Low Key

On the last  Low Key  podcast of the year, Keith Dennie, Aaron Lanton and Tim Molloy talk about the deceptively straightforward Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, directed by George C. Wolfe and based on the play by August Wilson. We talk about what we thought of Chadwick Boseman's final performance, what the film says about religion, and if there's a Marxist argument at...

In The Sound of Metal , Riz Ahmed plays a heavy metal drummer who suddenly loses his hearing. You share his nightmarish sense of his entire life disappearing, along with his sense of sound. Director Darius Marder teaches us how to watch and listen to the film, with completely immersive and innovative use of sound. But it's also a spectacularly well-crafted script, and beautifully-acted film. We li...

Lovers Rock , the magnificent second film in Steve McQueen's Small Axe series, takes viewers inside a 1980 house party filled with young British and Caribbean people, looking for love. As the party unfolds, we realize this small get-together, DJ'd by the immaculate Mercury Sound System, is fraught with politics: Why don't these Black young people feel welcome at clubs? Why can't they wander too fa...

If you've thought about making a movie, but really don't know where to start, start here. Every week on Low Key , we talk about TV shows and movies other people made. Except this week! Keith Dennie, one of your co-hosts, wrote a script in quarantine, got a crew and actors together, and finished principle photography. His film, The Moment, is about a young woman named Logan (Randell Robertson) whos...

The Queen's Gambit stars Anya Taylor-Joy as Beth Harmon, an orphan who becomes a 1960s chess prodigy — and addict. In this episode we talk about whether child prodigies are real or an exaggerated phenomenon, nature v. nurture, and the Netflix series' approach to gender and race. Also we try to imagine a world without Street Fighter . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

His House  is a haunted house story where the characters have a good reason for not leaving the house: If they do, they'll be returned to the horrors of tribal violence in their native South Sudan. Set in the United Kingdom,  His House  follows the story of Rial and Bol Majur (played by Wunmi Mosaku and Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù), a married couple seeking asylum to escape the horrors of trib...

Horror. Science fiction. Non-fiction. Fantasy. Adventure. Coming of age. War. A lot of shows have a hard time executing any sole genre.  Lovecraft Country , which just wrapped its first season on HBO, blends all of these together at once and still sticks the landing more often than not. On this week's episode of the Low Key podcast, we discuss all things Lovecraft Country , including the...

The new British horror film  Hosts  seems designed to provoke people, with a mix of long, slow buildups and sudden, ghastly unpleasantness. This is never better exemplified than in a dinner scene that replaces Chekhov's gun with a hammer, very unsubtly.  Hosts  features a classic setup: a family invites a neighborhood couple over for Christmas dinner. But an unknown entity has...

Today we talk about The Boys, Amazon's anti-superhero story. Season 1 used superheroes to represent police, military, sports stars and Hollywood celebrities and explore blind hero worship. Season 2 delves into the dirty underside of manufactured heroism with a character named Stormfront (Aya Cash) who uses memes to gain fame and try to steal the superhero group The Seven from its leader, Homelande...

Today's episode is about Residue , the impressionistic debut from Merawi Gerima. The award-winning film, which just premiered on Netflix, follows Jay, a young filmmaker who returns from Los Angeles to his hometown of Washington, DC and finds that white people are taking over his neighborhood, disrespecting the Black residents they're pushing out. We talk about the challenging pace of the movie, it...

Hulu's new TV show 'Woke' follows the story of black cartoonist Keef Knight's "woke" awakening after a brush with police brutality leads him to re-evaluate his relationship with art and social critique. Also, inanimate objects are now talking to him about embracing his blackness. It's a weird concept with great ideas, but 'Woke' makes some of the same mistakes it means to shed a light on. Keith an...

We talk about 1BR, the little horror movie that could... unseat Project Power as the top movie on Netflix. It's a story of utopian societies, utilitarianism, and keeping your cat close. Plus, Aaron and Keith recount their experience with a charismatic religious leader who eavesdropped on their conversation at the International House of Pancakes. f you like this episode, check out our interview wit...

This episode, we talk about how Chadwick Boseman kept history alive with roles from Jackie Robinson to James Brown to Thurgood Marshall — and how Black Panther changed everything for movies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Project Power, the latest Netflix action-adventure hit, has a new spin on super powers: What if a pill could make you outrageously powerful — for just five minutes? The film by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, written by The Batman co-writer Mattson Tomlin, stars a trio of stellar actors: Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Dominique Fishback. But it also raises a question about the current a...

Shirley is about the brilliant American Gothic author Shirley Jackson, whose mid-20th century work has influenced many of the creators we admire today. Shirley specifically dramatizes the period that Jackson wrote the novel Hangsaman , by introducing a young, recently married couple into her home. Jackson and her husband Stanley Hyman, a literary critic and university professor, provide the couple...

The lead for a superhero film has to be in phenomenal shape, capable of imposing criminals with their physical presence - or do they? Robert Pattinson, the newest actor to take on the role of Batman in the upcoming 2021 film, adamantly disagrees. In an interview with GQ conducted in April 2020 , Pattinson made the case that anyone advocating for working out at all times is “part of the problem.” P...

Today’s episode of the Low Key pod covers Beyonce’s visual album Black Is King , a re-envisioning of the classic Lion King tale through the talent and vision of black folks across the globe. In fact, each song for this project was part of Disney’s CGI-live action 2019 Lion King remake, but Black Is King adds additional layers and textures to each rendition by introducing a wide array of African pe...

At the end of the first episode of Netfix's The Business of Drugs , host Amaryllis Fox says to the camera: "Legalization may seem pretty extreme to most Americans. But as long as the demand continues to climb, and the prices remain astronomically high because of no legal competition, I can't help wonder whether legalization and regulation is the only real option, and prohibition is just an illusio...

In this episode we explore Netflix's Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado , about a Puerto Rican TV astrologer who rose from humble beginnings to become a sequin-caped inspiration to millions. With his distinctive look, aura of mystery — especially about his sexuality — and ability to blend many religious beliefs into a medley of optimism, Walter Mercado gave hope to the hopeless — until...

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 ,giv...

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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 duri...

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 con...

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 pl...

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...