The Kings of Summer
Film Review by Kam Williams
Freshman year of high school has just ended for Patrick (Gabriel Basso) who isn’t looking forward to spending the summer under the same roof as his helicopter parents (Megan Mullally and Marc Evan Jackson), given their monitoring his every move and their merciless teasing about his raging hormones. The situation’s even worse for Joe (Nick Robinson) whose widowed father’s (Nick Offerman) way of grieving involves belittling and grounding him at the drop of a hat.
One night at a keg party, the best friends come up with a viable solution to their predicament when they discover a clearing in the middle of the forest. Why not build themselves a house out in the woods where they will finally be free from the abuse and control of meddling adults?
Swearing each other to secrecy, the malcontents hatch an impromptu plan to live off the land. And they are joined in the clandestine endeavor by classmate Biaggio (Moises Arias), a mysterious weirdo wiling to tag along and utter an occasional, odd non sequitur.
Next thing you know, they’re building a shack out of materials found on a construction lot, and also foraging for food by diving into a dumpster behind a restaurant. Meanwhile, their worried folks are calling the cops, convinced the missing boys must have been kidnapped.
That is the absorbing point of departure of The Kings of Summer, a quirky, coming-of-age comedy marking the magnificent directorial debut of Jordan Vogt-Roberts. His laugh-a-minute adventure is reminiscent of some the best of the rebellious adolescent genre, ala Stand by Me (1986), Superbad (2007), Ghost World (2001), Super 8 (2011) and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986).
The picture’s clever script by first-timer Chris Galletta is laced with lots of hilarious scenes like when Biaggio attempts to throw the police off their trail with a ransom note from the fictitious “Jamal Colorado” inspired by a combining a black first name with one of the fifty states. But human oddity Biaggio is basically around to provide intermittent comic relief.
At heart, the movie is about the intrepid trio’s struggle to survive while eluding the frantic search party. The plot thickens upon the sudden arrival of Kelly (Erin Moriarty) at the lad’s lair, a cutie pie Joe’s interested in dating.
Will the fetching femme fatale prove to be the boys’ undoing? Or will their bond remain intact? No spoilers here. Suffice to say that between a host of memorable performances by a cast of relative newcomers, and a haunting, grungy score by Ryan Miller, The Kings of Summer is a bona fide sleeper not to be missed.
Excellent (4 stars)
Rated R for profanity and underage alcohol consumption
In English and Italian with subtitles
Running time: 95 minutes
Distributor: CBS Films
To see a trailer for The Kings of Summer, visit
After Earth
Film Review by Kam Williams
In recent years, the name M. Night Shyamalan has become synonymous with mediocre movies with a humdinger of a twist tacked on at the very end. Meanwhile, Will Smith has been so successful as the perennial star of a string of summer blockbusters, that he’s been crowned “Mr. July.”
Thus, when the two former Philadelphians decide to collaborate on a film project, something ostensibly has to give. Will Shyamalan stem his decade-long decline or will Will’s winning streak come to an abrupt end?
Looking a little more like a Shyamalan than a Smith production, this cheapo, post-apocalyptic adventure suffers from a combination of miscasting and cheesy special f/x (reminiscent of Lost in Space, the Sixties TV series). Consequently, After Earth pales in comparison with a couple of other sci-fi pictures presently in theaters, specifically, Star Trek 12 and Iron Man 3.
At least this futuristic, Shyamalan offering doesn’t turn on rabbit-out-a-hat resolution. In fact, quite to the contrary, the predictable ending of this stranded and I want to go home saga is an exercise in the obvious established by the premise.
As for the acting, Will Smith is normally good for a little comic relief even in his dramatic outings. Here, however, that trademark flair for the flamboyant he regularly exhibited on TV as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is nowhere in sight.
Instead, he displays a sober stoicism from start to finish as General Cypher Raige, the forbidding father of Kitai (Jaden Smith), an aspiring ranger eager to prove his worth as a soldier. He gets his chance when they are the only survivors of an intergalactic expedition crash-landing on Earth, a planet abandoned by humanity a millennium earlier.
With the General wounded and the spaceship crippled, it is up to Kitai to embark on a hundred-kilometer trip through the jungle alone to retrieve the emergency beacon from the detached tail section. This proves to be no mean feat, since the forest is covered with a variety of voracious, man-eating creatures.
Will Smith proceeds to spend the balance of the movie sitting in the damaged fuselage surrounded by unspooled reams of what looks like toilet paper. Unbudgeted scenery aside, this film is really designed as a vehicle for his real-life son, Jaden, whose performance in front of the blue screen is tarnished a tad by a high-pitched voice yet to crack.
They say, there comes a time in every black comedian’s career when he’s asked to put on a dress. Well, it seems the same can be said about appearing in a campy sci-fi as demonstrated by Billy Cosby in Leonard Part 6, Eddie Murphy in The Adventures of Pluto Nash and John Witherspoon in Cosmic Slop.
A simplistic, father-son morality play strictly for little kids and diehard Will and Jaden Smith fans. Destined to be added to the pantheon of inadvertently-funny blaxploitation flicks with a devoted cult following.
