"Judas and the Black Messiah" is the new film on HBO about the assassination of Fred Hampton at the hands of the FBI.
Usually, for events that are moments in time, with plenty of real life footage and people who are still around to talk about it, I think, “Why wasn't this a documentary?” Movies tend to over dramatize the events and paint of picture of truth that isn’t exactly quite truth. BUT, I think this one passes the bar. It contextualizes the movement of the Black Panther Party in Chicago at the time. Performances by Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield are extraordinary. And maybe, more than anything, it is the right movie at the right moment. Kpolly offers some great insight into that.
For a movie where you know exactly what is going to happen from the title of the movie, when it happens you’re still shocked and appalled. It hit the mark.
In the podcast Kpolly offers more insight into other movies you might like to accompany it and we get way into terrible/wonderful 1980s sci-fi like “Hell Comes to Frogtown” and “Solarbabies” and Kpolly posits a theory on why he loves them so much.