'The Last Shift' Never Gets To The Root Of The Issue

The 2016 Presidential election revealed just how divided America can be. Many people across the country seemingly voted against their best interests for a presidential nominee whose policies would do more harm than good for the average working-class American. The election showcased, yet again, how many people will cling on to hatred, bigotry and racism because the privileges of whiteness are the only things they have of value. 

In The Last Shift, filmmaker Andrew Cohn offers a birds-eye view of working-class, small-town America. The narrative showcases two lives that intersect, bringing about frustrating results.

Albion, Michigan is a town that the rest of America has forgotten. Stanley (Richard Jenkins) has lived there his entire life. He's worked the graveyard shift at Oscar's Chicken and Fish for the past 38-years, where he makes less than fifteen dollars an hour.

Stanley is exceptionally prideful about his life's choices. He's content in the grind of his daily work, his rented room in a flophouse and the evenings he spends playing darts and drinking Mountain Dew with his buddy Dale (Ed O'Neill). However, Stanley is ready for the next chapter of life. He's decided to retire from Oscar's, earn his driver's license and drive down to Sarasota, Florida to get his ailing mother out of her hellish nursing home. 

Before his final shift, Stanley's boss, Shazz (Dolemite Is My Name's Da'Vine Joy Randolph), has tasked him with training his replacement. Jevon (Shane Paul McGhie) is a young Black father who has recently been released from prison after defacing a public monument. He's full of lofty ideas about the world and has a passion for writing. However, his angst, aimlessness and the suffocating confines of Albion have left him feeling stuck with only the air mattress in his mom's house as a life raft.

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Continuing The Legacy of James Bond On The Set Of ‘No Time to Die’

London has a regal heir to it. Though it’s wholly modern, the 2000-year-old city’s architecture and cobblestone streets are a dazzling reminder of its history. They stand elegant and proud — relics of a past time, demanding that we exist without disturbing the archives of the biggest city in Western Europe. The timelessness of London also lives within one of its most beloved fictional characters— James Bond.

James Bond was brought to life by novelist Ian Fleming, who dreamed up the British secret agent on the beaches of Ocho Rios, Jamaica, back in 1953. Now, almost seventy years later, we’re still embracing the character, currently portrayed on film by the debonair and brilliant, Daniel Craig.

For the British actor’s fifth and final turn as the MI6 agent in No Time to Die, we’ll find Bond in a very different place than we’ve ever seen him before — physically and emotionally. Set some time after the capture of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Spectre, Bond has left the MI6. He’s restlessly settled into retirement when he’s approached by the CIA’s Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) to aid in the search and rescue of a missing scientist. What unfolds next is unlike anything Bond has ever encountered.

Continue reading at Blackfilm.

No Time To Die Set Visit Report: Lashana Lynch & Ana de Armas Are Taking ‘Bond Women’ To New Heights

Nearly 60 years after Sean Connery brought James Bond to the big screen — Daniel Craig is taking his final turn as the 007 agent, in his fifth and final film, No Time to Die. The BAFTA-Award nominee has brought an emotional depth to the beloved character that we haven’t seen before previously. Though his successor has not yet been revealed — No Time to Die hints at a new direction of the James Bond franchise through two of the film’s leading women.

The 25th Bond film opens with the retired 007 agent living in Jamaica. However, when his old friend, CIA’s Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), summons him to go on a quest for a missing scientist in Cuba, he encounters two women. Ana de Armas’ Paloma, a CIA agent, tasked with assisting Bond on his mission, and Lashana Lynch’s Nomi — a mysterious woman who turns out to be a 00 agent.

Late last year, on a rainy day at Pinewood Studios just outside of London, BlackFilm.com sat down to speak with de Armas and Lynch on the No Time to Die set. We talked about the secrecy surrounding their characters, continuing the Bond franchise, bringing their diverse backgrounds to the story, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s imprint on the narrative.

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'Farewell Amor' Is A Character Study On Loss, Reconnection And Second Chances

Cinema has a history of examining the breaking, ripping and pulling apart of families. What is almost never seen on screen is the rejoining and the reconnection of what was once broken, or the aftermath of what occurs when lives are forced back together. Ekwa Msangi's feature directorial debut Farewell Amor is a quiet, elegant film about a family torn apart by the Angolan Civil War only to reconnect 17-years later in New York City's JFK airport. 

Walter (The Chi's Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) is an Angolan-born taxi-cab driver who fled from Angola to New York City, leaving his wife, Esther (Zainab Jah), and daughter, Sylvia (Jayme Lawson), behind. Now, nearly two decades later, having battled the United States' often chaotic and sometimes corrupt immigration system, the family is together once again. What should be a happy occasion is a tense meeting of virtual strangers. 

Accustomed to life as a single man, with a routine that involves driving during the day, dancing at night and a beautiful lover, Linda (Nana Mensah), Walter struggles to make room for Esther and Sylvia in his home and in his heart. Still, he's determined to do what he feels is honorable. Stuffing down his feelings over the loss of Linda and the life he's grown accustomed to, Walter carves out space for his wife and daughter in his cramped one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment. Meanwhile, Esther isn't quite the woman he once knew. Now a devout Christian who prays fervently and offers more than the family can afford in tides, Esther feels that God has truly blessed her family with their reunion. However, she struggles with the cracks and imperfections of her new family dynamic. America is a terrifying new world for a woman who has experienced so much loss. Though Walter is present, she feels his emotional absence, which only heightens the deep-seated loneliness that she's carried with her for so long. 

It's also hard for Sylvia to adjust to life in a different place, but with more maturity than most teenagers in her position, she does her best to embrace her new life. In America, she's able to foster her secret love of dancing. The introverted teen also captures the eye of DJ (black-ish's Marcus Scribner), a boy at school who encourages her to try out for the step team. While she is used to living under the looming shadow of her beloved but Bible-bound mother, Sylvia recognizes that a relationship with a more lenient and understanding Walter may provide the kind of freedom that she's been craving, she's just uncertain if she can trust him.

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'Time' Shows The True Cost Of Our Broken Prison System

Time is precious. But it can also be haunting, especially when an outside force is holding the years, minutes and moments we use to clock our lives in the balance. For people who are incarcerated, the United States prison system is adamant about making sure time is something it owns. 

For over 20 years, Sibil Fox Richardson, aka Rich Fox, a businesswoman, and an advocate, has been doing all the groundwork to push for the release of her husband, Robert Richardson. On September 26, 1997, in an act of desperation, Rich and Robert robbed a credit union. Though Rich was able to get a plea deal, serving out three and a half years for her role in the crime, Robert was sentenced to 60-years in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, one of the worst prisons in the United States. Time is their story. 

Told in black and white with director Garrett Bradley's modern-day footage interwoven with Rich's personal home videos of her and their sons, Time unveils a life of waiting and longing. From her own words, prior to and following her release from prison, the audience learns more about Rich. She welcomes us into the life she's carved out for herself. We watch their six boys transform from pamper-wearing babies into towering bearded men. Rich has found joyous moments in the past 20 years. Yet, the fight for her husband's release is the singular goal of her life.

Regal and fearsome, Rich more than takes responsibility for her part in the robbery. What she doesn't accept is the time that has been stolen away from her family. She's constantly irritated by the lackadaisical attitudes of judges and judicial secretaries who can't seem to make the correlation between their day-to-day work and the lives that dangle in the balance. 

As Time swivels between the past and the present, we sit with a self-assured Rich, who never cowers in the face of her past mistakes or what she perceives to be right. It's an interesting contrast to her mother, who suggests on more than one occasion that Rich should humble herself to make headway with Robert's case.

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Oscar-Nominated Director Matthew A. Cherry On 'Hair Love' And Our Dazzling Relationship With Afro-Textured Curls

Long before Black people knew about the differences between 4C and 3B hair textures, we knew our kinks and coils were to be brushed down, pressed, straightened, and tamed. Thankfully, times have changed. With the natural hair movement revving up in the past decade, Black people across the globe have become more in-tuned to the beauty of their tresses. In 2017, filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry, a former NFL wide receiver, became increasingly aware of this desire to connect with our roots. However, a lack of representation of natural hair continued to fester in popular culture and Hollywood.

Teaming up with masterful artist Vashti Harrison and Sony Pictures Animation executive, Karen Toliver, Cherry hit the ground running and launched his Kickstarter campaign for Hair Love. The warm and delightful Oscar-nominated film follows Zuri, a bright-eyed young girl who wants her gloriously voluminous afro to be styled perfectly for a special occasion. Zuri's father, Stephen, doesn't typically take on the task of doing his daughter's hair. Yet, with the help of a natural hair vlogger named Angela (voiced by Issa Rae), Stephen dives into Zuri's curls showcasing the love and patience it takes to care for Black hair.

Hair Love continues to be a vital part of our cultural conversation. Shortly after the Christmas holiday, Barbers Hill High School senior DeAndre Arnold was told he would not be allowed to return to school or walk at graduation unless he cuts his dreadlocks. Arnold is an A-student who has worn locks for years. Yet, despite the national outrage, Barbers Hill High School refuses to budge on their discriminatory policy, saying only, “the district would not be commenting further on the matter.” The teen would film himself in Hair Love's orbit as Cherry, along with producers Gabrielle Union-Wade and Dwyane Wade, invited Arnold and his mother to the Oscars as their special guests.

Matthew A. Cherry and Karen Toliver chatted with VIBE about the magic of Hair Love and their journey to the Academy Awards.

Continue reading at VIBE.

