Here's another one Jack and I loved--a story of a man trying to make a living in Oakland--commentary on race, class, and corporate greed mixed with fantasy. There is a big twist just after the middle of the movie which I will not spoil. Fair warning: don't leave your seat.
Lakeith Stanfield (last blogged in Get Out) is terrific as our hero Cassius and Tessa Thompson (most recently in Annihilation) is fierce and radiant as his girlfriend Detroit. Terry Crews (88 episodes of Everybody Hates Chris, five episodes of The Newsroom, 112 episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and a small part in Deadpool 2) is predictably exasperated as Cassius' uncle. Danny Glover (last in Complete Unknown) plays a co-worker, Omari Hardwick (mentioned in Middle of Nowhere) is a mystery man named Mr. ___, and Armie Hammer (most recently in Final Portrait) is the manic boss.
It's no mystery that Cassius gets ahead by using a "white voice" to get ahead in telemarketing. And it's very funny that the filmmakers actually dubbed in David Cross (last in Kill Your Darlings) for Cassius' white voice and Patton Oswalt (after I wrote about him in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, he's done a lot of movies and TV, most of which I haven't seen, but we're big fans and saw his stand-up comedy set, both live and on Netflix) for Mr. ___'s white voice.
Director/writer Boots Riley, frontman of the hip hop band The Coup, put so many details in the script, his first, that it was published in Dave Eggers' magazine McSweeney's in 2014. Then Riley was invited to workshop that script at the Sundance Institute. On a road trip, Jack and I listened to Marc Maron's podcast WTF with Riley as a guest (Riley's hour-long interview begins at 37:00--the Bobcat Goldthwait part that precedes it is good too), which put the movie at the top of our list six weeks ago before a whole lot of summer traveling. Note, the podcast, like the movie, is R rated for language and sexual themes.
The music is exciting, credited to Riley, The Coup, Tune-Yards, and Merrill Garbus (who is a member of Tune-Yards). This spotify playlist is supposed to be the official soundtrack. Every song has lyrics/rap so I have to turn it way down so as not to get distracted while I write. But I remember we both liked it a lot. You may get confused in google searches, because The Coup released a hip hop album called Sorry to Bother You before the movie was made.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics, at 94%, are more in line with us than its audiences, averaging only 63. It's still playing in limited release in these parts and is estimated to come out streaming and on disc in October 2018. We recommend it highly.
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