Good (2 stars)
PG-13 for action violence and disturbing images
Running time: 100 minutes
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
To see a trailer for After Earth, visit
Zulay Henao
The “Love Thy Neighbor” Interview
with Kam Williams
Hip Hip Zulay!
Zulay Henao was born in Medellin, Colombia on May 29, 1979, and moved to the United States with her family at 4 years-old with her parents. Living in New Jersey, she knew from an early age that she wanted to be an actress. However, Zulay didn’t follow the conventional route to fame. In fact, she took a pit stop and joined the United States Army after graduating from high school.
While stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, she found time to study at Methodist College. After completing her commitment to the military, Zulay decided to finally pursue her dream of performing.
She enrolled at the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, where she would study for several years. It was during this tenure that her break came when she landed the female lead in Feel the Noise starring opposite music sensation Omarion.
It was then that Hollywood insiders began to take notice of her irresistible beauty and talent. She was hand selected by writer-director Tom Skull to star in his horror feature Grizzly Park produced by Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead’s Belle Avery. Next would be the role that would really put Zulay on Hollywood’s radar – a starring role as Channing Tatum’s love interest in Fighting.
She would subsequently go on to star in John Singleton’s Takers alongside the star-studded cast of Paul Walker, Idris Elba, Michael Ealy, Hayden Christensen, Chris Brown, Matt Dillon, Zoe Saldana and Jay Hernandez. She also appeared in S. Darko, Boy Wonder and Hostel: Part 3.
No stranger to the small screen, Zulay’s TV credits include guest-starring roles on such series as Grey’s Anatomy, Army Wives, Law and Order: SVU and The Unusuals, as well as the made for TV movie Racing for Time. Next year, she will appear in Tyler Perry’s Single Mom’s Club alongside Amy Smart, Nia Long, Terry Crews and Eddie Cibrian.
Here, she talks about playing Marianna on Love Thy Neighbor, a new TV sitcom written and directed by Tyler Perry and airing on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network. The show premieres on May 29 at 9 PM ET/PT. [Check local listings]
Fast & Furious 6
Film Review by Kam Williams
It’s important to note that this edition of Fast & Furious is every bit as funny as it is adrenaline-fueled. Most of the laughs come courtesy of comic relief provided by Tyrese, who is back in an expanded role as trash-talking Roman Pearce, a card-carrying member of the fugitive gang of auto thieves led by macho Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel).
Like a latter-day Stepin Fetchit, Roman revives a slew of offensive African-American stereotypes, behaving in an alternately shallow, jive, flamboyant, lecherous, felonious and cowardly manner, doing everything but put on a dress to make a joke work. To Tyrese’s credit, the campy performance somehow works, either because the character is so ingratiating, or because of the presence of several respectable other blacks in the principal cast.
Whether entertaining a bevy of scantily-clad beauties on his personal jet (with “It’s Roman, bitches!” emblazoned on the fuselage) or making money literally rain out of an ATM to the delight of a crowd of appreciative strangers picking the bills up off the ground, the scene-stealing cynosure is always the center of attention. Well, except during the action, chase and fight scenes when the muscle cars and muscle heads take charge.
Other than Tyrese’s, the acting is uniformly wooden and unconvincing. Not to worry, this stunt driven-spectacular is all about the eye-popping special effects, and boy does it deliver in terms of the wow factor!
The plot of F&F 6 is little more than a lame excuse to pit an army of bad guys against an army of worse guys, both as simplistically-drawn as tag teams of opposing professional wrestlers. Here’s the storyline in 25 words or more. Dominic coaxes his cohorts (Tyrese, Paul Walker, Ludacris, Sung Kang and Gal Gadot) out of retirement for one last adventure, after rumors surface that his late-ex, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), might miraculously still be alive.
They hatch a plan to rescue the damsel in distress who’s suffering from amnesia and currently in the clutches of Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), a worthy adversary specializing in vehicular warfare. His posse’s recent attack on a Russian military convoy explains why Diplomatic Security Service agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) is desperately seeking the assistance of Dominic’s crew.
They agree on the condition that, should this mission succeed, they’ll be granted clemency for the host of crimes committed in F&F episodes 1-5. Hobbs okays the deal, and soon, a dogfight featuring fisticuffs, pyrotechnics and plenty of cartoon physics unfolds all over London, involving not only souped-up autos and state-of-the-art gadgetry, but a tank and a plane, to boot.
The epitome of a summer blockbuster, complete with a post-credits set-up of F&F 7 (already slated to be released in July of 2014). Just remember to check your brain at the box office, and you won’t be disappointed.
Excellent (4 stars)
PG-13 for sexuality, profanity, mayhem, violence and intense action
Running time: 130 minutes
Distributor: Universal Pictures
To see a trailer for Fast & Furious 6, visit
Better Things, a film about artist Jeffrey Catherine Jones, a transgender painter, illustrator, and comics artists, is guided and shaped by a group of creators who were influenced by and worked with Jeffrey at various stages of her life. Download Now