Series Premiere: Blackish

When I initially heard about Blackish I'll admit I was a tad hesitant. I live for Tracee Ellis Ross and Laurence Fishburne but I wasn't too sure about Anthony Anderson. However, after reading up on the series I knew that the show was worth a watch.

Black people like everyone else in America strive for the "American Dream", often when you are the first one with a college education and well paying job, you find yourself in a  drastically different environment from the one that you grew up in. Also, as you become more upwardly mobile  there will be fewer and fewer people who look like you; at school, in your work place, and even in the neighborhood (the place where  you are supposed to feel most comfortable)

Most of America does not look like the Huxtable's Brooklyn.  You almost have to go out of your way to stay in Black neighborhoods or find employment at Black companies; if that's what you choose to do. As someone who went to two predominantly white universities let me tell you,  being the the token Black gets old REAL quick.

Blackish explore all of these themes and chile, the show is everything. I knew I was in for a real treat when the show opened with Kanye's "Jesus Walks".  Anthony Anderson's character Andre Sr narrates the show. He seems to be going through a mid-life crisis of sorts. He is concerned that with the advent of mommy and social status, Black folks have lost their culture.

Andre's starting to feel like a puppet at work, especially after he gets promoted to the SVP of the "Urban" division at his job. Horrified he gives us a bit of Dave Chappelle's "When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong." (I mean anyone who has been on the receiving end of white people attempting Black vernacular in order to appear "down" understands the struggle.)

This will never not be funny to me

Andre's also concerned that his children don't know what it means to be Black. His younger children have only known Obama as president and the poor tots had no clue he was the first Black president. The kids seem shockingly colorblind, describing the only other Black girl in their class not by her Blackness, but instead by the fact that she smells of turkey burgers.

Throughout the entire pilot episode Andre Sr, is trying to grasp where it all went wrong. He feels like he's in the twilight zone, like he's somehow betrayed his Blackness. (His son's friend walks into their house and opens the fridge to grab a grape pop like he lives there, Andre Jr, wants to be called Andy.... so many things are not as he feels they should be.)

Lawrence Fishburne is also low-key hilarious, he even wears as what my bestie described as the "Old Black Man Uniform. Or in other words, the monochromatic walking suit. (You know the same one your Daddy wore to your college graduation. Even my daddy had on a version and he was African.)

I thought Blackish was truthful and honest, its definitely NOT The Cosby Show, but that was 30 years ago, we are dealing with different things now. Cosby will always be epic which is why everybody and they mama still watches it on a regular basis.

When I write about Black films and television I always hear backlash, someone always has some issue with how whatever is being portrayed is not truthful enough, or this person is a misrepresentation or a stereotype and on and on.  The thing is, we are a culture of people with both shared and varied experiences. And that's the point isn't it? To have popular culture and the media display the shared and various experiences.

If you want perfect characters, and that's the only way you thing Black people should be depicted  the The Cosby Show is on Hulu Plus. If you're looking for a hump day laugh, some things to get you thinking and some quality acting from brown people then tune into Blackish, Wednesday's at 9:30PM EST on ABC. What I'm not going to be pressed about is Black people on a major network during primetime.

xoxoxo Chocoalte Girl in the City xoxoxoxo

PS. I read on twitter that some parents were concerned that the show came on too late and that their babies would miss brown faces on television because of it. (Um Ma'am... DVR, they can watch that joint on the weekend. After all, The Cosby Show aired Thursday nights during primetime as well.)

Bonds, Deceptions & Dreams: An Overview of Starz's 8-Episode Freshman Series 'Power'

Who are we? Is there a difference between who we truly are at the core of our beings and the image that we present to the world? Or are these various versions of ourselves simply illusions?

The Starz Network original series Power, from creator Courtney Kemp Agboh explores all of these issues.  The series surrounds the life of James “Ghost” St. Patrick as he attempts to leave the street life behind him in search of a legitimate enterprise. Ghost is fractured, literally split between two different worlds. He straddles the line between his new “legitimate” nightclub Truth where he presents himself as James, and the street empire that he’s operated for years under the pseudonym Ghost.

