‘Armageddon Time’ trailer takes a nostalgic look at prevalent social problems
Anthony Hopkins wants you to be a mensch.
The two-time Oscar winner is the grandfather-with-gravitas in James Gray’s Awards contender “Armageddon Time.” The memoir-ish movie, set in Queens, New York in the 1980s, already received accolades at its debut in Cannes this summer. It heads into the autumn Awards season looking strong.
Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong are the working class Jewish parents to the Gray stand-in, played by newcomer Banks Repeta. (Not since Max Records in “Where The Wild Things Are” has a child actor had such a child actor name!) Jaylin Webb is the kid’s African-American school chum, with whom he gets into some prankish trouble that sends the Repeta character to a different school. The heart of the story focuses on whether the prejudice of his new classmates (and even a bit from his own parents) will keep him from maintaining this friendship.
Elsewhere in the cast is Tovah Feldshuh as the kid’s grandmother (and Hopkins’s wife) and Jessica Chastain as, of all people, Mary Trump, the former U.S. president’s sister who, according to Gray, did come and give a stern, conservative lecture at the school he attended. (Keep in mind Trump’s origin is as a housing developer out in Queens.)
Despite the serious nature of the project, the new trailer opens with the 1978 disco hit “Good Times” by Chic. Jeremy Strong, who has the look and accent down, calls out “what a schmuck!” at the television when Ronald Reagan is announced as president before we cut to a lox-and-bagels repast at the dining room. A later heart-to-heart between the boy and his grandfather is set in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, the site of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fair, not far from what is now called the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, CitiField, and, yes, where the aliens landed in “Men In Black.”
This domestic drama’s unusual title comes from a comment Reagan made in a speech, mixed with an old reggae tune by Willie Williams that was covered by The Clash, a British band with a huge New York following in the early 1980s.
The film hits theaters October 28.
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?
SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions