Balmy Ocean Drive, sand in my toes, piña coladas from the Palace. Human nature.
I can feel my old tan on my tan skin.
We won’t be traveling this winter, but you know Imma let Academy Award winner Regina King take me One Night in Miami…, alright. Sign. Me. Up.
Oh, we already are, to Amazon. I know. Le sigh. But only for Amazon Prime Video. Which we will need come Jan. 15, for that’s when this beyond-buzzy film is set to premiere on the streamer, in the thick of the most pandemical of awards seasons evah.
For her feature-film debut, King chose to focus on one incredible night in 1964, when four icons of sports, music, and activism gathered to celebrate one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. When underdog Cassius Clay, essentially on the eve of becoming Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), defeated heavy weight champ Sonny Liston at the Miami Convention Hall, Clay memorialized the event with three of his closest: Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge).
Written for the screen by Kemp Powers based on his own eponymous award-winning play, King’s One Night In Miami… is a fictional account inspired by that historic night back in ’64 that these four formidable figures spent together. It looks at the struggles these men faced and the vital role each played in the civil rights movement and cultural upheaval of the 1960s. Today, their conversations on racial injustice, religion, and personal responsibility still resonate.
Amen to that, and hail praise Queen Regina. It’s a date.
King of Cups 
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