Keith David | Jmunney's Blog

From the End of December 2024 Into Early January 2025, I Caught Up on Some Holiday Movie Releases: Here’s What Happened

January 14, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews Aaron Pierre, Alan Tudyk, Anika Noni Rose, Antonio Banderas, Auliʻi Cravalho, Awhimai Fraser, Babygirl, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Billy Eicner, Blue Ivy Carter, Brian Cox, Dana Ledoux Miller, David Derrick Jr, David Fane, Donald Glover, Dwayne Johnson, Esther McGregor, Gaia Wise, Gerald Ramsey, Halina Reijn, Harris Dickinson, Hualālai Chung, Jason Hand, John Kani, Keith David, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Kenji Kamiyama, Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda, Lennie James, Luke Pasqualino, Mads Mikkelsen, Mirando Otto, Moana 2, Mufasa, Mufasa: The Lion King, Nicole Kidman, Nicole Scherzinger, Preston Nyman, Rachel House, Rose Matafeo, Seth Rogen, Sophie Wilde, Temuera Morrison, Thandiwe Newton, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, Tiffany Boone, Vaughan Reilly Leave a comment

CREDIT: A24; Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot; Disney/Screenshot; Disney/Screenshot

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim

Starring: Gaia Wise, Brian Cox, Luke Pasqualino, Mirando Otto

Director: Kenji Kamiyama

Running Time: 134 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: December 13, 2024 (Theaters)

Babygirl

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas, Sophie Wilde, Esther McGregor, Vaughan Reilly

Director: Halina Reijn

Running Time: 115 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: December 25, 2024 (Theaters)

Moana 2

Starring: Auliʻi Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Hualālai Chung, Rose Matafeo, David Fane, Awhimai Fraser, Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda, Temuera Morrison, Nicole Scherzinger, Rachel House, Gerald Ramsey, Alan Tudyk

Directors: David Derrick Jr, Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller

Running Time: 100 Minutes

Rating: PG

Release Date: November 27, 2024 (Theaters)

Mufasa: The Lion King

Starring: Aaron Pierre, Kelvin Harrison Jr, John Kani, Seth Rogen, Billy Eicner, Tiffany Boone, Donald Glover, Mads Mikkelsen, Thandiwe Newton, Lennie James, Blue Ivy Carter, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Preston Nyman, Anika Noni Rose, Keith David

Director: Barry Jenkins

Running Time: 118 Minutes

Rating: PG

Release Date: December 20, 2024 (Theaters)

Oh hi, there! Well, you know how it goes. That annual time between Thanksgiving and New Year tends to be busy, both in terms of social obligations and new movie releases. So even someone who frequents the cinema as often as I do struggles to catch absolutely everything right when they arrive. But I do my best to catch up with them eventually! So here’s a roundup of my thoughts on recent holiday flicks with a focus on how much they put me in the holiday spirit.

‘American Fiction’ is a Relentless Satire, and Quite a Bit More

December 12, 2023

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews Adam Brody, American Fiction, Cord Jefferson, Erika Alexander, Issa Rae, Jeffrey Wright, John Ortiz, Keith David, Leslie Uggams, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Raymond Anthony Thomas, Sterling K. Brown, Tracee Ellis Ross 2 Comments

Starring: Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, John Ortiz, Erika Alexander, Leslie Uggams, Sterling K. Brown, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Raymond Anthony Thomas, Issa Rae, Adam Brody, Keith David

Director: Cord Jefferson

Running Time: 117 Minutes

Rating: R for Angry and Literate Profanity

Release Date: December 15, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Thelonius “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) just can’t believe the state of the literary industry. Publishers say they want books by Black authors. He’s a Black author, but they don’t want his books! What they really mean is that they want stereotypical stories about economic disparity that performative white liberals will lap up to prove their progressive bona fides. So Monk comes up with a little satirical trick in which he anonymously writes “My Pafology,” the most cliched Black trauma novel possible, while pretending to be a fugitive felon. And of course, it quickly becomes the most in-demand thing he’s ever written. But will he slip too far into his new persona? Meanwhile, he and his sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross) and brother Cliff (Sterling K. Brown) have to care for their widowed mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams) as she slips into dementia.

What Made an Impression?: The Expected & The Unexpected: American Fiction pulls off one of my favorite cinematic tricks: it’s exactly the movie that the trailers sell it as, while also being completely something else. You don’t have to be Black to understand the righteous fury that writer/director Cord Jefferson is smuggling into his characterization of Monk, you just have to be paying attention. From the get-go, the satire is brazen and LOL-worthy. I was hoping for all of that to be true. But I was completely unprepared for how much time we end up spending with Monk’s mom and siblings. And I’m not complaining, because this is also perhaps the most affecting and deeply felt family drama of the year.
A Self-Righteous Struggle: Monk could’ve easily been a blank slate of a personality who just stares in disbelief at every outrageous twist and turn. And if that were the case, the movie he’s in would’ve been just as hilarious. But instead, it’s a little more complicated, and wonderfully so. Instead of laughing off the success of “My Pafology,” he takes every one of its triumphs as a personal affront. His frustrations with performative allyship are well-founded, but he doesn’t account for taste. Perfectly decent people of all races like these books just fine without making a big deal out of the state of the world. But Monk just can’t let things go without a fight. He always leads with his anger to the point that it ruins every relationship with whomever doesn’t have the patience to deal with him.
Remaining Clear-sighted: In keeping with the theme of surprise, the most important lesson of American Fiction is not what I was expecting. Perhaps I shouldn’t be too shocked, since the racial satire, while on-target, wasn’t exactly new. So instead, what really stuck with me was the importance of clear-sightedness. That is to say, the characters who focus on what’s really important are the ones who are also the most satisfied and at peace. In that regard, the Ellisons’ longtime housekeeper Lorraine (Myra Lucretia Taylor) is an absolute angel. She isn’t blind to the strife among the people in her care, but all she has to offer them is unconditional love. And then there’s Adam Brody as a slick movie producer who can’t wait to option the story of an actual real-life felon. At first, he seems just as awful as the patronizing publishers. But when Monk lets him in on the truth a bit more, he pivots to another idea. True, he might be just as opportunistic as ever, but taking advantage of an opportunity isn’t exactly a bad thing when you’re honest and enthusiastic. The Monks of the world would benefit from being tempered by this realization.