At first reflection the character seems to operate in the very same vein as The Wire’s Stinger Bell (you’ll see some familiar faces from The Wire throughout the season.). And yet, the characters aren’t the same, not by a long shot.  Unlike Stringer, Ghost has become very skilled at hiding who he is, almost to a fault. He desperately yearns to be James, the man who made it big in New York City. He wants a legacy that he can show off to the world, something that he can be handed down to his children. He’s exhausted, motivated by fear. He realizes that there is only a matter of time before he’s either locked up or killed and he has children to consider. Unable to reconcile that image with himself, he seeks asylum within the walls of legitimacy, or more literally within Truth.

Continue reading at Shadow And Act

xoxoxo Chocolate Girl in the City xoxoxoxoxo

Film Review: Get On Up

*****SPOILER ALERT ****** I want to say that the most epic biopic that I've ever seen aside from Malcolm X (which despite its brilliance had its issues) was Taylor Hackford's Ray staring Jamie Foxx. The Best Actor award was well deserved and since then I've compared every single biopic of black people to Foxx's performance.

Despite the fact that I'm obsessed with history, I feel a way about biopics especially because it seems like one of the ways for Black people to be seen in film. is Hollywood only comfortable if we're stuck in the past? Hopefully we are ushering in a new era of cinema but, I'm over seeing us as slaves, sharecroppers, maids and even iconic but troubled public figures.

Though I feel like I have a good handle of what's going on in Black Cinema, I hadn't heard of Chadwick Boseman until the press circuit for 42 started. Obviously, I went to see it (as I do most things having to do with black film and TV) and I thought it was a well done film. Chadwick was really good as Jackie Robinson. The film was a bit fluffy, but so are most biopics and I didn't think much else of it, or him for that matter

That changed when photos from this project leaked. Boseman, hair fully conked and dressed as the Godfather of Soul. To say I was apprehensive was putting it lightly. To get down James Brown's mannerisms and the intricacies of his character seemed literally impossible. I was certain that the film would be a complete train wreck.

And it would have been, had it not been for Bosemen pulling of the performance of a lifetime.

I'll admit, I enjoyed The Help for what it was. Octavia Butler, Viola Davis, Emma Stone and Jessica Chastain are incredible actresses and Tate Taylor stayed within him realm as a director, perhaps the book provided the guidelines that he needed.

With Get On Up, Taylor took a lot of risks and unfortunately they didn't really work. To begin with the coloring was overly saturated, pulling the audience out of the time period and right back into the 21st century. Where Ray was gray and muted, sucking you further and further into the story, Get On Up was way too flashy where it didn't need to be.

The flashbacks were also exhausting and extremely clumsy. The story cut back and forth dropping the audience down without giving us any real guidance into which point of Brown's life we were being shown. Only cheesy title cards and Brown's clothing choices helped ground us in space and time. This really did a disservice for younger generations, yes, we all know James Brown's music but perhaps not a chronological discography.

There were also many unanswered questions in the film, I'm not sure if things were cut for the purpose of time or if the editor was just not in sync with the rest of the project. At one point there was mention of Brown's son Teddy having some highly contagious disease and then it was never mentioned again. We never get a complete understanding of how he met either of his wives. His tax issues came up out of the blue and the entire story was very disjointed. (Perhaps there were holes because Brown's family wasn't comfortable airing all of his dirty laundry.)

In spite all of this, the performances alone made it well worth my $14. I've stood for Nelsan Ellis since I first got hooked on True Blood my freshman year of undergrad.  He's an exceptional actor who deserves so many more roles. He was fantastic as Bobby Byrd.  Also, ya'll needed to find Brandon Smith (he plays Little Richard) and give him a full leading role in Little Richard's biopic. The man was EPIC.  And finally, as I've mentioned Chadwick Boseman should be so proud of his performance. And quite frankly, I wouldn't be mad if I saw him portray another ten iconic Black men.

