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Superlatives swirl around Bruce Franks Jr., the focus of the Oscar-nominated short documentary St. Louis Superman.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever met a human being quite as remarkable as Bruce, who just contains the sheer amount of talent but also this life force, this energy where just greatness seems to surround him,” comments Sami Khan, who directed the film with Smriti Mundhra. “He’s like a movie star or the greatest hip-hop performers. He just has this presence that’s magnetic.”

That magnetism drew followers to Franks as he established himself in the St. Louis area as a leading figure in “battle rap,” an art form where freestyling rappers duel with each other on a public stage. Most battle rappers deploy verses to ritualistically reduce their opponents to pretender status, while extolling their own gifts. There is some of that with Franks, but he has a way...

The nominations for the 2020 Academy Awards have been announced. As expected, Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” and Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” are all major contenders across various contenders. These films as well as Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story,” Todd Phillips’ “Joker,” and Sam Mendes’ “1917” picked up multiple nominations across many categories, in addition to top bids for Best Picture.

Last year’s Oscar nominations were dominated by Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” (Netflix) and Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favorite” (Fox Searchlight), both of which earned 10 nominations. “Roma” took home honors for Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Foreign Language Film, but it was controversially beat by Peter Farrelly’s “Green Book” (Universal) in the Best Picture race. Many film critics were outraged over the end result and named “Green Book” the worst Best Picture winner since “Crash” infamously won the Academy...