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Song of the Day #4,645: ‘Speak Now’ – Leslie Odom Jr.

Best Films of 2020
#4 – One Night in Miami…

In a year of strong ensemble casts, none impressed me more than the quartet at the center of Regina King’s One Night in Miami….

King directs a script by Kemp Powers, based on his own play, about an encounter between four legendary Black icons: Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), and Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.). The four men alternately clash and harmonize about their roles and responsibilities in a society that worships them but would never invite them in for dinner.

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Song of the Day #4,644: ‘It’s Raining Men’ – DeathByRomy

Best Films of 2020
#5 – Promising Young Woman

Writer/director Emerald Fennell’s polarizing Promising Young Woman is one of the most self-assured and stylish debuts I’ve ever seen. Whether you find it exhilarating or nauseating (or both), you can’t deny its potency.

Part rape revenge thriller, part romantic comedy, part exploration of PTSD, this movie manages its twists and turns so deftly and somehow emerges as a cohesive vision. Fennell, an English actress best known for roles on Call the Midwife and The Crown, has crafted a singular concoction, a candy-coated poison pill.

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Song of the Day #4,643: ‘Pretty (Ugly Before)’ – Elliott Smith

Before today, Elliott smith had made 25 appearances as a Song of the Day artist. Thirteen of those were by my choice, while the other 12 were Random Weekend selections.

Today’s random SOTD evens up the score, making it a baker’s dozen of both random and intentional selections.

One thing is certain: every one of those 26 songs is a gem. In his short career, Smith seemed incapable of recording a song that wasn’t special in some way or another.

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Song of the Day #4,642: ‘You’ve Got Her in Your Pocket’ – The White Stripes

When The White Stripes pop up on Random Weekends, I never know what I’m going to get. It could be a hard-rocking amp buster, or something delicate like today’s Song of the Day.

This track was a Jack White solo song that kicked around for several years before finding a home on the band’s celebrated 2003 album Elephant. It’s one of the only White Stripes tracks not to feature both Jack and Meg.

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Song of the Day #4,641: ‘Fight For You’ – H.E.R.

Best Films of 2020
#6 – Judas and the Black Messiah

Director and co-writer Shaka King’s stroke of brilliance was his decision to make a biopic into a gritty 70s-style crime film. His Judas and the Black Messiah is an illuminating exploration of Black Panther Fred Hampton’s short, impactful life, but it’s also a tense, riveting nail-biter.

Daniel Kaluuya, Lakeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons and Dominique Fishback breathe vibrant life into their real-world characters, making decades-old history as immediate at last summer’s protests.

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