Starr Carter is constantly switching between two worlds: the poor, mostly black, neighborhood where she lives and the rich, mostly white, prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Now, facing pressures from all sides of the community, Starr must find her voice and stand up for what’s right. THE HATE U GIVE is based on the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller by Angie Thomas and stars Amandla Stenberg as Starr, with Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, Issa Rae, KJ Apa, Algee Smith, Sabrina Carpenter, Common and Anthony Mackie.
Opens Friday, October 12 in St. Louis.
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Date: October 10, 7pm in the St. Louis area.
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20th Century Fox has released a powerful first trailer and new photos for THE HATE U GIVE. Directed by George Tillman, Jr. and based on the New York Times bestseller by Angie Thomas, the film stars Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, KJ Apa, Algee Smith, Lamar Johnson, Issa Rae, Sabrina Carpenter, with Common and Anthony Mackie.
Starr Carter is constantly switching between two worlds: the poor, mostly black, neighborhood where she lives and the rich, mostly white, prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Now, facing pressures from all sides of the community, Starr must find her voice and stand up for what’s right.
Tillman directed the 2015 romantic drama THE LONGEST RIDE, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks.
THE HATE U GIVE arrives in theaters on October 19, 2018.
A scene from Kathryn Bigelow’s DETROIT. Photo by Francois Duhamel. Courtesy of Annapurna Pictures (c)
In DETROIT, director Kathryn Bigelow spotlights the civil unrest that shook Detroit in the summer of 1967, and particularly the infamous events that took place at the Algiers Motel, when police abused a group of mostly black men and killed three. One would have hoped that 50 years on, we would be looking back those events and noting how far we have come. Sadly, that is not the case.
The award-winning director of THE HURT LOCKER and ZERO DARK THIRTY tackles an event that took place 50 years ago yet seems timely now, in the light of Michael Brown and Ferguson, and other recent incidents of police violence and public outrage. It is certainly a worthy subject but the film itself has some flaws. Like in ZERO DARK THIRTY, Bigelow takes awhile to bring the subject into focus, spending a long time painting a picture of the unrest in the city before settling down to tell the story of what happened in the Algiers Motel.
The year 1967 was a time of high tensions, with growing anger over the escalating Vietnam War and simmering resentment among African-Americans in poor urban areas over decades of racial injustice and socioeconomic repression. The incident that lit the fire in Detroit was a raid on an illegal after-hours club. As police loaded club patrons into paddy wagons, they could feel the growing anger of a gathering crowd. Looting broke out and soon the city was engulfed in a wave of anger and violence. Over two days of unrest, the National Guard were mobilized to help Detroit police and Michigan troopers restore order. In this heated atmosphere, reports of gun fire near a National Guard staging area put the focus on the Algiers Motel’s annex, where police engaged in a brutal and illegal interrogation of Motel guests.
Bigelow makes the incident in the Algiers Motel the narrative focus but first sets the stage by establishing what was happening in Detroit that summer. Bigelow uses a combination of scenes recreating the events in the streets and actual archival footage and news reports to create a striking portrait of the civil unrest. In doing so, the director introduces a number of characters. While this prologue gives a much stronger sense of the shocking historic events, audiences are left wondering about the film’s main characters and its narrative direction.
Eventually, Bigelow brings together several of these characters, including a racist white cop (Will Poulter, THE REVENANT) who has few qualms about breaking rules, an African-American security guard (John Boyega, STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS) trying to protect a store from looters, and an ambitious musician (Algee Smith, ARMY WIVES) poised for stardom. The cast also includes Anthony Mackie as a just-returned Vietnam vet and John Krasinski as a police investigator.
Like ZERO DARK THIRTY, the film aims to place the audience in the center of events. It presents a recreation of events in the Algiers Motel, based on historical records and the memories of still-living participants, but exactly what happened at the Algiers Motel cannot be completely known.
After several days of riots and unrest, and reports of snipers, the reports of gun fire bring Detroit police and Michigan National Guard to the motel annex, along with security guard Dismukes, who had been bring coffee to the guard as a friendly gesture. Dismukes goes along hoping to be a calming influence, but finds himself caught up in events. As the Detroit police ramp up efforts to force a confession from anyone, the National Guard withdraw, not wanting to be caught up in a racial incident, rather than taking steps to stop it.
