Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Pretty good/Great
The title is a bit misleading as the movie isn't so much "about" Ma Rainey, her career and the impact she had on Blues music as it is about the times and black people's role within them. It's 90% anecdotal exposition from her band members with the music popping up from time to time. The pace of the movie is kinda all over the place, but Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman (in his final performance) are incredible. Davis' Ma Rainey comes across as a demanding diva whose mere presence is intimidating to everyone around her. She knows she's effectively being exploited by the white studio executives, so she pulls no punches when it comes to exploiting them. Boseman plays a young, headstrong trumpeter with dreams of not only striking out on his own, but with his own vision of Rainey's music, and he and Rainey inevitably come to loggerheads. Other than that, there's really not much to say about the movie; great acting with little substance for anyone expecting a biographic.