A vivid portrait of an urban dystopia, “The Kitchen,” now streaming on Netflix, is sci fi that sets up a troubling vision of the future, while finding room to emphasize the humanity at the core of the story.
Set in the near future, the story takes place in a dystopian, “Blade Runner-esque” London. The divide between the 1% and everybody else has widened, with the effects of rising home prices, an AI workforce and a dismantled Welfare State turning the city into a playground for the rich, with no regard for people living in poverty.
The last remaining block of social housing, The Kitchen, is a dilapidated set of North London towers and home to hundreds of Black and brown residents. Scheduled to be demolished by the authoritarian government, its inhabitants live in constant fear of their power and water being shut off, or worse, being evicted in a violent police raid.
Izi (Kane Robinson), a funeral home worker whose company, Life After Life, composts the bodies of those who cannot afford a traditional burial, lives in The Kitchen, but has no plans of waiting around to be forced out of his home. Tired of lining up at the communal shower, and uncertainty of life at the crumbling estate, he has an eye on getting out. Saving his cash, he hopes to move into Buena Vida, a glitzy new development far away from The Kitchen.
His life is changed when he meets Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman), a youngster left to his own devices in the wake of his mother’s death. Izi knew the mother, and may, or may not, be the boy’s father. After a rough start, the two bond as Izi offers him a place to stay and steers him away from bad influences that live with the housing project.
As the two become close, Izi asks Benji to move in with him at Buena Vida, but doing so means he will have to reapply for a double occupancy apartment. That means waiting, and spending even more time wrapped in the uncertain embrace of The Kitchen.
“The Kitchen,” written by Daniel Kaluuya (the actor best known for “Get Out,” “Black Panther” and “Judas & The Black Messiah”) and Joe Murtagh, and directed by Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares, is set in 2040, but feels vital and timely. In an increasingly besieged world, the gap between rich and poor, the breakdown of community and the pressure marginalized communities feel under the thumb of an authoritarian state, as presented in the film, doesn’t feel like sci fiction. It feels more like a humanistic portrait of a community under fire.
It’s not all doom and gloom. The co-directors inject moments of joy with scenes set in a roller disco and a pirate radio voice named Lord Kitchener, played by former Arsenal-and-England footballer Ian Wright, who maintains morale in The Kitchen with music and spiritual advice.
Ultimately, for all its elaborate world building, “The Kitchen” is a personal story. Like most speculative fiction, the background sets the scene, but the meat of the story is anything but speculative. In this case, it is a father and son story that details the pressure and responsibility Izi feels to do the right thing for himself and Benji.
Robinson is effective in portraying Izi’s worldview. The character is aspirational but tethered to his reality, made more complicated by his relationship with Benji. It’s the storyline that grounds the film, and provides the most interesting moments.
“The Kitchen” brims with ideas, but they are sometimes muted by an episodic presentation. Kaluuya and company juggle a great many storylines, but the film works best when it gets up-close-and-personal with Izi and Benji.
After sitting through all two-and-a-quarter hours of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” the latest animated adventure of the universe jumping superhero, your spidey senses won’t be the only thing left tingling.
A wild pop culture pastiche of visual styles that jumps off the screen in ways that will give your eyeballs a Charles Atlas style workout, it is a full-body experience on the big screen.
Gwen Stacy (voice of Hailee Steinfeld) and Miles Morales (voice of Shameik Moore) return from 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Both are he off-spring of police officers, and both have secret identities as Spider-Woman and Spider-Man, respectively.
When Gwen becomes estranged from her father, she disappears into the Spider-Verse, a series of connected but independent universes, each with its own brand of Spider-People. As The Spot (voice of Jason Schwartzman), a villain covered in portals that allow him to transport from place to place, threatens to shred the very fabric of the Multi-Verse, Gwen and Miles go interdimensional to fight the new threat.
There they find Spider-HQ, sore of a Quantico for all various and sundry Spider-Folks, like Spider-Woman (voice of Issa Rae), Spider-Punk (voice of Daniel Kaluuya) and alpha arachnid Miguel O’Hara (voice of Oscar Isaac). When Mile inadvertently disrupts the Spider-Verse he learns an important lesson about the sacrifice required to be a Spider-Man.
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” is a spider web of Marvel mythology, relationship drama, action and some very funny moments, combined with extraordinary, state-of-the-art visuals. In the action scenes, co-directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson pull out all the stops to create a singular experience that has more to do with the anarchic spirit of the original comic books than the recent spate of superhero movies. Stylish and frenetic, the action scenes are so colourful they often look like an artist’s paint-palette exploded on the screen.
