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On Thursday, November 10th, tickets go on sale at 11:30 am for the 7:15 pm showing of the critically acclaimed movie Moonlight, which will premiere in Memphis, TN at Malco Ridgeway Four, 5853 Ridgeway Center (Tickets are only available at this location).

There will be an “Exclusive Special Screening” at 6:30 pm Hosted by Erskine Gillespie with a Red Carpet reception where all attendees are asked to wear their “Fiercest Shaded of Blue.”  At the conclusion of the film, there will be a panel discussion narrated by The Unleashed Voice founder Davin D. Clemons.

Moonlight is a 2016 American drama film written and directed by Barry Jenkins, with a story by Tarell Alvin McCraney, and stars Trevante Rhodes, Andre’ Holland, Janelle Monae, Ashton Sanders, Jharrel Jerome, Naomie Harris, and Mahershala Ali.

Moonlight is labeled a “timeless story of human connection and self-discovery,” Moonlight chronicles the life of a young black man from childhood to adulthood as he struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami.

With summer blockbuster season wound down, and with the holidays still a few weeks out, people looking for a gratifying time at the movies need look no further. In a season dominated by Republican attacks on people of color and African-American men, Director Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight depiction of black gay love is a beautiful antidote.

In Moonlight the focus is on people of color living in Miami, (No Whitewashing) and the struggles they face within their own communities in coming out and living their lives as gay men and women. The film provides a picture of the LGBT community beyond young 20-somethings, cute kids in glee club or middle-class white couples. On that level, Moonlight presents one of the most real portraits of the community in recent years.

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As the LGBTQ community has been granted the right to marry and enjoy marriage equality under the law. Gay men, in particular, argue among themselves about masculinity.  The image of masculinity is seen just about everywhere which creates a singular paradigm about gay men. Some are terrified of somehow looking weak or less than, stress and promote their masculinity to the point of recklessness. Moonlight deals with that very subject in a striking and poignant way.  Moonlight isn’t afraid to show just how damaging the pressure to conform to a certain standard of masculinity can be.

Finally, more than anything else, Moonlight might just be the best movie of the year. Writer-director Barry Jenkins directs with confidence and sensitivity. His writing style has a beautiful subtlety—characters always seem to say more than what they’re actually saying. Likewise, he and cinematographer James Laxton film the Miami vistas in lush blues and greens, capturing the unmistakable beauty and feel of the city. In a time of a seemingly endless litany of superhero and sci-fi epics, Moonlight offers a thoughtful, original alternative, directed and acted with precision and thought. The movie remembers that despite all the headway the LGBTQ movement has made in terms of legal acceptance, we still have work to do in the hearts and minds of the American people…beginning with ourselves.

 

 

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