Movies and a Play

I had to do something to get out of the house and distract from all the horrible news. On Friday I went to see a play based on the Nate The Great books. I've never read them, but it's a boy detective like Encyclopedia Brown. It was fairly cute, with the child actors and the various pets also played by child actors. Nate wore a green deerstalker but otherwise wasn't like Sherlock, and his girl sidekick was just a part narrator and notetaker; she didn't get to do anything cool like Encyclopedia's bodyguard Sally Kimball.

On Saturday I also went to see Hocus Pocus, because I heard it was a fairly mild Halloween movie, and The Hate U Give. Hocus Pocus was enjoyable camp, funny and creepy but not too scary. I liked the talking cat and I guessed ahead of time that the zombie didn't really like obeying the witches; once he cut the stitches on his mouth, he was able to say so. Didn't realize that he was played by Doug Jones until later. Nice film overall, and glad that it's successful on its 25th anniversary.

As for The Hate U Give, I thought it was a really moving drama, and the actors were all excellent. I was rather shocked when we learned that Starr had witnessed another friend getting killed years before Khalil; their other friend Natasha got shot in a drive by when they were just little kids playing Harry Potter. Starr understandably had been too scared to speak up back then, and that guilt makes her want to speak up for Khalil. Though the media portray Khalil as a drug dealer who deserved to get shot, Starr understands that Khalil was just trying to make money because his grandmother had cancer, and there was no other job he could take that would provide enough money. Yet Starr is afraid to bring up Khalil in front of her white friends at Williamson high school. Even her boyfriend Chris naively says "I don't see race" as if that helps.

Starr's family life is fairly complex, since her half-brother Seven is related to Ayesha (girlfriend of the gang boss King) as well as Starr's friend Kenya. Starr's maternal uncle Carlos meanwhile is a cop, so that's an awkwardly close relationship between criminals and police. Starr's father Maverick used to be in King's gang, but went to prison for King, and was therefore let out of the gang. Maverick now owns a convenience store in the neighborhood, and his kids work there. He takes care of his family (but still he cheated on his wife with Ayesha) and tries to instill black pride in all his kids. I did think that Maverick went too far sometimes trying to defend his home and refusing to move out of the neighborhood even when King started threatening to kill Starr for talking to the police. Worse yet, Maverick let his older son Seven go with him instead of stay safe with the rest of the family. This naturally leads Maverick's younger son Sekani to think that being a man means pulling a gun to defend the family, but thankfully Starr defuses the situation, as she realizes how fucked up it is.

There's still no justice for Khalil, but of course police brutality is going to be an ongoing issue. However, Starr's family is able to recover and rebuild. I was beginning to worry about so many things happening to the family, one after the other, until I thought the violence would never stop, but we get some hope in their moving on. I'm glad that in the end Starr is able to drop her fake 2.0 self at Williamson, and that Chris is able to see her true self, including her blackness.