darkcurry
Well-Known Member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ss/?curator=MediaREDEF&utm_term=.af5943a8d68d
Just some pieces from the article by Alyssa Rosenberg:
"As the troubled, long-awaited adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” rolls out to dismal reviews this week, I’ve had to resist banging my head against the wall in frustration, and not because I’m a King aficionado grappling with shattering disappointment. Rather, “The Dark Tower” is the latest frustrating example of how nothing ever seems to go quite right in the career of Idris Elba — and what a loss that is for the rest of us."
"“The Wire” should have set Elba up to do anything: to be an older Black Panther in a Marvel adaptation; to revitalize the old-school movie romance in an era where “Fifty Shades of Grey” was bringing more adult sexuality back to the multiplex; to star in a range of historical biopics at a moment when directors such as Ava DuVernay were turning their history to black America’s past."
"He was wonderful as Nelson Mandela in “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,” capturing both Mandela’s militancy and his hard-won patience. But that movie (which also featured a marvelous performance by Naomie Harris as Mandela’s wife, Winnie) came out the same year as Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave.” In an industry that often seems incapable of recognizing more than a few black artists at a time, “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” was largely shut out of year-end awards after a modest performance at the box office. Elba did similarly strong work in “Beasts of No Nation,” as the Commandant who manipulates and deploys child soldiers. That film, though, was distributed through Netflix, which bets on daring content but doesn’t yet seem to have figured out how to make its glut of original movies and television shows capture the cultural conversation."
"That’s an awful shame, and it speaks more to the entertainment industry’s failures of imagination than to anything lacking in Elba’s talent. And while I’m sure this frustrates Elba and his agents, this state of affairs is a loss for everyone. The space between what Idris Elba is capable of doing and what Hollywood has been willing to give him to do is a measurement of the industry’s creative failure and timidity. And for those of us who love to watch Elba work and hate to see him wasted, the weight of performances that could have been but never will be is crushing."
