Daniel Kaluuya – Chris Barsanti

Jordan Peele’s Nope opens this week. It’s like Get Out and Us … only not.

My review is at Slant:

In writer-director Jordan Peele’s chilling Nope, a struggling, Black-operated ranch that supplies horses for Hollywood productions faces an additional threat in the form of an extraterrestrial being that likes to suck animals and people up into the clouds. The Haywood ranch is a family-run operation, with OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) doing most of the work with a glum diligence while his upbeat sister, Emerald (Keke Palmer), handles the people-interfacing duties. Though the siblings are hardly on the best of terms, when it comes time to face down the alien presence, they unsurprisingly rediscover a familial bond…

Here’s the trailer:

One of the most gripping films to premiere at Sundance so far this year is Judas and the Black Messiah, which details the extreme lengths the FBI and Chicago police went to in order to take down Black Panther leader Fred Hampton.

Judas will be in limited theatrical release and on HBO Max starting February 12. My review is at Slant:

Fierce but mournful, Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah serves as testament to a brief and revolutionary flare that was snuffed out before it could take hold. Unfolding during the late 1960s, when the Black Panther Party’s Chicago chapter was besieged by law enforcement, the film is filled with the high drama one expects from tales of heroes cut down before their prime. But because the drama is split between the story of that hero and that of his betrayer, King’s film complicates the expected narrative of martyrdom…

Here’s the trailer:

Chris Barsanti

Tag: Daniel Kaluuya

Screening Room: ‘Nope’

Screening Room: ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’