Malcolm and Marie

Argument, the movie.

Shot during COVID-19 lockdown, this is an artfully-composed two-hander, with John David Washington and Zendaya spending a night exchanging a series of monologues in support of a never-ending fight.

He’s a hot-shot movie director, full of self-righteous anger, flying high off being hailed as a genius for a story about a woman fighting addiction.

She’s his long-suffering girlfriend. The film was essentially her life story, yet he failed to acknowledge that.

It’s basically a staged play, and the constant sniping gets tiresome, but Zendaya is transcendent as a woman of many moods.

Her work here is sublime.

BlacKkKlansman

Fight the powers that be.

Spike Lee delivers an often-hilarious, yet righteously-angry film which shines a spotlight on a tale from the ’70s, while connecting that decade’s fight to the present world.

John David Washington plays the real-life Ron Stallworth, a Black cop who infiltrated the KKK by posing as a white man on the phone.

Tweaking notorious racist jackass (and future presidential candidate) David Duke, the undercover brother dances with danger, always aware he has little support from his fellow cops.

It’s a bold, bracing film, another memorable salvo from a director never afraid to fire the big guns.