Low Key

Based on a comic book by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández,The Old Guard asks the question: What if the X-Men, but everyone is Wolverine? The new film from Gina Prince-Bythewood features four very old yet young-looking warriors led by Charlize Theron. All of them have Logan-like super-fast healing powers that we could all use about now. Netflix definitely intends for The Old Guard to be a hit ,given its star-studded cast featuring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Kiki Layne. Is there room for a spinoff? Does a Wolverine kill dudes in the woods? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I May Destroy You, the new series created by and starring Michaela Coel, probably will destroy you. It's about consent, double standards, and justice—and that's just the start.Also: Tim misremembered the college that helped pioneer the "yes means yes" standard of consent. It was Antioch. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today’s episode revisits the 1989 classic that put Spike Lee on the map, Do the Right Thing. Over 30 years later, the film’s raw depiction of racial relations in Bedstuy remains controversial - every group feels aggrieved, lashing out with both words and actions. By the time the film is over, one could make a strong case that no one did the right thing. The bubbling tension under the surface during the hottest day of the summer explodes into a riot that feels unavoidable once 911 is dialed.Lee refused the urge to give the audience simple good versus bad character depictions. Singular characters act on their righteous impulses but are often guided by misplaced, unspoken misunderstandings. By the time Mookie throws the trash can through Sal’s pizzeria, his actions are about more than simply the death of Radio Rahim. The audience is given several reasons Mookie could be at the end of his rope with Sal and his family from Pino’s liberal use of the n-word to Sal’s supposed flirtation with his sister - Mookie’s fru

A simple question: Would you go to a movie theater now? Your hosts weigh in from three distinct states with three distinct COVID-19 situations: Texas (Keith), Tennessee (Aaron) and Massachusetts (Tim).We also get into whether our minds would change if Tenet were playing.And there are questions about COVID-19 etiquette, whether the theatrical experience can ever be reproduced at home, and why contact tracing is difficult for strip club patrons. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today’s episode covers Spike Lee’s new film Da 5 Bloods which follows four black GIs returning to Vietnam nearly five decades after their tours ended to recover gold and the remains of their former captain. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned and chaos ensues.The film releases with impeccable timing as the nation continues to grapple with social unrest in present day. The war scenes take place during 1968’s “Summer of Love” when all Hell broke loose for Black Americans after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Lee uses that eerie parallel to show that things have not changed as much as would like to believe. Da 5 Bloods is available now on Netflix.Episode breakdown, with timestamps:0:42 - Initial thoughts 4:46 - Themes and the leading character, Paul as played by Delroy Lindo10:10 - Vietnam War footage and previous Hollywood war films16:22 - What is the purpose of the gold?19:30 - The ‘mythic’ Stormin’ Norman, ‘Black rage’ in 2020, and Black Lives Matter25:00 - Dodging the Vietnam War2

Just Mercy, starring Michael B. Jordan as a lawyer who defends a wrongly accused death-row inmate played by Jamie Foxx, is one of many films made available for free in response to the Black Lives Matter protests nationwide. In the latest Low Key podcast, we talk about what the film gets right about racist policing, and what changes we'd like to see in real life.The discussion of the movie leads to some comparisons of our own interactions with police. Would you believe your two black co-hosts and one white co-host have had very different experiences? Note the extremely long silence when Keith asks Tim at the 34:13 mark in the podcast if a cop has ever walked up to him and asked for ID for no reason.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The nerd nightmare is over: the badgering has paid off, and the Synder Cut of the DC Extended Universe’s Justice League will be released as an HBO Max exclusive sometime in 2021.In the latest Low Key Podcast, we talk about what it all means, and what we want from the Snyder Cut. And great news: This episode features Sam from the Sam Said It! podcast.The corporate overlords have bowed to the overbeating might of tweets and petitions to remake the underwhelming November 2017 release into Zack Snyder’s intended glory. The remake will be released as either a four-hour epic film or a six-episode miniseries with enhanced CGI, new character designs, and additional scenes to flesh out the story. This is the sort of thing that would normally only happen in a comic book and yet here we are.So how did this happen? A group of executives from HBO, Warner Brothers, and DC decided to move forward with the project after viewing an unfinished version of the Synder Cut back in early February 2020.This cut was ba

Netflix does not shy away from distributing stories that give voices to the voiceless - the recently released documentary Murder to Mercy is no exception. The doc shares the story of Cyntoia Brown, a woman who was sentenced to prison for life at the age of 16 for killing a man when she was being sex trafficked at the Nashville, Tennessee area in 2004. Brown told police that she feared for her life and shot the man with a gun inside the house when she believed he was going to violently attack. Fifteen years later, she was granted clemency by the state governor and now works as works as an advocate for helping vulnerable young people who are survivors of sex trafficking. The film contains footage from initial arrest up until her release from prison which demonstrates a positive example of what’s possible when rehabilitation resources are available. On the other side of the coin, interviews with the women in her biological family are present, each of whom are survivors of sexual abuse by men in their lives

