Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2024.08

Read the explanation of method, madness, and spoilers.[1]

1. Beasts of No Nation (2015) — 8/10
2. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) — 8/10
3. Cam (2021) — 4/10
4. Tribes of Europa (2021) — 5/10
5. Curb Your Enthusiasm S12 (2023) — 10/10
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2008) — 7/10
7. Metal Lords (2022) — 8/10
8. Emily the Criminal (2022) — 8/10
9. Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) — 8/10
10. What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015) — 9/10

Beasts of No Nation (2015) — 8/10

The story follows the young life of Agu (Abraham Attah), whose country, in the grips of civil war, is being torn apart by rival gangs and warlords. When his village is overrun by one such group, Agu’s mother and sisters are whisked off to the capital in an overstuffed taxi, while Agu, his older brother, and his father remain behind. The rebels arrive, setting the village ablaze, then rooting out counterrevolutionaries. They line up “suspects”—pretty much all of the remaining villagers—and demand that they confess to crimes, then shoot them in cold blood regardless.

As all of the soldiers and commanders would throughout the film, they spout aphorisms about justice and judicial procedure before doing so. This is not uncommon for any occupying army. Police in the U.S. are known for shouting “stop resisting” while they pummel a citizen senseless because they know, when the body-cam footage surfaces, that these statements will legally protect them. If they’d legitimately feared for their lives, then they’d had every right to defend themselves. It is the same with the rebels here: if they declaim that they are acting with a vested authority to perform in-field trials and executions, then they are on the side of “justice”.

Agu escapes into the bush, leaving behind his dead father and brother and everything else he knew. He spends several days in the bush, trying to fend for himself, but is unable to really do so. Soon, though, he encounters Commandant (Idris Elba) and his entire battalion of child—and teen—soldiers. They take up Agu into their ranks, initiating him, and getting him hooked on drugs to deaden his soul to the terrible things he will do with them. He befriends young Strika (Emmanuel Nii Adom Quaye), who never says a word but seems to know his way around the gang.

The band ravages and pillages the countryside, working its way toward the capital. Commandant arrives to a meeting with his “supreme commander” Dada Goodblood (Jude Akuwudike). There, he is disappointed to hear that his second-in-command 2-IC (Kurt Egyiawan) will be given the battalion he’d been leading. He doesn’t accept this, so he takes everyone out to a brothel, where 2-IC mysteriously dies when his companion sets off his gun “by accident”. The battalion accepts this, they bury 2-IC, and move on, away from the capital, to mine gold in the countryside. Along the way, Strika dies of a gunshot wound. Agu had carried him, desperately trying to keep him alive.

Months later, they’ve been camped in the middle of nowhere, with little food and water and no more ammunition. They rise up against Commandant, demanding to leave—and he lets them go, telling them how horrible their lives will be without him. The cult dies, just like that. Commandant must be tired, as well. It is the last we see of him.

They march through the bush until they run into UN soldiers, who capture them and bring them to a school and halfway house, where they acclimate back to their lives as children. Agu enters therapy and we get a happy ending of sorts as we see him playing in the surf with the other children.

The story in this movie reminded me of a book I read way back in 2009 called A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Baeh.

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) — 8/10

The story starts with the discovery of oil in the Osage Nation. The tribes grow rich. It’s unclear how historically accurate this is but it gels with what I’ve read. Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns from a harrowing experience in WWI to his uncle William Hale’s (Robert De Niro) estate, a cattle farm smack in the middle of Osage country. He starts driving rich Indians around for a living. His uncle wants him to move in on and marry Mollie Kyle, so that her family’s fortune will be able to legally flow to white people, specifically to William Hale.

Ernest also runs a side-hustle with his brother and friend—robbing Indians and their white spouses. That’s the first indication that Ernest isn’t quite what his name suggests. He acts the bumbling fool, but he’s intimately involved in all of “King” Hale’s machinations for clearing those pesky Osage out of the way and making sure the “headrights” go to him or one of his sons (who’ll just let him run it anyway).

King Bill Hale is a calm, evil force who sees to it that his “friends” the Osage are eliminated, one by one, or in droves. He doesn’t really care. They’re just animals to be cleared out of the way in order for him to get the oil money. The only complaint that the white town elders have is that he’s “pronouncing himself too much,” when he has Reta and Bill’s house blown sky-high. Ernest sees that Molly is next. He’s been involved in all of this so far, but he’s in denial. He does seem to love her. He believes King and his coterie when they tell him that Mollie’s “medicine” is just to slow her down. Mollie trusts him to pick up her medicine. He adds the poison that King gave him.