American Fiction is Recommended If You Like: Sorry to Bother You, Undercover Brother, Thanksgiving dinner

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 Fake Felons

‘Nope’ Looks to the Skies and Identifies a Flying and Flummoxing Object

July 20, 2022

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews Brandon Perea, Daniel Kaluuya, Jordan Peele, Keith David, Keke Palmer, Michael Wincott, Nope, Steven Yeun 3 Comments

Nope (CREDIT: Universal Pictures)

Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Brandon Perea, Michael Wincott, Keith David

Director: Jordan Peele

Running Time: 135 Minutes

Rating: R for Stunning Bloody Moments and Aw-Hell-No-Style Profanity

Release Date: July 22, 2022 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Siblings OJ and Emerald Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer) work as horse wranglers on their family ranch out in the middle of nowhere. But they’re also Hollywood royalty, in a way. Their great-great-great-grandfather was the jockey riding a horse on the first strip of film ever assembled as a motion picture. But that’s just background info for the main attraction, as random debris starts falling out of the sky and a cloud begins behaving rather strangely. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve probably already said to yourself, “Jordan Peele and aliens? I’m down for that.” But befitting Peele’s cerebral filmmaking style, this isn’t your typical take on UFOs and ETs.

What Made an Impression?: OJ and Emerald’s dad Otis Sr. is played by Keith David, who 40 years earlier starred in my favorite sci-fi horror film of all time, The Thing. That connection eventually helped me crack the tough egg that is Nope. Typically in scary movies, characters react to the monsters by screaming and running away. There’s a decent amount of that in Nope, but as in The Thing, there’s also a lot of stunned silence. The terror is just too confounding for everyone to know how to react to it. There are several moments in Nope when I couldn’t quite understand what was happening, because people were seemingly under a spell of Zen acceptance when they should have been taking cover from something threatening to devour them. Similarly, I’m not bothered by how much Nope confused me, as I was also fully consumed by Peele’s unique and clever vision.

To be clear, there’s also a lot of energy and verve in response to the unidentified creature. Which is to say, the title is blurted out multiple times in the “I’m not dealing with that $h!t” vibe we were all surely hoping for. But even among the characters who recognize the danger, there’s plenty of excitement about capturing alien activity on film. Michael Wincott plays an eccentric filmmaker who at one point is overcome by a life-threatening urge to capture a moment with the creature with golden hour lighting. Maybe this is just a world where everyone has accepted that they could die at any minute, and they want to go in as thrilling a manner as possible.

But perhaps my favorite scene is one that has nothing to do with the premise, at least not directly. Steven Yeun stars as a local carnival barker and former child actor who shares a story about the time his chimpanzee co-star went berserk on a sitcom set. Or actually, he tells the story about the Saturday Night Live parody about that incident (with era-appropriate cast members, including Chris Kattan as the chimp) in chillingly matter-of-fact detail. It has the surreal energy of a nightmare that also feels like a dream world I never want to leave.

Nope is Recommended If You Like: “The Spielberg Face,” Signs, Declassified alien evidence, Mr. Peepers from SNL

Grade: 4 out of 5 Clouds

The Super-Female Postmodern Thing

June 2, 2015

jmunney Academic Papers, Cinema Feminism, John Carpenter, Keith David, Kurt Russell, Orpheus, Slavoj Zizek, The Thing, The Thing (1982) 2 Comments

This essay was originally written as my final paper for my Film Theory & Analysis class, taught by Royal Brown, in Spring 2014 at The New School.

“Trust’s a tough thing to come by these days.”
“Nobody trusts anybody now.”

A common maxim of what makes the best horror movies effective is that they show relatively little, leaving the most terrifying parts to the imagination. What is unique about the John Carpenter-directed The Thing (1982) is how well it works despite, or because of (or despite AND because of) showing so much of its monster. A novice viewer would be forgiven for not realizing how much it actually does not show. Partly, the lack of showing is obvious: the famously ambiguous ending in which it is heavily implied that either Keith David’s Childs or Kurt Russell’s MacReady is now a Thing (or both are). But most of the rest of the film does not highlight how much is being hidden. It is, as Slavoj Žižek would put it, a product “with a distinctive mass appeal” (1). Its primary attractions are its tense action, creative makeup and special effects, and well-rounded performances. It is therefore qualified to be a postmodern work, and it fulfills that possibility with a premise and a villain that essentially guarantees open-endedness and speculative interpretation that goes beyond the narrative.