Overall, the film was certainly worth seeing, though perhaps I'm one of the few who felt that way. The film barely grossed $14 million which is kind of sad making it number three at the box office this weekend.

xoxoxoxox Chocolate Girl In the City xoxoxoxoxoxox

Review: BET Makes Its Dramatic Entry with the Fresh & Entertaining 'Being Mary Jane'

Hey peeps :)

I don't know if you remember, but in one of my previous posts School Was My Hustle: On Grad School & The Job Hunt (Part 1) I mentioned that I got the go ahead to write for a really dope website. Well that site is Shadow and Act: On the Cinema of the African Diaspora. I'm EXTREMELY excited about this opportunity. Though I'm working hard to always improve my writing, Black Cinema has been a passion of my forever. I hope to one day make a career out of it. But until then, I am thrilled to support and write about it.

My first piece BET Makes Its Dramatic Entry with the Fresh & Entertaining 'Being Mary Jane' was published today and I just wanted to share it with you all.

xoxoxo Chocolate Girl In the City xoxoxox

The Best Man Holiday and the Second New Wave of Black Cinema

When I was younger my parents didn’t allow my sister or myself to watch television during the week. They were very education-minded and wanted us to find joy in books and explorations instead of focusing our energies on screens. Don’t get me wrong, film and television were still very prominent in my house. Some of my most vivid childhood memories are Friday evenings with my dad and sister renting videos from Hollywood Video store and pizza from Pizza Hut. On Friday my sister and I sat down in front of the PBS afterschool shows and then the TGIF line up on The WB(we never had cable in our house). We ended our evening with whatever video we had rented. Though we subjected our poor parents to every Mary Kate and Ashley film that was ever made, it was our father, a Nigerian immigrant who introduced us to the classics. Through him, we were introduced to films like The Sound of Music, It’s A Wonderful Life, Sense and Sensibility and so forth. In return, we got him hooked on Harry Potter (both the books and the films).

As I got older I began seeking out images for myself. UPN was still on at the time and there were always reruns of The Cosby Show and A Different World. Not to mention more contemporary shows like Moesha, One on One, Family Matters,Martin (the list goes on in on).  During the day on Saturdays, many networks played films like What’s Love Got To Do With It, The Color Purple, Sounder, and so forth. It was on these Saturday afternoons in the TV room in my childhood home, that I got introduced to Black Cinema.  It was these images that I repeatedly retuned to time and time again.  By the time I got to high school the ban on weekday television was lifted. I got my own room and my own TV set and I somehow convinced my mother to add me to her video rentals card. I became obsessed with the Black image onscreen. Already a history nerd I sought out older films like Imitation of Life and I hid rentals I wasn’t suppose to have like Monster’s Balland Menace II Society.  (In my house unless you were thirteen you weren’t watching a PG-13 film). There was something comforting, something that felt like home for me when I saw these brown faces onscreen.

            When it was time to go to college, I knew that I had to continue studying film. At the time, and perhaps even now, I realized that I didn’t have the balls to try and make it as a Black female director or even a screenwriter. (Ava Duvernay , Kasi Lemmons Dee Rees, Issa Rae, Shonda Rhimes and so many other wonderful women are saying everything I could have much more than I would have.) Instead, I chose to keep consuming, to keep studying and to keep writing about what I loved so much. During my undergrad I was lucky enough to study under some of the top Black Cinema Scholars of all time. Ed Gurerro and Manthia Diawara to name a couple.

            Still upon my undergrad graduation and, making my decision to continue on with my education there wasn’t much Black Cinema being produced that reached a wide audience. (Aside from what was coming out of Tyler Perry studios.) This year, everything seems to be changing. It seems that we in a magical period that we haven’t been in since 1990’s (The Black New Wave). This year I was able to get on this pre-screening list. I’ve gotten the opportunity to and attend a ton of screenings and Q&A’s. I’ve seen 12 Years A Slave(I saw it twice), The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete, Fruitvale Station, American Promise,  Mandela: Long Road to Freedom, Mother of George, Best Man Holiday and these are just films from the Black Diaspora. This doesn’t even begin to cover what’s happening on television.  Every week like many other Black Americans I turn in to see Kerry Washington on Scandal but there is also, Sleepy Hallow, Almost Human, Being Mary Jane, New Girl (Damon Wayans Jr is back) and let’s not forget the tale end of the mini series Many Rivers to Cross: The African American Experience 1500-2013 on PBS. There is so much more out there that I don’t have time to mention and much more that is coming. Shadow & Act will keep you updated.