Tom White (Jesse Plemons) shows up to investigate the murders. He wants to talk to Mollie, who’d traveled to Washington to plead for help from the president himself. Ernest sends him away, then runs to daddy. Despite his age, King Bill can still overpower Ernest like he was a child. King is stymied in getting the insurance money on Henry, who he’d had killed. The killer had failed to make it look like a suicide, so the insurance company is contesting the $25,000 claim.

This is a complicated story. Ernest and Mollie dearly love each other. Ernest treats his betrayal of her and her family as some sort of inevitability, driven by his uncle’s insatiable greed and base evil as well as Ernest’s love of money, seemingly above all else. By the time Ernest discovered that he loved Mollie more than money—and with her, he had all the money he wanted—it was too late for him to take back all of the things King had “made” him do in order to get it.

It’s hard to tell how simple Ernest was, how evil he was, how aware he was that what he was doing was wrong. Although he loved and married Molly, he seems to have—at least instinctively—shared King’s attitude toward the Osage. That is, that they had lucked into something that they didn’t deserve and that their betters should take it from them, if only for safe keeping. They think of it this way: if a pack of dogs had discovered oil, it would have been the height of silliness to let the dogs keep the money, right?

Why didn’t the Osage fight back? Well, because they knew that this is how the white man treated them. They’d been treated like this for over a century. Why would they think that, just because oil had been discovered on land that was currently considered theirs, that the white man would allow them to keep it? Why would they think that the white man would suddenly start playing fair?

The Tulsa Massacre was mentioned a few times, as a possible reason why the Osage seemed to be so helpless to use their newfound wealth to build safety for themselves. It’s possible that that had an effect, but I think it’s just much more that they knew that they would not be allowed to have nice things. Or, at least, they wouldn’t be allowed to enjoy them for long. Why would the young Osage women want to marry these vultures that descended on their town after they’d become rich?

At the trial, John Lithgow played the prosecution, while Brendan Fraser was the defense lawyer. Ernest would go to prison. Mollie divorced him and married another white man. William went to prison, but was eventually released for good behavior, 10 years after Molly had died of diabetes, at 50 years old. The forgiving God who looks down on us gave William Hale several years in Arizona, until he died 15 years later, in 1962, at 87 years old.

Ernest, on the other hand, was already out in 1937, after 11 years in prison. He soon robbed his former sister-in-law and was sent back to prison until 1959, when he was paroled. In 1966, he was officially pardoned. he lived until 94 years old, dying in 1986.

This is the benevolent God, I guess. He must really hate native Americans.

This was a great film. At 3½ hours, it’s incredibly long, but the subject is worth it. It’s treated with respect by all. Scorsese is a master of showing, not telling. The feeling of the town is like the Twilight Zone, with white men singing and dancing and trying to impress the native women—instead of the other way around. We are made to feel how invidious and insidious these vultures and vampires are. There is a blanket of menace and despair, despite the wealth and riches.

Cam (2021) — 4/10

This is a horror movie about a cam girl named Alice (Madeline Brewer) who has a cam channel on a popular platform. Man, I don’t know. The whole dynamic is so sad, but I fear that I’m just out of touch. This is probably what OnlyFans is like. Anyway, Alice is trying to get into the top 50 channels on the site, so she starts pretending to kill herself. Her users love it. One of them seems quite enthusiastic about watching her die.

She starts slowly moving up the charts. Although she seems happy with her success, she can never truly be happy. She’s just a miserable person with no real personality. Her younger brother and his friends discover her channel and out her as a porn star at his birthday party. Her mom is disappointed. No-one cares.

The rest of the movie watches her spiral as someone who looks just like her takes over her channel. No-one will believe her that this has happened. She’s locked out of her account. She no longer has any income. The person who took her show looks just like her. And she’s way better at this than she is. The fake Alice quickly climbs into the top ten. It turns out that the fake Alice in an AI vomited up by the system, who’s been taking over all of the top acocunts. Alice outsmarts it—this is the most unbelievable part, to be honest—and then deletes its account, which is her account, so she’s left with nothing.

