You People (2023)

Jack and I loved this updated version of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) in which, like the original, an interracial couple has to deal with their parents' discomfort at their union. Not usually a Jonah Hill fan, I found him adorable as the awkward, sincere, funny, white, Jewish Ezra. Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are reliably wonderful as the main parents––militant Muslim Akbar and "Karen"-like Jewish Shelley––their characters married to Nia Long and David Duchovny, respectively. Lauren London is Ezra's Black, Muslim, sweet love interest Amira and Sam Jay (self-described as a Black queer woman, which could describe her character as well) plays Ezra's hilarious podcast co-host and best friend Mo.

There are many cameos, especially in the early Yom Kippur sequence, including Rhea Perlman, Hal Linden (Jack spotted him), Elliot Gould, and Richard Benjamin. Mike Epps appears in the second act and his character provides some backstory to Murphy's Akbar.

Hill co-wrote the screenplay with director Kenya Barris, who sits down in an airplane seat for his cameo. Some of the references in the opening sequence went over our heads but we kept laughing anyway.

The on-screen music credit as well as the Apple Music soundtrack go to Bekon, which turns out to be one nom de plume of Daniel Tannenbaum (another of his monikers is Danny Keyz). There are a host of songs as well, listed here and streaming there.

The between-scenes collages of Los Angeles sights are good fun, under the gaze of cinematographer Mark Doering-Powell.

Hill was last blogged for acting in Don't Look Up and for writing Mid90s, Murphy and Epps for Dolemite Is My Name, Louis-Dreyfus for Downhill, Duchovny for House of D, Barris for writing Shaft and this is his first time directing a feature, though he directed three episodes of the series Black-ish, which he created.

Long's 70 acting credits stretch back to 1986 and include lots of TV and movies, but the only one I've written about is Keanu. London, who was two when Long made her debut, has 29 credits, including I Love You, Beth Cooper, two episodes of Entourage, and one of Everybody Hates Chris. Jay was a writer on 71 Saturday Night Live episodes (2017-23) and other shows, and has acted in quite a few TV episodes.

Tannenbaum, under his various names, has produced music for Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, and RZA, among others and scored two other movies. Doering-Powell shot 88 episodes of Everybody Hates Chris, 65 of Barris' Black-ish spinoff Grown-ish, and the movie Zombieland. I wrote a lot about Zombieland but neglected to mention the cinematographer. Oh well.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are apparently prejudiced, averaging only 43 and 38% (ouch!), respectively. We watched it on Netflix February 4, after the trauma of a few minutes of All Quiet on the Western Front.