When the film isn’t in motion, it takes the time to explore the relationships between parents and kids, with the added twist of superheroes trying to figure out their place in the world (or should that be worlds?), while trying to navigate their teens. It adds themes of loneliness, responsibility vs. obligation and having autonomy over one’s own life. Through Gwen and Miles, and a heaping helping of action, the importance of writing one’s own life story is the focus of the story.
Ultimately, the success of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” isn’t simply about the eye-popping nature of the visuals or the humour or the emotional aspect of the story. All are great, but what makes it special is that it feels fresh. It’s a superhero movie, with all the world saving tropes you expect, but it feels more like a comic book come to life than most, if any, other superhero flick.
The term mockumentary has become synonymous with Christopher Guest’s work, a mix-and-match of documentary style and satirical fiction. Movies like “Spinal Tap” and “Best in Show” poked fun at the excesses of rick n’ roll and the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show respectively.
“Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul,” a new film starring Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown, and now playing in theatres, amps up the mock in mockumentary, to present a satirical take on Southern Baptist megachurch values.
Brown and Hall are former power couple Lee-Curtis and Trinitie Childs, pastor and “first lady” of the Wander To Greater Paths church. Once a powerhouse, with a congregation in the thousands, the church was temporarily shuttered in the aftermath of a sex scandal involving the narcissistic Lee-Curtis. “I’m not a perfect man ladies and gentlemen,” he preaches. “God doesn’t make perfect men. What I am is a servant of the Lord. Folks being the Lord’s servant doesn’t mean that you are not susceptible to being lured or seduced or being ambushed by the devil.”
In an effort to rebuild their congregation’s confidence, they set out with a plan to reopen the church and earn back trust, and the big bankroll that provided their lavish lifestyle. “We need to connect to people and make them see why they need you back in the pulpit,” says Trinitie.
There are some very funny moments in writer-director Adamma Ebo’s “Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul,” ably performed by Brown and Hall, but it is the dramatic sections that this mockumentary soars. For proof of this movie’s ability to surprise, see Hall reclaim her power in a gut-wrenching monologue, while wearing mime make-up. It’s remarkable work that blurs the line between the ridiculous and the sublime.
Emmy-winner Brown is equal parts charisma and egomania. His love of fine Italian hand-crafted shoes, helicopters and the finer things seems ripped from the megachurch playbook, but it is his power that impresses. Brown brings the juice, preaching to the choir with an authority that is both divine and extravagant.
Together their collective passion for piousness and material items may put you in the mind of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, but Lee-Curtis and Trinitie lean heavily into the tragicomedy their real-life counterparts somehow managed to avoid.
“Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul” doesn’t hold back in its savage satire, but it is in the character work by Brown and Hall, that cuts the deepest.
The trailer for “Nope,” the new alien abduction film from thriller auteur Jordan Peele, now playing in theatres, is one of the rare promos that gives next-to-nothing away about the plot. It’s meant to pique curiosity, to open your mind to the possibility of… well, almost anything.
The movie exists on the edge of possibility. It’s possible to see it simply as a good-time-at-the-movies UFO flick, but if you’re looking for more, Peele adds layers of subtext to the slow burn story, commenting on Hollywood, corralling nature and the belief in something bigger than yourself.
Set in current day, just outside of Los Angeles, “Nope” sees O.J. and Emerald Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer) carry on the family business after the death of their father (Keith David). Descended from the Bahamian jockey who was the first person to be filmed riding a horse, they run Haywood’s Hollywood Horses, a ranch that supplies livestock to film and television shows. “Since the moment pictures could move,” says Emerald, “we’ve had skin in the game.”
Business is slow, and just as O.J. considers selling some of their horses to a local pioneer village style theme park owned by former child star Ricky “Jupe” Park (“The Walking Dead’s” Steven Yeun), strange things happen at the ranch. Some kind of disturbance in the force has caused electrical blackouts, weird weather and put the horses on edge. There’s also a cloud that hasn’t moved for months.
When O.J. spots something in the sky, something he says was “too fast to be a plane,” Emerald hatches a plan to film the airspace around the ranch to capture film of a UFO. “The money shot,” she says. “Undeniable. The Oprah shot.”
They set up surveillance cameras, and, working with tech support guy (and UFO evangelist) Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) and gravelly-voiced cinematographer Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), they attempt to lure the mysterious craft—which resembles a giant sand dollar—to their elaborate trap and get “the impossible shot.”
“What we’re doing is going to do some good,” says Angel, “besides the money and the fame. We can save some lives.”
Like Peele’s other films, “Get Out” and “Us,” “Nope” has jump scares and disturbing images but this isn’t a horror film. It’s a sci fi movie that explores the fear of the unknown by way of Hollywood Westerns—it pays tribute to the doorway shot at the end of “The Searchers”—monster flicks, and of course iconic Steven Spielberg sci fi films like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” These homages are lovingly assembled to create something fresh, but students of film will have a hoot dissecting the movie’s visual influences and Peele’s obvious love of the form.
Just as there are myriad visual inspirations, Peele has jam packed the film with ever-shifting thematic and plot elements. The straight-ahead alien showdown is prefaced by story threads and flashbacks that don’t always feel like they’re forwarding the story. A TV chimpanzee-gone-wild sequence, for instance, while kinda cool if it was part of another movie, is a bit of a head scratcher.
Having said that, the sheer size and spectacle of “Nope” are powerful. There are only a handful of characters, but their journeys are broad and there are unexpected twists and turns. It’s an ambitious movie that feels less focused than Peele’s other films, but nonetheless, “Nope” earns a Yup.
The most surprising thing about “Judas and the Black Messiah,” now playing in select theatres, is that it took 51 years to bring Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton’s story to the screen.
In 1969 the charismatic Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) was shot in his bed during a state-sanctioned predawn raid conducted by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, the Chicago Police Department and the FBI. Director Shaka King vividly details how and why he met his premature end.
The story begins when career criminal William O’Neal’s (Lakeith Stanfield) plan to impersonate an FBI agent in order to brazenly steal a car goes awry. He winds up beaten, in the hands of Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons), an actual agent who offers him a deal. Either do one-and-a-half years for stealing the car and another five for impersonating an officer or go undercover and infiltrate the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers. He chooses freedom in exchange for supplying details on the comings-and goings of deputy chairman Hampton and his girlfriend, revolutionary Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback). Rising to the trusted position of security captain O’Neal is torn between loyalty to Hampton’s revolutionary ideas and self-interest, i.e., the deal he made to stay out of prison. “Imagine what they would do if they found out their security captain was a rat,” says Mitchell.
As the title suggests “Judas and the Black Messiah” is a story of epic betrayal. King carefully fits the puzzle pieces together to create a complex picture of its characters.
Stanfield, who has been handing in strong performances in films like “Selma,” “Get Out” and “Sorry to Bother You” hits a career high here. His take on O’Neal portrays the conflict of a man who took a dangerous and deadly road to salvation, only to discover he was in way over his head. There’s a complexity to Stanfield’s work as he breathes life into his conflicted character. In real life, years after the events portrayed in the film, O’Neal said of his legacy, “I think I’ll let history speak for me.” History may judge him, call him a Judas, but Stanfield doesn’t. Instead, he helps us understand O’Neal’s bad decisions.
Kaluuya unfolds Hampton as much more than a title. History records him as the assassinated Chairman of the Black Panthers, but “Judas and the Black Messiah” remembers him as a captivating speaker who rallied people for his cause as he established free breakfast programs and negotiated a détente between rival gangs. Kaluuya’s work jumps off the screen, with show stopping speeches and emotional scenes he brings Hampton off the pages of the history books with a well-rounded, fiery performance.
The vivid performances, including Fishback who brings depth to a supporting character, reel you in. King takes the time to let us get to know Hampton and O’Neal, which makes the deadly dance they engage in, leading up to the violent climax, all the more emotionally shocking.
Set more than fifty years ago “Judas and the Black Messiah” feels timely. Many of the issues at play in the story are still hot button topics today. The work Hampton began continues because, as he once said, “you can kill the revolutionary but not the revolution.”
We first meet the title characters, Angela “Queen” Johnson (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Ernest “Slim” Hinds (Daniel Kaluuya) as they are strangers, passing time on a first, awkward date at a Cincinnati diner. “So what’s gonna happen tonight?” asks Slim. “I thought we could hang out and get to know one another.” Then fate intervenes, Tinder may have brought them together but circumstance binds them together forever when Slim gets pulled over for “failure to execute a turn signal and swerving a little bit.”
The situation quickly spirals out of control.