            When I talk about my excitement to my contemporaries, some don’t understand my excitement or why I’m so enthusiastic. It’s the history component that I think they are missing completely. Black people have been hopelessly scarred and traumatized by racism. Invisibility only adds to that trauma. In the past years the sheer absence of people of color onscreen has undoubtedly had a detrimental effect not just on young people (those who completely missed the Black New Wave of the 1990’s) but people of color in general. I’m an avid believer self-image can be directly correlated to how the mainstream media portrays you. Invisibility is detrimental.  Black Cinema/ Media and Television is so important it helps reaffirm our existence as a people. I’m no longer making claims for ideal Black figures (Cosbyesque) but instead for a variety.

With that being said, I f*ckin thrilled about the The Best Man Holidayand its success and well as the success of the other films and shows that are coming as well I watched the original Best Manthis morning and I laughed and smiled like I was seeing it for the first time. The sequel was EVERYTHING!!!!! (LIKE FOR REAL IT WAS AMAZE). I laughed, I cried. The dialogue was spot on, the acting was amazing and the two films fit beautifully together.  It just worked perfectly. And let me just take a moment to pause and say thank the Lord for LANCE SULLIVAN (Morris Chestnut)…Jesus what a MAN!

            Hollywood has said and will probably say in the future that the reason they don’t like to make Black films is because they don’t make money. (A “regular” film must make back what it spent 3:1, to be deemed successful and Black films must make 5:1)  Black films don’t really sale overseas, so its pretty much always a gamble. Honestly though that’s just an excuse. If Hollywood can find the money to make trash films about teenage vampires in academies then they can find the money to make stories about Black American Life.  But why should we be so depended upon the studio system? Its up to us to tell our own stories, and to keep showing up for those who have been so gracious and selfless to share their talents with us. (Coming up was have, About Last Night, Black Nativity, Ride Along,) When I went to see to see The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & PeteI asked director George Tillman Jr. (Soul Food, Notorious) about this renaissance in Black Cinema. He said, that for some reason right now people are paying attention to Black Cinema in a way that they haven’t been since the 1990’s. The platform is there, its up to us to stand up on it.

xoxoxo Chocolate Girl in the City xoxoxoxo

PS. I hope to be back more regularly soon peeps. I'm finishing my Master's thesis on Black Girlhood & Parental Loss in Contemporary Black American Film

I Will Follow: Film Review

I rented this film early last semester and being the bum that I am (I have yet to see Pariah or The Middle of Nowhere) I have neglected to put it out there. (Shame on me, the self proclaimed Black film geek). Anyway  director Ava DuVernay tells a really beautiful story with this film. It moves pretty slowly, however if you give it the time and opportunity that it deserves then you'll be very pleased with the feeling you take out of it.  Now lets get into the specs:

The film follows, Amanda (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) who has put here career and her relationship on hold in order to move across the country to take care of her dying aunt. As she cleans out the now deceased woman's home, the viewer is invited into Amanda's flashbacks getting to know more about her and her Aunt Mya's relationship. Its very strange to watch grief being acted out onscreen especially when its something that you've personally gone through.  This especially resonated with me as I watched Amanda and her cousin Fran (Mya's daughter) battle it out for Mya's possessions. They'd never really gotten alone, but I know from first hand experience that death always brings out the worst in people.  Since the film only follows the main character through one day, I think that what is most important is what isn't said. I Will Follow is definitely worth the watch if for nothing else then to see Omari Hardwick (yum:))