Instead of having learned any sort of lesson, though, the film ends with her opening a new account, this time with her mother’s support.

Tribes of Europa (2021) — 5/10

This is an odd show that, while it seems to have been made with real actors, so many scenes are so heavily edited that a lot of them end up in the uncanny valley. This is a near-to-mid-future story set in a Europe divided into tribes. We meet several members of the Origines tribe, who live simply, in the forest, with a minimum of technology. There’s Liv (Henriette Confurius), Elja (David Ali Rashed), Kiano (Emilio Sakraya), and Yvar (Sebastian Blomberg). They are out foraging when they see an Atlantean craft crash-land in their territory. After an initial hesitation, they rush to help, rescuing the Atlantean pilot (Michaël Erpelding) as well as his ship’s “cube”.

The powerful and vicious Crows tribe is also on the hunt for the cube. They tear a swath through the Origines village, killing nearly everyone, except for the main characters to which we’d already been introduced. They are scattered to the winds, with Elja hooking up with Moses (Oliver Masucci), who’s a long-time tech-scavenger with many connections and a somewhat unsavory reputation. Moses is kind of the best character.

Despite being wounded herself, Liv manages to subdue and capture a Crow warrior Grieta (Ana Ularu)—which supposedly never happens—and is subsequently captured by the Crimson tribe, which seems to be a lot of Germans with a distinctly Aryan flavor to their dreams of “reuniting” Europe, though it sounds much more like “reconquering”. The Crows have the same aims but make no bones about eliminating everyone who does not pledge fealty to and join the Crows’ brutal hierarchical society.

Liv continues to inveigle the Crimsons, wheedling her way into leader David’s (Robert Finster) heart. They’re both using each other, though. She’s trying to get to the Crow capitol city Brahtok, where Kiano and their father have been taken. Kiano becomes a slave to Varvara (Melika Foroutan), where he becomes her #1 consort, then challenges to fight for his freedom. He’s left to fight his father because the Crows are ironic bastards. I think Kiano wins, gaining his freedom and becoming a Crow.

Meanwhile, Liv has convinced the Crimson tribe to attack Brahtok, having helped extract the location of an unflooded, secret tunnel into the city. They are thwarted by David’s father General Cameron (James Faulkner), who Liv tries and fails to assassinate.

Moses and Elja work their way through Moses’s network, trying to restore the Atlantean cube while kinda, sorta pretending to want to sell it. They get it charged up and Elja manages to use it, but the battery dies incredibly quickly. They clash with pursuing Crows, but finally end up at a lake, raising a gigantic cube or piece of Atlantean tech from the water, entering it, and being closed up in it. I bet the show-runners thought that this would go somewhere in season 2.

The Crimson attempt to negotiate with the Crows, but neither side is particularly trustworthy, so it ends up in a wild shootout. David allows Liv to escape just before more of the Crimsons are slaughtered. Liv once again wakes up to the introduction of another tribe: the Femmes. She is rescued, again in what was probably a setup for the second season.

The production values are pretty uneven as I kept thinking that the show was purely filmed in the Unreal engine. The world-building was decent, though pretty workaday and generic in the end. The dialogue was insultingly simple. It looked reasonably good, but that’s not nearly enough. It’s not too surprising that it wasn’t renewed for another season, especially considering the obviously European character to it. It probably didn’t get any traction in the U.S., where this kind of low-effort plotting and dialogue are much more easily forgiven if the visuals are distracting enough.

I watched it in English while working out.

Curb Your Enthusiasm S12 (2023) — 10/10

I thought this was a brilliant finale, a 12th season capper to a series that’s been delivered over 24 years. Larry David’s writing is just as sharp as ever. His coterie of friends is rock-solid and always in on the joke. No-one explains the jokes. No-one tells you what your take is supposed to be. Most of the situations and lines can be interpreted in several ways. While the most obvious one is often funny, there are other layers that are even funnier.

This show stands as a cutting critique of American life, especially that of the wealthy elite, to which Larry David very clearly and knowingly belongs. The critique is never direct but the wealthy are consistently portrayed as venal, shallow and completely undeserving of the wealth and power that they have. Larry jokes about being so rich that he doesn’t have to care about money.

