Miss Juneteenth

 

Release Date:   6/19/2020; Digital Release (Original Release – 1/30/20; Sundance Film Festival)
Genre:  Drama
Rating:   NR
Director:  Channing Godfrey Peoples
Studio:   Sailor Bear
Running Time:  103 mins.

Cast:   Nicole Beharie, Kendrick Sampson, Alexis Chikaeze, Lori Hayes, Marcus Maudlin.

Details:   Vertical Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Miss Juneteenth, which made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and later won an award at SXSW. The feature is aiming for a June 19 release, that date marking the 155th anniversary of the Juneteenth holiday.

Story:  Built like a bird, Turquoise Jones is a single mom who holds down a household, a rebellious teenager, and pretty much everything that goes down at Wayman’s BBQ & Lounge. Turquoise is also a bona fide beauty queen—she was once crowned Miss Juneteenth, a title commemorating the day slavery was abolished in Texas. Life didn’t turn out as beautifully as the title promised, but Turquoise, determined to right her wrongs, is cultivating her daughter, Kai, to become Miss Juneteenth, even if Kai wants something else.  Source(s):  Deadline; Sundance.org.

Trailer:

Jacob’s Ladder

Release Date:  8/23/19; In Theaters
Genre:   Drama/Horror
Rating:  R
Director:  David M. Rosenthal
Studio(s):   LD Entertainment, Gaeta/Rosenzweig Films
Running Time:  89 mins.
Cast:  Michael Ealy, Jesse Williams, Nicole Beharie, Karla Souza, Joseph Sikora.

Story:  Remake of the 1990 cult classic directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Tim Robbins.  The new film follows the same plot as the original, with a soldier returning home from war and experiencing a particularly bad form of PTSD.  The official synopsis for the 2019 remake reads: “After losing his brother in combat, Jacob Singer returns home from Afghanistan — only to be pulled into a mind-twisting state of paranoia. Singer soon realizes that his sibling is alive but life is not what it seems.”  Source(s):  The Playlist.

Trailer:

Monsters and Men

Release Date: 9/28/18; In Theaters
Genre:  Drama
Rating:  NR
Director:  Reinaldo Marcus Green
Studio(s):  Department of Motion Pictures
Running time:  117 mins.
Cast:  John David Washington, Anthony Ramos, Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Chanté Adams, Nicole Beharie, Rob Morgan.

Story:  One night, in front of a bodega in Brooklyn’s Bed–Stuy neighborhood, Manny Ortega witnesses a white police officer wrongfully gun down a neighborhood street hustler, and Manny films the incident on his phone. Now he’s faced with a dilemma: release the video and bring unwanted exposure to himself and his family, or keep the video private and be complicit in the injustice?  Source:  Sundance.org.

Trailer: