Monsters and Men Is a Timely Look at the Quiet Courage Needed to Confront Systemic Racism

CW: References to police brutality ahead 

Monsters and Men is a 2018 feature from writer/director Reinaldo Marcus Green that was intended to be inspired by the death of Eric Garner. Though we don't technically see the death of the Eric Garner stand-in at any point in Monsters and Men, pieces of dialogue (particularly mention of the now-deceased person being murdered by police for selling cigarettes) make it clear who this story is about. Of course, Eric Garner is not the first Black person to die at the hands of the police. Acts of violence on the parts of police officers motivated by racism have been going on since basically the police were invented. They've also certainly been rampant in the six years since Garner's death.

Luce Is Morally Complex And Fascinating Fare

The titular lead character of Luce (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is an ideal High School student. The adopted son of Amy (Naomi Watts) and Peter Edgar (Tim Roth) is in every extracurricular you can think of, he's a great speaker, he gets along equally well with his fellow students as he does with his teachers. Well, most of his teachers at least. Luce doesn't really get along well with his English teacher, Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer). Up to this point, Luce's just been mildly annoyed with his teacher. But things take a turn for the worse when Wilson calls Amy into her classroom to inform her that her son has written an extremely disturbing and violent essay and has also been keeping illegal fireworks in his locker.

Don't Let Misleading Marketing Turn You Away From The Grim And Transfixing It Comes At Night

It Comes At Night follows in the footsteps of the likes of Drive as a feature film with incredibly misleading marketing that I'm sure is setting up general audiences expectations in a way that they'll be incredibly displeased with what they're actually getting, though the more abstract nature of It Comes At Night was probably not gonna sit well with general audiences anyhow. I saw this movie in a jam-packed auditorium last night and the moment the film ended, the entire theater erupted into indignation at best and outright anger & rage at worst. It was quite a sight, with ceaseless babbling about the low quality of the feature they had just watched filling the hallways as we all left the theater and entered the Texas night.