrolling down.

Note: At NYC's Quad Cinema, director Erik Poppe will be present for a Q&A following the 7:30 show on Friday 10/24. In L.A., at the Royal theater, director of photography John Christian Rosenlund will participate in a Q&A at after the 7 PM screening on Friday, October 24, while the film's director/co-screenwriter Eric Poppe will participate in a Q&A after the 7 PM screening on Wednesday, October 29.