THEY WILL KILL YOU is one of those rare cases where the first time I saw the trailer was the first time I heard of it, and before it was over it had become one of my most anticipated movies. What it conveyed was that Zazie Beetz (GEOSTORM) would play a maid at a hotel that’s run by satanists, they try to sacrifice her, she runs around with a sword chopping them up in spectacular, stylized action scenes. It looked like KILL BILL meets READY OR NOT, and that shorthand does capture some of it. But happily the trailer was also holding back some of the other ingredients in the pot, and they all add up to a fun time at the motion picture house.
Beetz plays Asia Reaves, who ten years ago was on the streets with her little sister Maria (I think there’s a young version whose name I can’t find, but the grown up Maria is Myha’la, BODIES BODIES BODIES). They were running from their abusive father when Asia landed herself in prison. Now she’s out, showing up on a stormy night for a job as a maid at a historic apartment building called The Virgil. I would say this was secretly a sinister place, but they’re pretty open about it – there’s a big pentagram and devil sculptures on the exterior. The characters don’t try to be subtle any more than the movie does. (read the rest of this shit…)
MESSAGE FROM THE KING is Chadwick Boseman’s 2016 (pre-
Well I’ll be the rise of a monkey’s uncle – this movie actually is good! I’d heard all good things, but after seeing the trailers and TV ads it was hard to get my hopes up. Boiled down to basics and money shots it’s just some dumb bullshit: James Franco making speeches about a miracle cure, quick shots of every scene where a CGI ape jumps into the air, dramatic trailer music squeals and buzzes. I didn’t even think the much hyped special effects by Weta looked that good. Instead of the people in makeup as evolved apes from the original masterpiece they gotta have Andy Serkis or Tom Hanks or somebody controlling a computer animated chimp with humanized eyes and expressions. They show a baby chimp, it’s digital. Do they not know there are chimps? They think they can’t film a real one ’cause it’s a made up creature like a Smurf or an Avatar? I wasn’t buying it. 
