Plot: The true story of Rob Peace (Jay Will), a promising academic who, in a desperate attempt to raise money for his incarcerated father (Chiwetel Ejiofor) started a marijuana business that put his future in jeopardy.
Review: One of the recurring themes of this year’s Sundance was fatherhood. It’s a theme that cropped up in one of the fest’s most popular documentaries, Daughters, and was also prominent in films like Freaky Tales, Love Lies Bleeding, and Exhibiting Forgiveness. Most of the relationships were depicted as at least somewhat dysfunctional, and Rob Peace, in some measure, follows suit.
It begs the question, what would you sacrifice to save your father? Most movies – when they ask this question – do the reverse. We’re used to seeing stories about parents sacrificing things for their children, but not the reverse. In Rob Peace, which is based on a story that’s all too tragically true,...
Review: One of the recurring themes of this year’s Sundance was fatherhood. It’s a theme that cropped up in one of the fest’s most popular documentaries, Daughters, and was also prominent in films like Freaky Tales, Love Lies Bleeding, and Exhibiting Forgiveness. Most of the relationships were depicted as at least somewhat dysfunctional, and Rob Peace, in some measure, follows suit.
It begs the question, what would you sacrifice to save your father? Most movies – when they ask this question – do the reverse. We’re used to seeing stories about parents sacrificing things for their children, but not the reverse. In Rob Peace, which is based on a story that’s all too tragically true,...
- 1/31/2024
- by Chris Bumbray
- JoBlo.com
Five years after he made his directorial debut at Sundance, actor and filmmaker Chiwetel Ejiofor returned to the fest Monday with his sophomore feature, Rob Peace. The film is based on Jeff Hobbs’ 2014 book The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace and tells the true story of a Peace, who grew up in Orange, New Jersey and went on to attend Yale majoring in biochemistry.
In the film, Peace sells marijuana at Yale to earn money that he uses to help overturn his father’s murder conviction, and expresses his desires to return the neighborhood where he grew up.
Speaking ahead of the fest, Ejiofor points out that “within the African American experience, the connection to home, the connection to place, the connection to community is somehow less valid.” He continues: “Anybody who actually tries to reinstitute themselves within that community is somehow failing, on some level.”
THR‘s...
In the film, Peace sells marijuana at Yale to earn money that he uses to help overturn his father’s murder conviction, and expresses his desires to return the neighborhood where he grew up.
Speaking ahead of the fest, Ejiofor points out that “within the African American experience, the connection to home, the connection to place, the connection to community is somehow less valid.” He continues: “Anybody who actually tries to reinstitute themselves within that community is somehow failing, on some level.”
THR‘s...
- 1/25/2024
- by Mia Galuppo
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Sundance film festival: A magnificent lead performance from newcomer Jay Will helps to lift a rousing yet often uneven drama based on the life and death of a Yale student
How do you tell the story of Rob Peace? He was an exceptionally smart Black kid living in New Jersey, the product of a hard-working mother and a father who was convicted of murder when he was seven. His intellect and interest in science took him all the way to Yale on a scholarship, but circumstance took him back home and to a period of dealing drugs, a bright star crashing to earth, shot to death at the age of 30.
It’s a horrible, haunting tale, told by his old roommate Jeff Hobbs in the book The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, and now adapted to the big screen by Chiwetel Ejiofor, in his sophomore feature as director.
How do you tell the story of Rob Peace? He was an exceptionally smart Black kid living in New Jersey, the product of a hard-working mother and a father who was convicted of murder when he was seven. His intellect and interest in science took him all the way to Yale on a scholarship, but circumstance took him back home and to a period of dealing drugs, a bright star crashing to earth, shot to death at the age of 30.
It’s a horrible, haunting tale, told by his old roommate Jeff Hobbs in the book The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, and now adapted to the big screen by Chiwetel Ejiofor, in his sophomore feature as director.
- 1/23/2024
- by Benjamin Lee in Park City
- The Guardian - Film News
In his feature directorial debut, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Chiwetel Ejiofor crafted a humanizing portrait of a gifted Malawian boy who saves his village from famine by building a DIY windmill. That film — based on the true story of inventor William Kamkwamna — leaned into the conventions of inspirational movies to shape a narrative steeped in good-natured earnestness. But it also teased a portrayal of the complicated relationships between fathers and sons.
Ejiofor revisits this theme more forcefully in his latest directorial effort, Rob Peace, about a young man torn between the promise of his future and the responsibilities of his past. Adapted from Jeff Hobbs’ 2014 book The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, the film offers a sweeping and empathetic depiction of its central character. Through Peace’s story, Ejiofor explores the violent impact of the carceral state and the fraught interdependence of a father and his son.
