With: Lyric Ross, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Angela Bassett, James Hong, Sam Zelaya, Tamara Smart, Seema Virdi, Ramona Young, Ving Rhames
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Written by: Henry Selick, Jordan Peele, based on a story by Henry Selick, Clay McLeod Chapman
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Directed by: Henry Selick
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some thematic material, violence, substance use and brief strong language
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Running Time: 105
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Date: 10/28/2022
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Flipped Cream
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filmmaker Henry Selick, who is the actual director of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), as well as the man behind the masterful Coraline (2009), returns with more stuff from which nightmares are made. Co-written by none other than Jordan Peele, and featuring almost all Black characters, Wendell & Wild has an unsettling look, with odd-shaped faces and bodies full of sharp edges and hinges. Peele and his comedy partner Keegan-Michael Key play the title demons, who work for their bullying father, Buffalo Belzer (voiced by Ving Rhames), and dream of building their own amusement park. In the real world, young Kat (voiced by Lyric Ross) loses her parents in an accident and blames herself, and grows into an angry, rebellious teen (who listens to X-Ray Spex). She summons Wendell and Wild to the land of the living, where they promise that they can use a magic hair cream to resurrect her parents, if only she'll do their bidding. Truthfully, the fantasy plot is pretty convoluted, with hell maidens and zombies and spells and an evil corporation and secret conspiracies, but just watching this thing move and listening to the voice talent (which also includes Angela Bassett and James Hong) is more than enough.
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