On this episode of Why Watch That:

MOVIE SNEAK PEEKS

Sylvie’s Love

Website: Prime Video

Synopsis: In Sylvie’s Love, the jazz is smooth and the air sultry in the hot New York summer of 1957. Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha), a saxophonist, spends late nights playing behind a less-talented but well-known bandleader, as member of a jazz quartet. Sylvie (Tessa Thompson), who dreams of a career in television, spends her summer days helping around her father’s record store, as she waits for her fiancé to return from war. When Robert takes a part-time job at the record store, the two begin a friendship that sparks a deep passion in each of them unlike anything they have felt before. As the summer winds down, life takes them in different directions, bringing their relationship to an end. Years pass, Sylvie’s career as a TV producer blossoms, while Robert has to come to terms with what the age of Motown is doing to the popularity of Jazz. In a chance meeting, Sylvie and Robert cross paths again, only to find that while their lives have changed, their feelings for each other remain the same. Writer/director Eugene Ashe combines romance and music into a sweeping story that brings together changing times, a changing culture, and the true price of love.

Release Date: December 23, 2020
Directed by: Eugene Ashe
Screenplay by: Eugene Ashe
Starring: Tessa Thompson, Nnamdi Asomugha, Aja Naomi King, Jemima Kirke, Tone Bell, Alano Miller, Erica Gimpel, Ryan Michelle Bathe, and Lance Reddick, with Wendi Mclendon-Covey and Eva Longoria
Distributor: Amazon Studios
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance
Running Time: 1 hour 50 minutes
Rated PG-13

The Midnight Sky

Website: Netflix

Synopsis: This post-apocalyptic tale follows Augustine (George Clooney), a lonely scientist in the Arctic, as he races to stop Sully (Felicity Jones) and her fellow astronauts from returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe.

Release Date: December 23, 2020
Directed by: George Clooney
Screenplay by: Mark L. Smith
Based on the novel “Good Morning, Midnight” by Lily Brooks-Dalton
Starring: George Clooney, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir, and Tiffany Boone
Distributor: Netflix
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Running Time: 1 hour 58 minutes
Rated PG-13

One Night in Miami…

Website: Prime Video

Synopsis: On one incredible night in 1964, four icons of sports, music, and activism gathered to celebrate one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. When underdog Cassius Clay, soon to be called Muhammad Ali, (Eli Goree), defeats heavy weight champion Sonny Liston at the Miami Convention Hall, Clay memorialized the event with three of his friends: Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.) and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge).

Based on the award-winning play of the same name, and directed by Regina King, One Night In Miami… is a fictional account inspired by the historic night these four formidable figures spent together. It looks at the struggles these men faced and the vital role they each played in the civil rights movement and cultural upheaval of the 1960s. More than 40 years later, their conversations on racial injustice, religion, and personal responsibility still resonate.

Release Date: In Miami theaters on December 25, 2020, in select US theaters on January 8, 2021, and on Prime Video January 15, 2021
Directed by: Regina King
Screenplay by: Kemp Powers
Based on the Stage Play “One Night In Miami…” by Kemp Powers
Starring: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, Leslie Odom Jr., Joaquina Kalukango, and Nicolette Robinson, with Beau Bridges and Lance Reddick
Distributor: Amazon Studios
Genre: Drama, History
Running Time: 1 hour 54 minutes
Rated R