Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom: Compelling and Intense! (Netflix)

This film is an adaptation of the 1984 August Wilson Broadway play of the same name.  The screenplay was written by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and it's not much different than the play's script.  Lately, we've seen several pieces by August Wilson – a great black playwright – being made into movies: most recently "Fences" (2016), which starred Denzel Washington. Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) was an actual great blues singer, and some even consider her to be "the mother of the blues."  The film is set in about 1927 – when Ma Rainey and her back-up band recorded "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" as well as some other blues songs – and primarily takes place in the recording studio.  Ma Rainey knows that she is great and she doesn't want to take any shit from her white agent, Irvin (Jeremy Shamos), or the white Director of the recording session, Sturdyvant (Jonny Coyne).  She wants to do her own thing, including wasting valuable studio time, to prove her point! Most of the members of Ma's back-up band know their place.  They play the songs the way Ma wants them played, not necessarily how they would want to play them.  A new member of the band, however – a trumpet player, Levee (Chadwick Boseman) – thinks he's better than the others and wants to do his own thing.  Although he can be superficially charming, he is seething with rage below the surface.  Levee gets into conflict with the trombonist, Cutler (Coleman Domingo) about how they should play the music.  The tension builds between everyone throughout the recording session and "something's gotta give." Boseman, in his final role, gives an AAW performance and the film is worth seeing just for his acting alone.  Even besides just that, it's a really good film, anyway.  August Wilson has a lot to say and says it very well.