Sing Sing (2023)

Jack and I loved this movie, based on a true story, about inmates at the titular New York prison who find joy in a theatre group. The reliable Colman Domingo shines as John "Divine G" Whitfield as does Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin playing himself. Paul Raci plays Brent Buell, the kind director of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program, and most of the other cast are literally ex-convicts playing versions of themselves, except for Sean San Jose (he plays Mike Mike), who is Domingo's real life friend. In an early scene, the actor asking for Divine G's autograph is the real John "Divine G" Whitfield.

Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley, filmmaking partners, wrote the script for Kwedar to direct (apparently the partners alternate who gets directing credit), based on John H. Richardson 2005 Esquire article The Sing Sing Follies (you can read the article here, but wait until after you watch the movie) and Buell's prison play Breakin' the Mummy's Code. Story credit goes to Bentley, Kwedar, Maclin, and Whitfield.

Bryce Dessner's score can be streamed on Apple Music, as can the Oscar-nominated song Like a Bird. Oscar has also nominated Domingo and the screenplay story writers. As of today, the movie has 57 wins and 178 other nominations.

Domingo was last blogged for Drive-Away Dolls, Raci for his Oscar-nominated role of the kindly therapist in The Sound of Metal, and Dessner for A Good Person. Maclin and Whitfield make their feature debuts and San Jose has been in a handful of other projects. Kwedar and Bentley have written and directed two other features with another scheduled to open this year.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are averaging a liberated 97%. We watched it on a streamer from the Independent Feature Project Spirit Awards (anyone can join and I am a member) on January 18 but now it's available to rent. Everyone who worked on the movie received the same pay and was offered ownership depending on which phases they participated in: development, pre-production, production, post-production, and promotion. So when you rent it, you will be helping to pay the actual independent filmmakers.