This season’s arc follows Larry giving Leon’s aunt a bottle of water while she is standing in line to vote, which is illegal in the state of Georgia. Larry becomes a national hero—in blue circles, at least—as he was (unknowingly) flouting a cruel and unfair law clearly intended to prevent people from voting. The season culminates in a trial that nearly perfectly mirrors the ending of Seinfeld, complete with cameos by Jerry Seinfeld. He and David laugh about how Curb ended things better by making one of the jurors be seen mingling in a local bar instead of sequestering. Larry’s case is declared a mistrial.

Throughout the show,

• Larry and Jeff (Jeff Garlin) tangle with the ownership and other members at the golf club.
• They become accused of having written a letter of complaint to the irascible owner of the country club.
• They go shopping for a black lawn jockey to replace one that they broke at a rental property.
• Both Larry and Freddy (Vince Vaughn) scheme to dump their annoying girlfriends.
• Larry and Jeff laugh about how Susie’s caftan business’s billboard has a dick drawn on it, which seems to inspire more business for her. A second one pushes her business to even more dizzying heights.
• Larry gets caught up in a WhatsApp texting group for a family he never knows particularly well nor really cares for. He is upbraided for failing to follow texting etiquette because he doesn’t like and laugh at other people’s comments.
• Larry and Richard Lewis arrange the purchase of an old Mercedes.
• Larry gets in trouble with a car-valet service because the boss thinks its rude and arrogant to toss keys rather than handing them over.
• There is a misunderstanding with Larry’s ex-wife Cheryl’s (Cheryl Hines) masseuse that Larry tries to smooth over before his trial by introducing her to Bruce Springsteen. After a too-perfunctory introduction, Larry has to try again, this time possibly infecting the Boss with COVID.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2008) — 7/10

I saw this movie in 2009 but didn’t include any notes at the time. The rating still stands.

In this one, Dementors attack Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) at the Dursleys’ home. He dispatches them with a Patronus charm, after which he is whisked to the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix by the selfsame group. At Hogwarts, Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) has taken over as headmaster from Dumbledore (Michael Gambon). Harry starts a secret group called Dumbledore’s Army, where he teaches students how to use offensive and defensive spells—because the school is no longer teaching them.

Harry begins to have dreams that are real-life events in Voldemort’s life, which is the first sign that their minds are magically linked. Harry begins studying with Snape to be able to close off his mind to Voldemort’s probing. This backfires because Harry isn’t focused enough and Voldemort lays a trap for Harry and his compatriots in the Ministry of Magic. There’s a knock-down, drag-out fight accompanied by the destruction of what looks like thousands of prophecy spheres. Many death-eaters are there, including Bellatrix (Helena Bonham Carter), who kills Sirius (Gary Oldman). Voldemort finally reveals himself to everyone at the Ministry, leaving them no choice but to believe that he’s back.

I saw it in German this time.

Metal Lords (2022) — 8/10

This is a simple and relatively sweet movie about a couple of high-school friends who are interested in metal and board games. Most would call them nerds but they’re not really super-good at school; they just like more cerebral and less physical games. Kevin (Jaeden Martell) is a relatively regular kid from a relatively regular family. He’s friends with Hunter Sylvester (Adrian Greensmith), who’s a high-strung bit of a narcissist from a divorced family, living with his relatively wealthy dad (Brett Gelman), who does boob jobs. Emily (Isis Hainsworth) is from Scotland and brings a whose sackful of personality disorders with her as well.

She plays the cello and Kevin is smitten, thinking that she could play bass in his and Hunter’s metal duo. Hunter is adamantly against it because “girls aren’t metal”. Hunter uses his Dad’s credit card to buy Kevin an absolutely bitchin’ set of drums, on which Kevin starts practicing in earnest, getting pretty good pretty soon—not to mention buff and more confident. Emily notices.

Hunter keeps trying to find another bassist, while Kevin and Emily keep practicing the playlist for the “Battle of the Bands” in which Hunter’s band Skullfucker will take part. Emily and Kevin grow closer and she, in a by-now characteristically direct manner, proposes that they shoot straight to fucking in her van, which they do, each losing their virginity.

With Hunter being disparaging and whiny and bitchy about Emily and about Kevin being with Emily and not appreciating how much better Kevin has gotten at drumming, the singer of another local band overhears Kevin playing and immediately recruits him into the band. Kevin plays a wedding to universal accolades.

