LITTLE WOODS is the debut of writer/director Nia DaCosta, who followed it with the upcoming CANDYMAN (2020), sequel to CANDYMAN (1992). I’m not sure how much they’ll have in common, because this one’s not horror, and it takes place in a rural area, but it’s very good, and raises my expectations for the other one even higher.
Tessa Thompson (CREED) is great as Ollie (short for Oleander), who lives in her late mother’s busted up house in North Dakota and is almost done with her probation. While mom was sick she would go into Canada to get medicine for her, but she also had a whole pill-selling enterprise going, and she got caught at the border.
Now she does stuff like go out to construction sites and sell coffee and sandwiches out of the back of her pickup. People still ask her for Oxy and she explains she doesn’t do that anymore. Everybody still likes her. The local opiate pusher Bill (Luke Kirby, HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION) thinks that makes her a good saleswoman and tries to get her to work for him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Samuel L. Jackson, these days maybe he doesn’t get the greatest roles. I mean it’s cool that David Hasselhoff handpicked him as his replacement when he passed on Dr. Fury or whatever in the Marvel Comics Books movies, but that’s a supporting player. You don’t see him carrying too many movies anymore. That’s why I had some hopes for this lower budget crime picture produced by IFC and given a very limited theatrical release, probly less screens than he has lines in THE AVENGERS.
