Check out the killer new trailer for the upcoming thriller “Censor”, one of my favorite films from this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Director: Prano Bailey-Bond
Starring: Niamh Algar, Nicholas Burns, Vincent Franklin, Sophia La Porta, Adrian Schiller, Michael Smiley
Release: June 11, 2021
In the new Netflix movie “Monster” director Anthony Mandler uses a non-linear structure to tell the story of young black student wrongly charged in the murder of a bodega owner. The film premiered way back at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and was eventually acquired by Netflix. Based on a Walter Dean Myers novel of the same name, “Monster” maneuvers through its sometimes heavy-handed dialogue to deliver a well-meaning and often crushingly effective legal drama.
The film is told from the perspective of 17-year-old Steve Harmon (a terrific Kelvin Harrison Jr.). The film opens a few minutes after he has been arrested for playing a role in the robbery of a Harlem bodega that left its owner dead. As Steve narrates we watch the overwhelmed high school honor student and aspiring filmmaker as he is processed by police. Soon he’s sitting across from his state appointed public defender (Jennifer Ehle). These unsettling early moments set us up for the nearly 100 minutes of tension that comes baked into the material and directly from Mandler’s style of storytelling.
The story (written by Radha Blank, Cole Wiley, and Janece Shaffer) bounces us back-and-forth across the timeline. We visit and revisit Steve’s time in prison, in the court room, at home with his loving parents and young brother, out with his neighborhood friends, and in his high school film class where his dedicated teacher Mr. Sawicki (Tim Blake Nelson) inspires him to follow his dreams. While some of the time-jumping seems unnecessary, it’s ably handled and it does keep the film from feeling like a conventional retread.
The film is driven by the richly layered lead performance from Harrison Jr. who has already established himself as a powerful young actor. Here he manages to channel innocence, ambition, youthful spirit, fear, frustration, hopelessness, and resolve all through a single densely conceived character. The movie also sports a rock-solid supporting cast in addition to Ehle and Nelson. Jeffrey Wright and Jennifer Hudson are really good as Steve’s loving parents. Just as good is Rakim “A$AP Rocky” Mayers who takes a fairly cookie-cutter bad egg part and makes it interesting. We even get John David Washington in a small but menacing role.
Clever touches from cinematographer David Devlin help convey the film’s frequently shifting mood. The harsh sterile grays of the courtroom, the glow of the sun beaming through the neighborhood trees, the warmth of home with his family, the cold isolation of prison. Devlin’s camera takes some of the load off of Harrison Jr. by helping the audience to see things the way Steve sees them.
“Monster” is a timely and thoughtful critique of America’s justice system told with startling clarity from the perspective of a young black man. While the movie landscape has been inundated with these kinds of social dramas, Mandler does enough with a well-worn genre and by-the-books premise to make the movie feel reasonably fresh. It doesn’t completely avoid the cringy on-the-nose dialogue (take the soulless white prosecutor eyeing Steven and coldly uttering “he looks the part to me“), but it tells a moving story and is worth watching for the strong performances alone. “Monster” is now streaming on Netflix.
HBO Max has dropped the trailer for Steven Soderbergh’s new throwback heist film “No Sudden Move”. The movie features a packed cast that includes Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Jon Hamm, David Harbour, Brendan Fraser, Ray Liota, Amy Seimetz, Julia Fox, and Bill Duke among others. The film is slated to premiere at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival before landing on the streaming platform a couple weeks later. Judging by this first look, we have a lot to look forward to.
Set in 1955 Detroit, the movie follows a group of small-time hoods who are hired to swipe a lone document. Easy, right? Well of course not. Things go sideways fast leaving them searching the city for the one who hired them in hopes of getting some answers. I love the grimy look of the trailer and the all-star ensemble features names that should fit really well in the world Soderbergh is creating. As far as crime dramas go, this could be a really good one.
“No Sudden Move” premieres June 18th at Tribeca and then hits HBO Max July 1st. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
Two of my very favorite horror movies of the last decade were James Wan’s “The Conjuring” (2013) and “The Conjuring 2” (2016). Based on the supposed real-life case files of paranormal investigators and Vatican certified demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, the Conjuring films were breaths of fresh air in a genre that had become pretty bland and stale. Both films were big box office successes which Warner Brothers used to launch several spin-off movies. None of them came close to the quality of Wan’s centerpieces, but they made money and ensured franchise fans of future movies.
