Powers wrote and co-directed the latest Pixar film, Soul, the story of a middle school music teacher who refuses to go to the Great Beyond without a fight. Powers also wrote the screenplay for One Night In Miami, a movie about the night Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown hung out in a motel room. (The meetup was real. What they said and did is a matter of conjecture.) Kingsley Ben-Adir (MalcolmX), Aldis Hodge (Jim Brown), Eli Goree (Muhammad Ali) and Leslie Odom Jr. (Sam Cooke) star in "One Night In Miami." (Patti Perret/Amazon Studios) Both films debuted on Christmas Day. Both are being tapped as major awardsseason contenders. For a Hollywood veteran, this would be a once-in-a-lifetime hat trick. For a newbie, it's unprecedented. For Powers, let's hope it happens again. He's an immensely talented, hardworking and down-to-earth human — and he used to write for LAist. What can we say? We know talent when we see it.