In the meantime, Hunter has been sent to a rehab clinic by his father, who had discovered the enormous credit-card purchase for drums. Hunter meets the head of the clinic, Dr. Nix (Joe Manganiello) who turns out to be his idol, the lead of the band Killoton, which won the Battle of the Bands decades ago. Kevin breaks him out of the clinic and they head to the Battle of the Bands. Emily is not ready to play, but then she is ready, and she shows up all goth and metal and kicking ass and they kick ass but they also lose to the band Mollycoddle, which is the band with which Kevin had played the wedding.

School bully Skip attacks Hunter one more time, at the end of their set, knocking him down into an amp and breaking his leg. The trio revels in the viral fame of the incident and redouble their practice. The end.

Emily the Criminal (2022) — 8/10

Emily’s (Aubrey Plaza) life is not good. It’s not as bad as many people have it, but she is barely keeping her head above water. She has an interest in and flair for art, but her art-school degree hasn’t helped her find employment in that field, so she’s working two jobs, one in food-delivery. She has a lot of debt, just the interest for which eats up any and all income she’s able to scratch together.

She meets Youcef Haddad (Theo Rossi), who runs a low-level criminal empire of “dummy shoppers”, who basically cheat stores out of larger products like televisions by purchasing them with burned credit cards. Her second foray is to purchase a car in the same way. The dealer’s hackles are up, though, and she has to fight her way out—which she does, with aplomb. This is a nice way of learning that Emily has a core of steel.

She and Youcef grow close, which annoys Youcef’s partner, his cousin Khalil (Jonathan Avigdori), who is much more of a hard-ass and misogynist than Youcef, who seems like a decent guy. He’s a stand-up guy next to the social parasite that is Liz (Megalyn Echikunwoke), Emily’s friend from school, who’s failed her way upward through a marketing agency. Emily dog-sits for her. A buyer and his girlfriend somehow find her there, attack her, and take all of her money. Shaken, she grabs a taser and chases them into the street, blasting them both and stealing all of her stuff and her dog back. Emily has steel in her.

Liz gets Emily an interview at her company, but it’s for an unpaid internship. The girl boss Alice (Gina Gershon) is also an absolute trash human-being.

Emily the Criminal Exclusive Movie Clip − The Interview (2022) by Rotten Tomatoes (YouTube)

“Emily: Sorry, I’m just trying to wrap my head around that. So what are the hours?
Alice: Regular hours. [pause] You do realize this is a very competitive position?
Emily: Yeah, sure, I understand that. What I don’t understand is how you feel so comfortable asking someone to work without pay.
Alice: You know, when I was your age, they told me all I could be was the secretary.
Emily: Okay, but secretaries get paid.
Alice: That’s not the point.
Emily: Well, when you were my age, did you have sixty thousand dollars of debt?
Alice: How about this: when I was your age I was the only woman in a room full of men.
Emily: But you had a job okay? You know, you’re getting paid. Am I wrong?
Alice: I don’t have time for this. Clearly, you’re a bit spoiled.
Emily: Spoiled?
Alice: Let me be frank with you: you don’t belong here because you think everyone is out to get you. None of us are out to get you, especially me. I’m trying to help.
Emily: This was a fantastic Liz, thanks very much. Thank you.
Alice: No more talking; just leave thank you so much.
Emily: Hey, if you want to tell me what to do, put me on the fucking payroll. How about that?”

Soon after, Khalil ruins a lunch with Emily, Youcef, and Youcef’s mother by revealing that Emily has been caught out by a store she’d robbed. He cuts Youcef out of his half of the business, draining all of their shared accounts. Emily convinces Youcef to accompany her to attack the safe house where Khalil is hiding out. Khalil and Youcef scuffle. Youcef is shot, injured. Emily subdues Khalil (but probably killed him). She gets Youcef to the car, along with all of the money in cash.

They don’t have the car keys, though. Sirens blare. She is torn. The steel prevails. She abandons the nearly unconscious Youcef to his fate, taking all of the money and absconding to South America. She is making art and running a “dummy shopper” ring, having taken Youcef’s role. She looks happy and confident. Her school loans are a thing of the past. She has started over, unburdened by the past.

Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) — 8/10

Zak (Zack Gottsagen) is a young man with Down’s Syndrome, living in an assisted-care facility, which otherwise houses mostly senior citizens. He is good friends with ancient-looking Carl (Bruce Dern), who encourages him to live his best life. Zak greases himself up, muscles through the bars over the window, and escapes into the wilds and bayous of Louisiana, clad only in his underwear. His mission is to find his wrestling hero, the Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church), and become his acolyte, learning the tricks of the trade.

Though relatively small, Zak is preternaturally strong. This is what Tyler (Shia LaBeouf) terms “retard strength,” but absolutely not in a mean way. He’s impressed. Tyler is a small-time fisherman who’s been illegally crabbing and expresses his anger at his sad lot in life by setting fire to most of the traps of his chief rivals Duncan (John Hawkes) and Ratboy (Yelawolf), two truly unsavory and mean characters. Tyler is also on the run in the bayous of Louisiana. His life has never been the same since his older brother Mark (John Bernthal) died. Tyler meets up with Zak. They hit it off immediately and, for lack of a more cohesive plan of his own, he decides to accompany Zak to the Salt Water Redneck’s home.

Zak’s caretaker Eleanor (Dakota Johnson) is both distraught that Zak is out on his own and that she’s in deep trouble with her boss for his escape. She sets out in pursuit, tracking Zak through the state. Meanwhile, Zak and Tyler are on foot, barely eking out food and water, but with Tyler teaching Zak how to shoot and, soon, how to wrestle. They build a raft—like Huck Finn and Jim—and set off on the river. Eleanor catches up with them at one of their camps. She decides to travel with them on their quest, since she’s now heard that her boss plans to put Zak into even more hopelessly repressive housing. He seems to be doing much, much better with Tyler. When Duncan and Ratboy show up to exact revenge, Zak gets rid of them by convincingly wielding a shotgun.

The trio finally arrive at the Salt Water Redneck’s home, where they learn that he’s retired. He’s sympathetic to their pathetic little group, though, so he unironically trains Zak in the ways of backyard wrestling. He signs him up for a match against a truly ferocious beast of a man, who pulls no punches on Zak. This is actually kind of neat because he doesn’t treat Zak differently just because he has Down’s Syndrome. After withstanding a beating, Zak marshals his strength, lifts his giant opponent over his head and throws him out of the ring. He is jubilant.

At the same time, Duncan and Ratboy have located them again, this time with murder in their eyes. They beat Tyler to the ground with a heavy blow to the head from a tire iron.

This sweet film ends with Eleanor and Zak driving to Florida. After a little while, they ask the back seat a question. Tyler struggles up to a sitting position, his face bruised and his head swaddled in bandages. They laugh at a joke and the car drives into the horizon.

What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015) — 9/10

This is a biography of the life and times of Nina Simone. She began life as a poor girl, trained in classical piano, playing Bach for the church. She broke out of that mould in her late teens, expanding her palette to jazz and blues. She would always stay rooted in classical, though; you could hear it underpinning so much of what she did.

Her voice was so unique, her playing so inventive and seemingly effortless, that it was a surprise to learn how miserable she was for much of her life. She met and married a former NYC police officer who would take over managing her career—and her life. He drove her relentlessly, which, at first, was beneficial for career and her music…but she soon burned out. He treated her terribly; he beat her. Their daughter was a witness to her mother’s denigration.

There was a ton of archival footage, which was great. The modern-day interviews were nearly useless; they weren’t really interesting at all, adding nothing, especially as compared to the copious first-hand footage of Simone playing and speaking. These parts spoke for themselves, eloquently telling the story far better than her daughter’s stilted and somewhat over-modern identitarian interpretations.

Simone became a leader of the civil-rights movement, something that her husband strongly disapproved of. She eventually broke with him, fleeing to Liberia with her daughter. She lived in relative fame there but would soon have to start playing again, as she ran out of money.

Simone would eventually move to Paris, staying one step ahead of destitution until her career finally got its wheels under it again. She continued to be brilliant throughout; whenever she was on stage, she was in her element, weaving artistry out of even her worst moods. She was often depressed, though didn’t seem to have struggled with drugs or alcohol—just self-doubt and depression.

Although a bit long, it’s worth a watch just to see original video recordings of her classic songs, and to hear the story of this strong and moral woman’s life. She had her head screwed on straight and didn’t give an inch, even when she had to trade her career for it.