Posted on 07/08/2018 12:57:32 PM PDT by EdnaMode
Hollywood tends to pack summer with escapist flicks — popcorn movies that have little to do with the real world, unless you consider rampaging dinosaurs a pressing societal problem.
But these five socially-conscious films are sneaking into cinemas, and each has something compelling to say.
Sorry To Bother You This surrealistic comedy starring Lakeith Stanfield (Get Out) and Tessa Thompson (Creed) is earning rave reviews for wicked social satire that touches on race, class and capitalism.
Stanfield plays Cassius Green, a telemarketer in Oakland whose career takes off once he adopts a “white” telephone voice with customers.
Reviewer Kam Williams of kamwilliams.com called the film “a thought-provoking social satire marking the scriptwriting and directorial debut of Boots Riley.”
While the movie may not be for everyone because of its far-left leanings, Williams says it’s “entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%.” The film opens July 6.
Blindspotting The dramedy is likewise set in Oakland and takes on similarly timely themes, but with a more dramatic tone. Real-life childhood friends Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal co-wrote, co-produced and co-star in the film, with a gentrifying Bay Area serving as the backdrop to the action.
Diggs plays a man on probation who desperately tries to steer clear of trouble, but finds his future jeopardized when he witnesses a white cop shoot a fleeing black man.
That all-too-realistic scenario gives Blindspotting its bite. The film, set to open July 20, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where it received an enthusiastic reception. It also picked up a Directors to Watch award at this year’s Palm Springs International Film Festival.
Far From the Tree Also opening July 20, is the documentary Far From the Tree. Directed by Rachel Dretzin, it explores families where “the apple fell far from the tree” — in other words, situations where children differ significantly from their parents because of autism, Down Syndrome, dwarfism, transgenderism or other characteristics.
“I describe the documentary as a film that turns your assumptions about difference on their head and makes you realize just how many walls we all put up to people that look and act, behave differently,” Dretzin told Urban Hollywood 411. “It’s a film about one of the few places in the world where you can’t actually avoid people who are different from you, which is your family.”
Based on the book by the same name from Andrew Solomon, Dretzin says the documentary speaks directly to our times.
“At this moment, for a couple of reasons, it’s a particularly urgent message,” she noted. “One obviously being our political climate in which difference seems to be reason for people turning away from each other and building walls and silos and all sorts of things to keep ourselves away from those that are different.”
Science also plays a role in the film.
“Genetic testing and science is advancing at such a rapid pace that we will pretty soon be able to eliminate some of these conditions if we want to,” Dretzin added. “I think the book and the film are really a cry against that and for that kind of beautiful diversity.”
Night Comes On Jordana Spiro makes her feature directorial debut with the critically-acclaimed Night Comes On, opening on August 3.
Described as a “female revenge drama,” the film revolves around Angel LaMere (played by Dominique Fishback), who after her release from juvenile hall goes on a mission to settle scores with her father. Along for the journey is Angel’s younger sister, Abby (newcomer Tatum Marilyn Hall).
“The harshness of the outside world to the recently incarcerated, for whom life has stalled while everything around them has moved on, is a well-scuffed starting point in cinema,” critic Guy Lodge said in his review for Variety. “It’s rarely a story that has been filtered through a black female gaze, however, and Night Comes On subtly but pointedly differentiates its perspective early on.”
BlacKkKlansman Questions of racism and entrenched white supremacy pervade Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman.
The director’s latest joint is based on the true story of an African-American detective in the 1970s who infiltrated a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado.
“This film to me is a wake-up call,” Lee said at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where the movie made its world premiere. “I know in my heart — I don’t care what the critics say or anybody else — we are on the right side of history with this film.”
BlacKkKlansman was awarded the Grand Prize at Cannes.
It will arrive in theaters on August 10, to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that left a counter-protester dead.
Sorry to Bother You is very surreal. Kind of Brazil-esque as he moves up the corporate chain which gets weirder at every step. Funny too.
>>Far From the Tree Also opening July 20, is the documentary Far From the Tree. Directed by Rachel Dretzin, it explores families where “the apple fell far from the tree” — in other words, situations where children differ significantly from their parents because of autism, Down Syndrome, dwarfism, transgenderism or other characteristics. “I describe the documentary as a film that turns your assumptions about difference on their head and makes you realize just how many walls we all put up to people that look and act, behave differently,” Dretzin told Urban Hollywood 411. “It’s a film about one of the few places in the world where you can’t actually avoid people who are different from you, which is your family.” Based on the book by the same name from Andrew Solomon, Dretzin says the documentary speaks directly to our times.
aren’t absent fathers a thing in the black community? they do avoid their offspring as it is, different or same
Probably none of them lose money. They aren’t Hollywood, they’re arthouse indie movies made for pocket change.
who wants to pay to watch a film about telemarketers???
>>It will arrive in theaters on August 10, to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that left a counter-protester dead.
that “white supremacist” organizer was a proud Obama supporter who was playing agent provocateur. the narrative was false and mythmaking.
communism sucks as much as nazism and yet the hollywood reds march on without rebuke
>>“Genetic testing and science is advancing at such a rapid pace that we will pretty soon be able to eliminate some of these conditions if we want to,” Dretzin added. “I think the book and the film are really a cry against that and for that kind of beautiful diversity.”
march of dimes promotes such testing to snuff out lives via abortion. doesn’t cure a problem just snuffs it out
The notion that being offended is fully equivalent to suffering actual physical injury has badly damaged our society, and I don’t see things improving in that respect any time soon. Perhaps if things in general go so bad that everyone has more important worries, such as surviving, but I don’t think that will be a real improvement.
I too would love to see free discussion of Blazing Saddles and other “offensive” works. Anyone who thinks about it at all will see that Blazing Saddles only points out the fundamental irrationality of bigotry. Same with that Chappelle bit, for that matter.
mother night
The Black Führer of Harlem by Kurt Vonnegut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuTY-PM4q10
More preaching from the hypocrites in Hollywood
the story of Brazil isn’t very surreal but the design touches like their steampunk computers and shoe hats are.
got any of that in sorry to bother you?
dreamlike flights of fancy?
When he makes his cold calls his desk drops into the houses of the people he’s calling. Plenty of surrealism.
Putney Swope is probably weirder and likely more subversive and even it isn’t surreal although some of Robert Downey Sr.’s other films are.
Also, the lead black man in PS wasn’t good at line delivery and his fellow black actors weren’t happy that in spite of it, he still got the lead role. In the end Robert Downey Sr. overdubbed the black actor’s voice with his own.
Now that is a surreal turn on “white phone voice”, no?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPgId7RgQ2E
I’ll take your word for it.
It’s a fun movie. People shouldn’t let politics interfere with fun.
So, their strategy is to make up for the big budget flops by releasing small budget flops?
“The sad thing is that The Spike Lee movie is based on an event that would probably make a really interesting movie”
I was in CO for a lot of the 70s, and I don’t remember any KKK here.
“True story,” he says? I call BS.
Mmmmm I smell wide spread box office failure. So to be the next line of social crap vomited on HBO.
It’s not a joke.
https://m.csindy.com/coloradosprings/ron-stallworth-the-kkks-black-infiltrator/Content?oid=3733477
https://www.npr.org/2018/06/09/618280396/how-a-black-detective-infiltrated-the-kkk
Granted, he considers Trump to be in the same league as David Duke, so little wonder that Spike Lee wanted to tell his story.
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