BEFORE: I'm still working at one of the theaters hosting the Tribeca Film Festival, last night I picked up an extra shift because a co-worker called out sick - after this festival the theater's closing for two months so I've got to try to get as many shifts in as possible. I'm there all day today (Thursday) and then again on Saturday, then that might be it until late August. Every summer job I've applied for has said "No, thanks" so maybe the easiest thing to do is file for partial unemployment, watch movies and TV until Labor Day and then go back to work at the theater, but no more movies until October 1. That's one possible plan, anyway.
Do I have any appropriate movies for Labor Day on my list? "Norma Rae"? "Kinky Boots" is set in a shoe factory... or do I just find some back-to-school films like "Dear Evan Hansen" that might link to the start of my horror chain? I've got maybe until July 4 to figure this out, but that's not a lot of time. It should be easy, nearly every movie features somebody who has a job.
Forest Whitaker carries over from "Respect".
THE PLOT: Life changes for Malcolm, a geek surviving life in a tough neighborhood, after a chance invitation to an underground party leads him and his friends into a Los Angeles adventure.
AFTER: Well, OK if yesterday's film fit the "Dad" part of June's theme, then maybe tonight's film fits the "Grad" part. Malcolm is a high-school student who dreams about going to Harvard, but since he lives in a tough part of L.A., he thinks he's got to get creative to apply to Harvard. It's all about standing out with your entrance essay, right? I mean, he's a geek and he's smart and he's got good grades, he maybe just needs to stand out during an interview with a Harvard alumnus who, coincidentally, grew up in the same neighborhood, and also coincidentally, still has a business in the area.
Running errands for the local drug dealer, Dom, could get in the way, however. It starts with Dom sending Malcolm to deliver messages to a woman named Nakia, to try to get her to go to Dom's party. But Malcolm gets smitten with Nakia, and vice versa, so there may be some more complications. Dom also invites Malcolm and his geek friends, Jib and Diggy, to the same party at the club, and Dom for some reason insists that these high-school kids be allowed in to the club, even though they're not 21. When the shooting starts and then the cops raid the club, Dom stashes drugs in Malcolm's backpack, expecting to catch up with him later.
Dom gets arrested, and Malcolm gets a call to deliver the drugs to a man waiting in a car - but then Dom calls him from prison with other instructions, to deliver the drugs to AJ at a different address and to AVOID the man in the car, he's either a snitch or a killer. The three friends manage to ditch the killer in the car and make it to AJ's house, only he's not home. AJ's son tries to get the geeks to make a record, and AJ's daughter tries to get Malcolm to make out, but are these people on the level, or do they have ulterior motives? L.A. is sure confusing...
Just when things are getting really crazy, Malcolm remembers that it's the day of that Harvard alumnus interview, and he's got to get across town for it. When he arrives, Malcolm realizes another coincidence, and it's the biggest one of all. This leads Malcolm and his friends to start a new "science project" in the lab to convert the drugs to sellable quantities, and also to contact a hacker to sell the drugs on a black-market website using Bitcoin transactions, which could maybe be turned into cash later, if needed.
When did this come out? 2015? It was ahead of its time, I think, or maybe Bitcoin's been around longer than I thought - the good news from a narrative standpoint is that nobody understood it then, and almost as many people still don't understand it - so it can do here whatever the screenwriter needed it to do. And we've got a lesbian character tonight, Diggy, which is great news because it's Pride Month and so far the only gay characters this month have been one minor character in "Senior Year" and two others in...well, no spoilers here. But I've got to have more representation this month or I'll be in danger of losing my funding.
I wish I'd gotten my act together sooner about films being released this summer - I may try and see "The Flash" which has one of this film's stars in it, but Shameik Moore is also the voice of Miles Morales in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse", and if I hadn't programmed this one tonight, I could have used it to connect those two movies. Oh, well, I'll find another way to get there.
Also starring Shameik Moore (last heard in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse"), Tony Revolori (last seen in "Spider-Man: No Way Home"), Kiersey Clemons (last heard in "Scoob!"), Kimberly Elise (last seen in "Beloved"), Chanel Iman, Blake Anderson (last seen in "Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse"), Zoë Kravitz (last seen in "The Batman"), A$AP Rocky (last seen in "Monster"), Lakeith Stanfield (last seen in "The Purge: Anarchy"), Rick Fox (last seen in "Killing Hasselhoff"), Amin Joseph (last seen in "Freelancers"), Tyga (last seen in "Once Upon a Time in Venice"), Roger Guenveur Smith (last seen in "Empire State"), De'Aundre Bonds (last seen in "Gangster Squad"), Quincy Brown, Kap-G, Vince Staples, Casey Veggies, Wyking Jones, Bruce Beatty (last seen in "Straight Outta Compton"), Julian Brand, Ricky Harris (last seen in "Fathers' Day"), Allen Maldonado (last seen in "Project Power"), Ashton Moio, Lidia Porto (last heard in "Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again"), Larnell Stovall.
RATING: 6 out of 10 orders of cheese fries
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