Ruby Dee

[6] Nastassja Kinski stars in this slow-moving tale of a woman who discovers her sexual urges transform her into a black leopard. Kinski learns her brother, played by Malcolm McDowell, shares the same curse and wants to forge a sexual (and incestuous) relationship with her so they can both experience sex without killing their partners. But Kinski ends up having the hots for a zoo-keeper …

[6] Ridley Scott directs from a script by Steven Zaillian this true story about a New York detective (Russell Crowe) and a drug lord (Denzel Washington) whose paths cross in the 1970s to expose deep-rooted corruption in the police force. The film balances the screen time between Washington and Crowe’s characters, so we get both the plight of the humble man and the rise & fall …

[8] Spike Lee explores racism from multiple angles in Do the Right Thing, a provocative but entertaining ‘day in the life’ flick set in a Brooklyn community on the hottest day of the summer. Films that deal with racism tend to be either maudlin or one-sided, so I was glad to see Lee present the issue as the complicated one that it is. Scenes between …