The Big Cigar - A Fuga

A brilliant performance by Andre Holland. This is one of the best true stories I'd never heard before. Highly entertaining. Fast paced. Thought provoking. Don Cheadle brings all the 70s style and flair. The soundtrack is 10/10. It's an in depth, nuanced, unique portrayal of a revolutionary in crisis, at a crossroads, a complicated often misunderstood man grappling with his choices, his direction. Something we rarely see. The love story between Gwen and Huey is deep and emotional, highlighting the impact of women in the party. And if nothing else, it's an incredibly fun thing to binge. Strongly recommend. Don't miss out!

Amazing writing acting directing. Don Cheadle did a great job. Andre holland shines, he's clearly one of the greatest actors alive. The show is incredibly thought provoking and entertaining while hitting emotional highs and lows. Some of the tone jumping and time frame jumps are challenging but it settles into a flow and becomes eomething unique that can't quite be nailed down to convention or dismissed as familiar. The panthers and Huey newton deserve a multi season epic that delves into all their chapters but this is essential viewing for anyone interested in the movement - but also for anyone who just likes drama and entertainment. Highly recommend One of the best shows of the year.

On June 14th AppleTV+ released the finale of its 6-episode docudrama about one of the Black Panther Party's founding members, Huey P. Newton. The series is based on a book by Joshuah Bearman and was produced by Don Cheadle who even directed a couple episodes. The show follows Newton as escapes to exile in Cuba with the help of some film producers under guise of making a major motion picture titled The Big Cigar. The premise of the series seemed cool, and I was excited to learn more about the Black Panther Party.

To put it plainly, this was a perfectly forgettable series. It wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. I felt that the acting was good, especially by P. J. Byrne who I felt stole the show as one of the movie producers, and it was cool to learn about this piece of history. Unfortunately, I found the show as a whole to be on the boring side and gave it an overall rating of 6/10.

This show is brilliant. It has all the great elements in terms of events (action, romance, suspense); above that, it's brilliantly written (you can tell that from the dialogues), and it's reasonably historically accurate - in any case, in terms of highlighting the Black Panthers. This show does justice to history.

Why does it have such bad reviews?? Beats me. Is it too smart? That's a possibility - most series are mindless nowhere stories, while this actually has a point, and historical background. Is it because most of the people reviewing it can't cope with the facts that a poor minority was actually more progressive and accomplished more things than the majority what conspired against it? Maybe Americans just still aren't ready to accept all the messed up stuff their country / government / nation / etc. Did.

In any case, this show is absolutely fantastic, and it puts the finger right where the booboo's at. As far as I'm concerned, I'm recommending it to everyone, and I'm sure it will get more recognition in the future.

I'm not sure how we're watching the same show - this series was brilliantly written and brilliantly shot. Could it have been a movie? Sure, but I don't think anything is lost in the series format. Personally, I can't stop watching and I have recommended this series to everyone I know.

The series does a great job of humanizing Newtown, we see the complexity of a man who ultimately wanted to do the right thing for his people. The story development is superb, it really sheds light on a little known historical figure in a way that is honest. The actors brought the characters to life in such a way that you forget you're watching a show, you feel like you were there and part of the story. They did an excellent job with the series.