Slim presses the aggressive cop to hurry it up while Queen, an attorney, questions the officer’s motives in searching the car. As the police officer’s dashcam rolls, there are harsh words, a skirmish, a misfire and soon the cop lies dead.
“You are a Black man who shot a cop and took his gun,” she says.
“But I’m not a criminal,” he replies.
“You are now. If you turn yourself in you will never see your family again. We have to move forward.”
Panicked, they flee, heading for New Orleans home of Queen’s shady Uncle Earl (Bokeem Woodbine). By the time they make it out of state a video of the accidental shooting has gone viral and their photos are splashed all over the papers.
The press paints them as “lovers”—even though they have just met—on cross country crime spree but public opinion is mixed. An African-American mechanic (Gralen Bryant Banks) they meet on the journey says, “You gave them a reason to kill us,” while his young son (Jahi Di’Allo Winston) sees them as folk heroes who stood up to authority. “If you don’t make it,” he says, “that’s OK. You’ll be immortal.”
They plan on making a run to freedom in Cuba. First, they have to avoid the police as they weave and wind their way to Florida’s coast.
Written by Lena Waithe and showcasing the style of director Melina Matsoukas in her feature debut, “Queen & Slim” takes a story with echoes of “Thelma and Louise” or “Bonnie and Clyde” and updates it, presenting the couple on the run tale from an African-American perspective. Angela is a lawyer whose first-hand view of the abuses of the justice system has made her a realist. It is her experience that self-defense will never fly solely based on the colour of their skin and it is her who sets the action in motion. The story of police brutality swaps the frequent narrative, presenting the story of two people who refuse to be oppressed by standing up to authority. There will be no spoilers here but know that “Queen & Slim” isn’t a manifesto, it’s a personal story about how quickly lives, ripe with possibility and promise, can be changed forever.
With terrific performances “Queen & Slim” transcends the outlaws-on-the-lam genre. Instead it is a timely humanistic drama that combines resilience with despair.
“Widows” may be one of the most subversive heist films ever made. Based on a British mini-series from the 1980’s it stars Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Erivo as four women bonded by debts left to some very bad men by their late husbands. It is part caper flick and part survival story that makes strong statements on hot button topics like sexism, poverty, prejudice, power and police brutality.
Set in modern day Chicago, the action in the story begins when Harry (Liam Neeson) and his crew of robbers gunned down and blown up after a heist gone wrong. His widow, teachers’ union executive Veronica Rawlins (Viola Davis), is left with a $2 million debt to local crime boss Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry). Manning is a tough guy attempting a stab at legitimacy by entering politics, running against corrupt local alderman, Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell). Manning wants his money and, after mistreating Veronica’s dog, gives her just one month to come up with the cash. “That money was meant to buy me a new life,” snarls Jamal. “That money was about my life. Now it is about yours.” If she can’t come up with the cash she’ll have to deal with psychopathic strong arm Jatemme Manning (Daniel Kaluuya).
It is a dire situation but Veronica has a plan, or rather, a notebook and a plan. Harry left behind a handwritten book detailing every bribe he ever paid and blueprints for a future heist. Putting the widows of her late husband’s hoodlum crew to work (Debicki, Rodriguez, and non-widow Cynthia Erivo), she creates a gang of her own to steal $5 million cash and save their lives. “I’m the only thing standing between you and a bullet in your head,” says Veronica.
Co-written by McQueen and Gillian Flynn, the author and screenwriter of “Gone Girl,” “Widows” is a tightly constructed thriller that builds with each passing moment. McQueen takes his time with the material, allowing the audience to get to know the characters, to learn what’s at stake if this caper goes south.
First and foremost is Davis, fierce and formidable. Her evolution from executive and unsuspecting wife to criminal mastermind is emotional, logical and very motivated.
Opposite her is Debicki as a damaged woman whose own mother suggests prostitution as a career choice to make things meet. Her shift from abused woman to a person completely in control of her life and the way she is perceived—“It’s mine to be ashamed of or be proud of,” she says. “It’s my life.”—is one of the film’s true pleasures.
The cast is universally strong. Farrell could use a different accent coach but Kaluuya is evil personified, a psychopath with dead eyes and an attitude.
“Widows” is a stylish art house heist flick that pays tribute to the genre but layers in not only intrigue but also social commentary about racism, the cost of political power and the imbalance of power between some of the female characters and their male counterparts. The thrills will appeal both to your heart and head.