The third film sees Wan producing and conceiving the story but stepping away from the director’s chair. It also sees the series dropping the number in its title and going with a case-referencing subtitle. Even more, unlike its predecessors, this isn’t a haunted house movie. Instead it’s based on the 1981 trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson which became known as the “Devil Made Me Do It” case (hence the film’s funny sounding yet appropriate title). This one very much plays like a supernatural mystery; one that isn’t confined to a single location. Its differences from the previous two movies are obvious, but that’s part of what makes it such a nice addition to the series.
Though helmed by a new director (Michael Chaves), “The Devil Made Me Do It” does see the return of its most essential ingredients. The reliable Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson reprise their roles as Loraine and Ed, possessing that same stellar chemistry that has made the Warrens the heart of the “Conjuring” films. Their loving, devoted relationship has always played a crucial part to these stories, but never more than in the third film. In fact you could call this a thoughtful love story, albeit one wrapped from top to bottom in eerie supernatural terror.
The film opens with a chilling prologue that would feel right at home in first films. The Warrens have been summoned to Brookfield, Connecticut where they’re documenting the exorcism of 8-year-old David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard). In an obvious but satisfying toast to “The Exorcist”, the priest (Steve Coulter) arrives at the family home, standing in the soft glow of a street lamp with his bag by his side. Inside a malevolent demon fully takes hold of young David and a spiritual battle ensues. During the encounter Ed is attacked by the sinister spirit and suffers a heart attack. Then, unbeknownst by everyone other than the now unconscious Ed, the demon jumps from David to Arne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor), the amiable boyfriend of David’s older sister Debbie (Sarah Catherine Hook).
By the time Ed wakes up in the hospital it’s too late to stop the demon from resurfacing in Arne. One gruesome murder later and Arne is in court pleading guilty by reason of demonic possession. Loraine and a recovering Ed get back on the case, setting out to prove Arne was possessed by uncovering the evil at the heart of it all. Screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick pulls the Warrens out of the confines of a single-setting and sends them on a paranormal whodunnit that sees them tracking down a hermit ex-priest with knowledge of the occult, helping police with a cold case in a nearby town, and revisiting the home where the demon first possessed young David. And of course there is plenty of demonic pushback along the way.
By venturing outside of the haunted house box the third movie loses some of the nail-biting tension that kept fans perpetually on the edges of their seats. The first two films did a masterful job immersing their audiences in the suffocating terror of their settings – confining them within the walls of a creepy house with a devilish entity. There are tastes of that throughout part three, but this one leans more into a sustained level of dread. It’s not always cranked up to 10 nor does it need to be. But there is an ominous cloud that hangs over practically every scene. There are parts of the story that I wish were given more attention (such as the courtroom stuff), but the filmmakers know people aren’t coming to a “Conjuring” movie to see witness testimonies and cross-examinations.
“The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” finds itself in an tough spot. It makes an effort to actually do something different within the series rather than follow the blueprint of the two earlier movies. It seeks to show that the “Conjuring” films don’t have to be the same thing over and over again. Some people will appreciate that ambition while others wishing for ‘more of the same’ could get lost in comparing it to its predecessors. That would be a shame because this is a solid entry that may lack some of the chills but yet maintains the spirit of the two earlier installments. And it does so by avoiding the copy-and-paste approach where the names have changed but not much else has. “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” is now showing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max.
Check out the wickedly cool poster for the upcoming horror-thriller “Old”
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Thomasin McKenzie, Rufus Sewell, Ken Leung
Release: July 23, 2021
I’m always up for a good old-school gangster flick. “Lansky” from writer-director Eytan Rockaway is a biographical drama about Meyer Lansky, a notorious Jewish mobster and close associate to Italian mob boss Charles “Lucky” Luciano. Vertical Entertainment has released the first trailer and it gives us a good look at Oscar-nominated screen veteran Harvey Keitel in the movie’s titular character.
“Lansky” is told from an interesting perspective. Down-on-his-luck writer David Stone (played by Sam Worthington) is contacted by none other than Meyer Lansky and given the opportunity to tell the gangster’s story. At the same time FBI agents, frustrated by their inability to put the gangster away, begin squeezing Stone to secretly get information from Lansky that they can use to build their case. The trailer has a very classic crime story vibe and there is certainly enough untapped material about Lansky’s fascinating criminal life to make for a good movie. It’ll all come down to Rockaway’s execution.
“Lansky” arrives in theaters and on VOD June 25th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
Keith & the Movies 