New On DVD: Oscar winner featured in releases
By Tribune News Service
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A leading awards-season contender that just nabbed two Oscars headlines the new releases for the week of May 4.
“Judas and the Black Messiah”: Daniel Kaluuya recently won the Academy Award for best supporting actor for his portrayal of Illinois Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton, killed in his sleep by Chicago law enforcement in 1969, with LaKeith Stanfield nominated in the same category for playing the “Judas” in question, a man who infiltrates the Black Panthers at the behest of the FBI.
Writing for Tribune News Service, critic Katie Walsh lauded director Shaka King for his focus on Hampton’s words and revolutionary beliefs, saying the movie is “an inspiring portrait of the young activist, paired with an examination of the FBI’s insidious cultivation of informant William O’Neal [Stanfield], who was integral to their surveillance and murder of Hampton. King’s dual focus and stylish cinematic approach makes for a biopic that is at once rousing, maddening and desperately tragic.”