Ejiofor revisits this theme more forcefully in his latest directorial effort, Rob Peace, about a young man torn between the promise of his future and the responsibilities of his past. Adapted from Jeff Hobbs’ 2014 book The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, the film offers a sweeping and empathetic depiction of its central character. Through Peace’s story, Ejiofor explores the violent impact of the carceral state and the fraught interdependence of a father and his son.
- 1/23/2024
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
“Rob Peace,” Chiwetel Ejiofor’s second feature film as a director and an adaptation of Jeff Hobbs’ bestselling biography “The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace,” starts with a powerful enough image: a literal house on fire. It’s the house that once belonged to the Peace family, now charred on the inside and sitting vacantly in an East Orange, New Jersey neighborhood. The image is one Ejiofor returns to in this film about the lifelong institutional failures that led to the murder of promising Black Yale graduate Robert Peace in 2011 at the age of 30, and during an American financial crisis. Earnestly told and intelligently acted by “Tulsa King” breakout Jay Will in his first major film role, “Rob Peace” still suffers from the usual biographical drama cliches, confused cutting, and an often too blunt script that flattens the majority of the film’s surrounding ensemble into background noise.
- 1/22/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Camila Cabello swapped the Grammy and VMA stages for the snowy streets of Park City to promote her new indie drama “Rob Peace,” which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
In the movie, Cabello plays the girlfriend of Rob Peace (“Tulsa King” actor Jay Will). He’s a promising Yale student who grew up in a crime-ridden New Jersey neighborhood. But his bright future dims after he’s forced to sell drugs to support his incarcerated father’s legal battles. It’s a terrible, true story based on the biography “The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace” by Jeff Hobbs, who was Peace’s college roommate.
“I felt a story like this needed to be told,” Cabello said at the Variety Studio presented by Audible. “People have told stories like this in an overly simplistic way… people coming from difficult circumstances; binary ways of looking at success and failure.
In the movie, Cabello plays the girlfriend of Rob Peace (“Tulsa King” actor Jay Will). He’s a promising Yale student who grew up in a crime-ridden New Jersey neighborhood. But his bright future dims after he’s forced to sell drugs to support his incarcerated father’s legal battles. It’s a terrible, true story based on the biography “The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace” by Jeff Hobbs, who was Peace’s college roommate.
“I felt a story like this needed to be told,” Cabello said at the Variety Studio presented by Audible. “People have told stories like this in an overly simplistic way… people coming from difficult circumstances; binary ways of looking at success and failure.
- 1/22/2024
- by Rebecca Rubin
- Variety Film + TV
Mary J. Blige has filed a breach of contract lawsuit against the booker of the 2022 Miami Funk Fest, claiming they failed to fork over all the money she’s owed for her performance.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Florida (and highlighted first in Seamus Hughes’ Court Watch newsletter), accuses Rm Talent Agency of “failing to pay the full amount of the Performance Fee” agreed upon for the 2022 concert. Blige is seeking damages, pre-and -post-judgment interest, as well as attorney fees and any other relief the court “deems just and proper.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Florida (and highlighted first in Seamus Hughes’ Court Watch newsletter), accuses Rm Talent Agency of “failing to pay the full amount of the Performance Fee” agreed upon for the 2022 concert. Blige is seeking damages, pre-and -post-judgment interest, as well as attorney fees and any other relief the court “deems just and proper.
- 9/8/2023
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
Some classic rock songs are more complex than you might think. For example, John Lennon said “Give Peace a Chance” had philosophical and moral underpinnings. In addition, he revealed what he thought about the reaction to the song. Notably, it was far more popular in the United Kingdom than it was in the United States.
John Lennon’s ‘Give Peace a Chance’ was inspired by the duality of humanity
A 1980 article from The Washington Post features a series of quotes from John in memoriam. In one of those quotes, John said something very provocative. “We all have Hitler in us, but we also have love and peace,” he said. “So why not give peace a chance?”
John discussed the reaction to “Give Peace a Chance.” “I was pleased when the movement in America took up ‘Give Peace a Chance’ because I had written it with that in mind really,” he revealed.
John Lennon’s ‘Give Peace a Chance’ was inspired by the duality of humanity
A 1980 article from The Washington Post features a series of quotes from John in memoriam. In one of those quotes, John said something very provocative. “We all have Hitler in us, but we also have love and peace,” he said. “So why not give peace a chance?”
John discussed the reaction to “Give Peace a Chance.” “I was pleased when the movement in America took up ‘Give Peace a Chance’ because I had written it with that in mind really,” he revealed.
- 9/7/2023
- by Matthew Trzcinski
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
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