The sense of actually being there that the film creates makes the violent, shocking events an intense, frightening experience. The dramatic tension is certainly high throughout the film, and several of the actors deliver strong performances, notably Boyega as security guard Dismukes, who tries to deescalate tensions, and Poulter in the unenviable role as the racist cop Kraus.
One of the most moving stories is that of singer Larry Reed, played by Algee Smith. As the lead singer of The Dramatics, his shot at stardom is interrupted when rioting outside the Apollo cause police to evacuate the theater just as the group is taking the stage. Caught in the turmoil outside, Reed and his friend Fred Temple (Jacob Lattimore) take refuge in the Algiers Motel, which is packed, and find themselves in the motel’s annex, where the fateful events take place. Still the film’s structure leaves the actors little room to work and we learn little about the characters we are watching.
The film takes us past the horrendous events in the Algiers to the shocking follow-up, as some of the people involved are put on trial. The police violence and trial sequence will feel all too familiar in light of recent events.
DETROIT offers a remarkable portrait of an event 50 years ago, famous then but largely forgotten now. While the history lesson is admirable, the disturbing part is seeing the same police abuses then as now – perhaps even worse now, given the militarization of police forces on display during the Ferguson unrest. The film raises important questions, and one has to wonder if it is time, at last, we rethink how we train police, if we hope to see history stop repeating itself in this matter. Whether Bigelow’s DETROIT will spark that conversation remains to be seen.
Annapurna Pictures has just released a new poster for director Kathryn Bigelow’s DETROIT.
Check out the poster which features John Boyega, Anthony Mackie, Will Poulter, and Algee Smith.
You can see even more of the incredible ensemble cast in “Detroit | The Cast of Detroit”
From the Academy Award winning director of THE HURT LOCKER and ZERO DARK THIRTY, DETROIT tells the gripping story of one of the most terrifying moments during the civil unrest that rocked Detroit in the summer of ’67.
John Boyega, Will Poulter, Algee Smith, Jacob Latimore, Jason Mitchell, Hannah Murray, Kaitlyn Dever, Jack Reynor, Ben O’Toole, Joseph David Jones, Ephraim Sykes, Leon Thomas III, Nathan Davis Jr., Peyton Alex Smith, Malcolm David Kelley, Gbenga Akinnabve, Chris Chalk, Jeremy Strong, Laz Alonzo, Austin Hebert, Miguel Pimentel, Kris Davis, with John Krasinski and Anthony Mackie star.
Annapurna Pictures has released the first trailer for the upcoming film DETROIT.
From the Academy Award winning director of THE HURT LOCKER and ZERO DARK THIRTY, DETROIT tells the gripping story of one of the darkest moments during the civil unrest that rocked Detroit in the summer of ’67.
The huge cast features John Boyega, Will Poulter, Algee Smith, Jacob Latimore, Jason Mitchell, Hannah Murray, Kaitlyn Dever, Jack Reynor, Ben O’Toole, Joseph David Jones, Ephraim Sykes, Leon Thomas III, Nathan Davis Jr., Peyton Alex Smith, Malcolm David Kelley, Gbenga Akinnabve, Chris Chalk, Jeremy Strong, Laz Alonzo, Austin Hebert, Miguel Pimentel, Kris Davis, with John Krasinski and Anthony Mackie.
Annapurna Pictures, founded by Megan Ellison, has garnered a total of 32 Academy Award nominations for their projects, including ZERO DARK THIRTY, JOY, THE MASTER, FOXCATCHER, and THE GRANDMASTER. Ellison is also one of only four honorees ever to receive two Best Picture nominations in the same year, with HER and AMERICAN HUSTLE both earning nods in 2014.
The company is also in production on Paul Thomas Anderson’s untitled new period film starring Daniel Day-Lewis and is developing the film adaptation of Maria Semple’s WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE, to be directed by Richard Linklater.
Annapurna’s most recent projects include Mike Mills’ 20TH CENTURY WOMEN, which was nominated for two Golden Globes and earned Mills a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award nomination, as well as SAUSAGE PARTY, WIENER-DOG, and EVERYBODY WANTS SOME, with THE BAD BATCH set for release by Neon in 2017.
