Candyman

Release Date:   August 27, 2021; In Theaters
Genre:  Horror
Rating:  R
Director:  Nia DaCosta
Writing Credits: Clive Barker (characters), Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld
Studio(s):  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Monkeypaw Productions
Running Time:  TBD
Cast:  Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Tony Todd (Daniel Robitaille / Candyman), Colman Domingo, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Teyonah Parris, Nadia Simms.

Details:  There’s a new “Candyman” in town.  Jordan Peele’s retelling of the horror classic has cast Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, the actor best known for playing Black Manta in Warner Bros.’ Aquaman, as its star.  The studio is touting the upcoming film as a “spiritual sequel” to the original. It will return to the neighborhood where the legend began: the now-gentrified section of Chicago where the Cabrini-Green housing projects once stood. The original Candyman was released in 1992 and follows a graduate student who explores the legend of Candyman while writing a thesis on urban legends.

Story:  For as long as residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini Green neighborhood were terrorized by a word-of-mouth ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror.  In present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris), move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials.

With Anthony’s painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini Green old-timer (Colman Domingo) exposes Anthony to the tragically horrific nature of the true story behind Candyman.  Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore these macabre details in his studio as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a terrifyingly viral wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.  Source:  Black Film.

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Us

 

Release Date:  3/15/19; In Theaters
Genre:  Horror/Thriller
Rating:  Unknown
Director:  Jordan Peele
Studio(s):   Monkeypaw Productions, QC Entertainment, Universal Pictures

Cast: Lupita Nyong’o (Adelaide Wilson/Adelaide’s Doppelgänger), Winston Duke (Gabe Wilson/Gabe’s Doppelgänger), Madison Curry (Young Adelaide/Young Adelaide’s Doppelgänger), Evan Alex (Jason Wilson/Jason’s Doppelgänger), Shahadi Wright-Joseph (Zora Wilson/Zora’s Doppelgänger), Elisabeth Moss (Mrs. Tyler), Tim Heidecker (Mr. Tyler), Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Anna Diop, Luke Halpenny, Duke Nicholson.

Story:  Set in present day along the iconic Northern California coastline, Us, from Monkeypaw Productions, stars Oscar® winner Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide Wilson, a woman returning to her beachside childhood home with her husband, Gabe (Black Panther’s Winston Duke), and their two children (Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex) for an idyllic summer getaway.  Haunted by an unexplainable and unresolved trauma from her past and compounded by a string of eerie coincidences, Adelaide feels her paranoia elevate to high-alert as she grows increasingly certain that something bad is going to befall her family.  After spending a tense beach day with their friends, the Tylers (Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon), Adelaide and her family return to their vacation home. When darkness falls, the Wilsons discover the silhouette of four figures holding hands as they stand in the driveway. Us pits an endearing American family against a terrifying and uncanny opponent: doppelgängers of themselves.  Source:  Usmovie.com, official site.

Details:   Us will be the second in a series of thrillers that addresses what Director Jordan Peele calls “social demons.”  Much like his debut film, Get Out examines race and racism, this film will center around “these innately human monsters that are woven into the fabric of how we think and how we interact.”  While Peele says the movie will follow the same tone as Get Out, it will be a completely different film and not focus on addressing race.   According to The Hollywood Reporter, the story focuses on two couples, one white and one black. Winston Duke and Elisabeth Moss are reportedly in early talks for the roles, with Lupita Nyong’o officially confirmed to star as one half of a couple.  The Hollywood Reporter also states that Us will be written and directed by Peele and produced by his company Monkeypaw Productions, along with Get Out producer Jason Blum.  Source:  Popsugar.

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BlacKkKlansman

Release Date:  8/10/18; In Theaters
Genre:  Drama/Biography
Rating:  NR
Director:   Spike Lee
Studio(s):   Blumhouse Productions, Monkeypaw Productions, Perfect World Pictures, QC Entertainment, Focus Features
Running time:  128 mins.

Cast:  John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace, Laura Harrier, Ryan Eggold, Paul Walter Hauser, Corey Hawkins, Harry Belafonte, Robert John Burke.

Story:   BlacKkKlansman tells the true story of Stallworth (Washington), who began as Colorado Springs’s first African-American police officer, then later rose to the rank of detective. In one of the most unlikely cases of undercover infiltration imaginable, Stallworth and his partner Flip Zimmerman (Driver) penetrated the ranks of the KKK at the highest levels in order to thwart the organization’s attempt to take over the city.  The movie will release on August 10th, which coincides with the one-year anniversary of the  Charlottesville incident, when a white supremacist protest against the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue erupted in violence, claiming the life of counter-protester Heather Heyer on August 11, 2017.  Lee and co-producer Jordan Peele adapted the film from Ron Stallworth’s 2014 memoir “Black Klansman.”  Sources:  Screenrant, Color Lines.

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Get Out

get-outRelease Date:   2/24/17; In Theaters
Genre:  Horror
Rating:  Unknown
Running Time:  Unknown
Director:   Jordan Peele
Studio:   Blumhouse Productions, QC Entertainment.
Cast  Daniel Kaluuya (Chris), Allison Williams (Rose), Keith Stanfield, Bradley Whitford (Dean), Caleb Landry Jones, Catherine Keener (Missy), Betty Gabriel (Georgina), Marcus Henderson (Walter).

Story:  When a young African American man visits his white girlfriend’s family estate, he becomes ensnared in a more sinister real reason for the invitation. Now that Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and his girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams), have reached the meet-the-parents milestone of dating, she invites him for a weekend getaway upstate with Missy (Catherine Keener) and Dean (Bradley Whitford).  At first, Chris reads the family’s overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter’s interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he could have never imagined.  Source:  Shadow & Act, IMDB.

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Keanu

KeanuRelease Date: 4/29/16; In theaters
Genre: Comedy
Rating: Unknown
Running Time: Unknown
Studio: Warner Bros., New Line Cinema
Director: Peter Atencio
Cast: Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Luis Guzmán, Will Forte, Nia Long, Method Man
Story:  Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele star as Clarence and Rell, two cousins who live in the city but are far from streetwise. When Rell’s beloved kitten, Keanu, is catnapped, the hopelessly straight-laced pair must impersonate ruthless killers in order to infiltrate a street gang and retrieve the purloined feline. But the incredibly adorable kitten becomes so coveted that the fight over his custody creates a gang war, forcing our two unwitting heroes to take the law into their own hands. Source: JoBlo.

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