The new documentary Feels Good Man explores how racists, trolls and incels turned an innocuous cartoon character named Pepe the Frog into a symbol of hate. On the latest Low Key podcast, we talk about how the situation epitomizes many of the problems of the internet, where misinformation and propaganda choke out facts and helpful information. Feels Good Man, directed by Arthur Jones, goes deep into the backstory of Pepe. Once he was a simple creature drawn by artist Matt Furie, known by the dorky catchphrase "Feels good man," which Pepe used to explain why he pees with his pants down.The document shows how this innocuous creature was soon embraced by a depressing online community of do-littles who identify as "NEET" — an abbreviation for "not in education, employment, or training."When "normies" — including women — invaded their world by starting to embrace Pepe, the social outcasts rebelled, trying to make Pepe as repugnant as possible by affiliating him with Nazism, misogyny, and ot

Netflix's trippy The Midnight Gospel, from comedian Duncan Trussell and animator Pendleton Ward, might be a model for pandemic era TV shows: It asks the big questions in life without requiring any actors to get too close to each other.The series is about a scamp named Clancy Gilroy (voiced by Trussell), who uses a butt-shaped simulator to travel to different worlds and interview people for his "spacecast," which is basically a podcast, about questions like what happens when we die, why death is so essential to life, and what it means to be enlightened. You can appreciate it for the deep, philosophical conversations Trussell has with the other beings he encounters (voiced by guests as varied as Dr. Drew Pinsky, Damien Echols, Anne Lamott and Ram Dass), or you can enjoy the insane animated shenanigans, such as the zombie war in the first episode. Or you can enjoy both. The show mixes high and low.Its formula — interesting conversations brought to vivid life through animation — seems like a very intriguing answe

Netflix's The Platform has drawn plaudits as the perfect film for the age of hoarding. But is it, really? In one of our most divided episodes, we go deep — Level 333 deep — on whether the main metaphor in the film makes any sense at all."The Platform," directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, takes place in a multi-level prison where the inmates are fed via a platform that is initially filled with sumptuous dishes — which the inmates pick clean as the platform descends. Those in the lower cells get less and less, until they get nothing at all. Adding to the fun is the fact that the inmates are switched around, apparently at random, so that they are sometimes on good, high-level floors, and sometimes in the deeper ones, where starvation is a very likely fate.Tim had big problems with this one; Aaron and Keith saw some merits. Overall, we got very philosophical in trying to decide how, if at all, The Platform relates to the way we live now. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Memphis is well known mostly for its music and food, rarely getting a chance to branch out beyond that common framing. Netflix’s ‘Uncorked’ is going for something a little different as it follows the story of a young 20-something guy hoping to accomplish his dream of attaining the title of Master Sommelier. His father wants him to stay over the family business, a BBQ joint first started by his grandfather who bootstrapped his way to entrepreneurial success. Go for your dreams or take over the family business with regrets - it’s an age old tale with a Memphis twist. And because two of Low Key’s host are from the Bluff City, a review was bound to happen no matter what.Among the actoral talent are anchors of black cinema such as Courtney B. Vance and Niecy Nash provide FOILs for each other - accepting a child’s dream (however fickle it may be) versus taking the mantle (and responsibility) chosen for them. Relative newcomers Mamoudou Athie and Sasha Compère have an undeniable chemistry that ebbs positively and ne

DC Universe’s Harley Quinn doesn’t give a f**k about offending people as the first scene demonstrates by showing a yacht full of billionaires robbed and ripped apart. The show is meant to shock audiences. But it also serves as a great example of how R-rated comic book material can allow for an intelligent subversion of tropes and dark humor that reveals why we connect to these broken characters. Harley herself shines in every episode in both success and failure as she strives to go from the Joker’s lackey to the first modern female supervillian. It sounds simple enough but the show reveals an actual truth of comics - female supervillians are non-existent with our only example suffering a face worse than Arkham.  A crew for Harley is assembled to help her become noticed by the Legion of Doom, leading to hijnx that are often hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t already seen the show although we try on this episode. The mature content in animated DC films seems like an intentional way to set thems

