Amy, Jack, and I loved this sci-fi drama about teenage black Brooklyn science geeks who travel back in time to stop a murder. Winner of the Best First Screenplay Spirit Award for director/co-writer Stefon Bristol and co-writer Frederica Bailey, it's terribly clever, playing on Netflix, and clocks in at just under an hour and a half, including lots and lots of credits. My regular readers know I always sit through all the credits, to read and acknowledge all the work that goes into moviemaking as well as to continue the vibe by hearing every bit of the music.
Eden Duncan-Smith is terrific as the hair-trigger tempered C.J. as is Dante Crichlow as her best friend Sebastian. They played the same roles in a short film (15 minutes, 2017) of the same name. Michael J. Fox has a wonderful cameo as a teacher. And, before he speaks, we see him reading Kindred, Octavia Butler's 1979 novel about an African-American woman who travels back in time to pre-Civil War America and has to deal with the injustice and oppression of slavery.
Spike Lee is one of the producers and this has his fingerprints all over it, from the Brooklyn locations to the police brutality, to the real connections between the characters. The movie was also nominated for the Best First Feature Spirit Award.
From composer Michael Abels' website you can stream a few minutes of the compelling score and from this one you can find links to all five songs listed in the end credits.
Lee was last blogged for BlackKklansman and Abels for Get Out (I was afraid to see Us (2019), Jordan Peele's next horror movie, which Abels also scored to much acclaim). Duncan-Smith has ten other credits, including the short, and this is Crichlow's third, including the short. Bristol and Bailey make their feature debuts with this project.
We are solidly with Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 95%, on this one, not with its audiences at a hateful 34.
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