Get Out - Movie Review

Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephen Root, Lakeith Stanfield, Lil Rel Howery, Marcus Henderson and Betty Gabriel.
Written & Directed by Jordan Peele.

★★★½

Jordan Peele of Key & Peele fame has created a bizarre horror-comedy that plays with social commentary without sacrificing laughs or scares.

Daniel Kaluuya plays Chris, a young African-American man who's about to go visit his girlfriend Rose's parents' house in the Hamptons. It's a Guess Who's Coming to Dinner scenario, even though Rose has assured him her parents are progressive as can be.

And they are, though those there's something off with these upper-class WASPs. They're trying a little too hard to relate. They have a black groundskeeper and maid who don't seem right. They have a locked basement. They have a party where all of their other rich old friends are gathering, and all engage in uncomfortable racially-lined banter.

By the way, this movie still would have worked if Chris was white, and this would have been more about the generational divide, but by adding that extra element, the movie has that much more to say.

The Croods - Movie Review

Starring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Cloris Leachman and Clark Duke.  Directed by Chris Sanders & Kirk DeMicco.

★★★

The plot is very familiar but it's the way they execute their story that makes this fun.

The Croods are a family of cavemen who have survived by being afraid of everything and spending most of their time behind a boulder in a cave.  The oldest daughter Oop (Emma Stone) has had enough of confinement and wants to explore the "new."  Overprotective father Grug (Nicolas Cage) will have none of it, but when Oop meets another man (Ryan Reynolds), all kinds of "new" open up to her.

There are some thrilling action sequences, and it was probably a lot of fun in 3D.  The humor succeeds largely from the way the Croods deal with unknown things, like fire.