“Fences,” January 29, 2017 (2016), theater. We loved this Denzel Washington produced, directed, star vehicle filming August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony winning 1983 play of the same name. Washington and Davis recreate their Tony-winning performances (for the 2010 Broadway revival) as Troy and Rose Maxson for him and Viola Davis. The acting is superb and both are up for Oscars. He won a Golden Globe for Best Actor. This is a marvelous film, although some find it too slow and ‘stagey’. I loved it. The language, plot and character-development are brilliant. Set in Pittsburgh in the mid-late 1950s to early 1960s, it follows the decline of Maxson’s family as he, a former Negro League baseball star who was too old for the majors when they finally integrated, battles age, his marginality as a municipal sanitation worker, and a harsh sense of the world around him. He loves but can’t find satisfaction in his wife’s love. He drinks a lot. He builds fences to keep people in the house and death out. So death stays outside and does his work. A wonderful bit of acting that just becomes too theatrical at the very end. Stephen Henderson as Bono, Troy’s friend, is excellent. My only disappointment came with Mykelti Williamson (previously Bubba in Forest Gump) as Gabriel, Troy’s brain-damaged brother although his role itself is more theatrically written and doesn’t translate to film as well as the others. In all, however, this is a real winner