Candyman has aged very well: The 1992 story of a son of a slave who is murdered for loving a white woman — and reborn as a hook-handed slasher — looks at racism with an unflinching honesty missing from a lot of our racial dialogue today. It skillfully, scarily connects the bigotry of old with the bigotry of what was, at the time of its release, the modern age.Candyman returns in June with a Jordan Peele-produced reboot, and we here at the Low Key Podcast prepared by watching the original. Revisiting Candyman reminds us how much and how little has changed since 1992 — and, in some ways, since 1892. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Zoë Kravitz might be the single best person on earth to star in Hulu's High Fidelity, an update of the John Cusack movie of the same name: Her mom, Lisa Bonet, was one of the stars of that film, based on a Nick Hornby novel, also called High Fidelity.You've probably gathered that High Fidelity lends itself to adaptation. The novel, released in 1995, was set in London, and featured a record store owner named Rob, reeling from a breakup. The movie, released in 2000, was set in Chicago and featured a record store owner named Rob, reeling from a breakup. And now the show, released this past Valentine's Day, is set in New York and features a record store owner named Rob, reeling from a breakup.Except now Rob is a biracial woman, and record stores are more nostalgia dens than thriving Gen X businesses. Unlike the previous Robs, she's dated both women and men. But all three Robs love lists, and obsess over their Top 5 worst breakups to figure out what's wrong with the common denominator in all those relationships: R

Tyler Perry’s ‘A Fall From Grace’ is the latest film release and his first foray in the profitable Netflix original - did we enjoy it? You’ll have to listen to find out. But it’s fair to spoil that there’s a lot to like - a likable main character with relatable real-world circumstances, an impactful murder sequence, and the impeccable Phylicia Rashad like you’ve never seen her before.Throughout this episode we also cover the legacy of Perry and the new Tyler Perry Studios lot in Atlanta that could change opportunities for minorities working to show off projects that are not receiving due attention. Even if you don’t love the Perry-verse, this is a great episode to understand his legacy in Hollywood and beyond. Please join us again to fill an hour and follow us on @thelowkeypod! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Stephen King disappointed Ava DuVernay earlier this month when he tweeted about casting his Oscar ballot: "I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong."On the latest Low Key Podcast, your hosts discuss what followed. Should we consider diversity in matters of art? Do we? We also consider Carey Mulligan's modest proposal that perhaps Oscar voters should somehow prove that they've seen all the films before they vote.It's a far-flung discussion that gets into blind spots, comfort zones, and the general problem of underrepresentation onscreen, years after #OscarsSoWhite.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Parasite, Bong Joon-ho's Oscar-nominated thriller, challenges our sympathies throughout: Do we sympathize with the destitute Kim family? Or the wealthy Parks? It may seem obvious to you — but it's probably a given that not everyone sees Parasite the way you do. In the latest Low Key podcast, we talk about how our sympathies shifted, or didn't, throughout the masterful film.Listen above or on your favorite podcasting platform:Here are some highlights, with time stamps (Spoilers galore!):2:05: The interesting Native American references in Parasite. 5:05: "They do a good job, once they get the jobs."6:10: Is Mr. Park a jerk?7:15: How the Kims screw over other working-class people.8:00: Are we mad at the Kims for letting insecticide get on the pizza boxes?8:50: "The poisonous effect does trickle up."12:00: Ki-woo, the son in the Kim family, is a creep.17:40: Shout-out to American Psycho.18:15: Shout-out to Kurt Vonnegut.23:44: "How th

2020 movies have a lot to live up to—2019's movies were some of the best in years. On the latest Low Key podcast, my fellow co-hosts and I nerd out on the 2020 movies we hope will live up to 2019's high standards, from Tenet to Birds of Prey to Chris Rock's take on Saw to, uh, Sonic the Hedgehog. We like all kinds of movies. But on the Low Key, we especially talk about fan-focused films, with a weakness for comic books and sci-fi. So we're very intrigued by 2020 movies including Black Widow,  No Time to Die and A Quiet Place 2.We take some side trips to talk about Star Wars, Uncut Gems, and Parasite, too. And we talk about Memphis roller coaster the Zippin Pippin, God rest its soul.By the way: For some of the indie 2020 movies the MovieMaker Magazine team is excited about—from Promising Young Woman to The 40-Year-Old Version to The Climb to Never Rarely Sometimes Always —check out

Watchmen complicatedly combined falling squid, horrifying racism, a glowing blue man, nuclear panic, fear of sexual humiliation, piles of dead clones, questions about whether we could all be doing more, and an armchair trap door. In the new Low Key podcast, we talk about why it worked for us.In every episode of Low Key, your co-hosts Aaron Lanton, Keith Dennie, and Tim Molloy talk about pop culture moments we think others may have missed, often through a racial lens. As Aaron explains near the 20-minute mark of this episode, "Watching this as a black viewer is very different, I think, from watching it as a viewer of some other ethnicity." It isn't just because of the show's heavy references to the Tulsa race riots, or secret racist societies. It's because of the show's difficult questions about how much obligation all Americans have to one another—and how those obligations relate to race.Watchmen is undeniably, deliberately, messy and confusing. While most screenplays aspire