'Sylvie's Love' Has The Immense Beauty Of An Old-Fashioned Romance

Black people have very few opportunities to see ourselves in sweeping romantic dramas like the films that used to dominate Old Hollywood. We've certainly had movies like Love Jones and Stella Meghie's forthcoming romantic drama, The Photograph. However, outside of Diana Ross' Mahogany and Lady Sings the Blues, films in the same romantic vein as Casablanca, An Affair to Remember and It Happened One Night, or even contemporary period pieces like The Notebook, have largely been reserved for white actors and storytellers within the tight confines of American Cinema's studio system. Now, we have Sylvie's Love.

Set in the summer of 1957, writer and director Eugene Ashe's aesthetically stunning Sylvie's Love is a sweeping old-fashioned romantic drama about missed moments, extraordinary love and staying true to yourself. Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha), a quiet but brilliant saxophonist, stumbles into Sylvie's (Tessa Thompson) world on a sweltering summer day in Harlem.

While Robert and his group, the "Dickie Brewster Quartet," are gaining traction in the music scene, Sylvie is stuck. With her fiancé Lacy (Alano Miller) overseas in Korea, the aspiring television producer spends her days watching I Love Lucy and Father Knows Best in her father's record shop. She entertains herself by lounging with her cousin Mona (Aja Naomi King) on the record shop's rooftop and dodging her bougie mother's lessons on being a lady.

From the moment Sylvie and Robert meet there is a spark. They experience that sizzle and connection that draws them to one another like magnets. The pair embark on a whirlwind summer romance, full of late-night dancing and stolen kisses. Yet, Sylvie's engagement ring is a constant reminder of their reality, especially when Robert and the quartet receive an opportunity to take their music to Paris. 

Continue reading at Shadow and Act.

'The 40-Year-Old Version' Is An Ode To Black Womanhood And Putting Yourself On

Grief has a way of highlighting time and forcing us to face mortality. It directs us to examine our dreams, aspirations and life's journey. In Radha Blank's outstanding debut feature, The 40-Year-Old Version, the writer, director, producer and star grapples with defining success, fearlessness and the limits we put on ourselves. 

Shot in crisp 35mm black and white, reminiscent of classic 1970s New York films, The 40-Year-Old Version introduces us to Radha, a fictionalized version of the filmmaker. A once-acclaimed playwright who made it onto a prestigious "30 under 30" list, Radha is now struggling to find her voice and her power in the wake of her mother's death. With her 40th birthday approaching, Radha spends her days teaching a crew of rambunctious high school students dramatic writing and taking long sips of a disgusting diet drink in a futile effort to lose weight. 

Though she's written a promising new play, Harlem Ave, its only hope of being accepted into the very white New York City theater scene will be after extensive rewrites and thrusting a white woman at the center of the plot. These are changes that Radha isn't sure she can live with. Determined to shatter the struggling artist stereotype, Radha becomes reinvigorated by her long-forgotten passions; hip-hop and rapping. Embolden by the dazzling beats of a twenty-something Brownsville producer, D. Possible (a stoic and brilliant Oswin Benjamin), Radha begins channeling her pain and frustration through the rhymes and flows of her alter-ego, RadhaMUSprime.

Her raps like, "Poverty Porn" and "Black Woman Ass On a White Man," along with D's quiet encouragement, make Rhada feel alive. Yet she's increasingly aware of the absurdity of her new passion. Trying to keep what he believes is a mid-life-crisis at bay, Rhada's life-long best friend and agent, Archie (Peter Y. Kim), convinces her to rewrite Harlem Ave to regain her former glory as a darling of the New York theater scene. Under the direction of an absurd white producer, Josh (Reed Birney), whose latest claim to fame is a Harriet Tubman musical, Radha casts rapping aside for a white-washed Harlem Ave at a cost she never expected to pay. 

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Kenyan Documentary 'Softie' Unpacks The Hefty Personal Cost Of Revolution [REVIEW]

Softie opens with 1,000 liters of blood, and the carnage doesn't stop there. Kenyan filmmaker Sam Soko's bold and emotionally visceral documentary follows photojournalist and activist Boniface Mwangi, on his quest to change the corrupt political system in Kenya. It's a system that has choked the country since colonialism and continues into its near-60 years of independence. Despite the corruption and the high cost of human life, two political dynasties have clutched onto the most powerful political offices in Kenya. At the same time, the blood of Kenyans continue to pool at their feet. 

Though the film opens on the cusp of the 2017 elections (government elections in Kenya happen every five years), Soko takes the time to give his audience a history lesson. Using propaganda from the British occupation, Soko explains how Kenya was divided into tribes by the British. Today, those tribes that have been pitted against one another for power and greed. More than an assessment on the political state of Kenya,  Softie is a crash course on the man, who, though not yet 40, witnessed the corruption in his country first hand.

A young photojournalist during the violent aftermath of the 2007 elections which led to the country's leaders being tried in the International Criminal Court, Mwangi turned his camera lens on what was happening to his people. Men were being sliced apart by machetes, people were being dragged through the streets and beaten to death . with impunity. Fed up with the press and the government's apathy, when he had the literal evidence to back up his claims, Mwangi quit his job and took to the streets in protest. 

Now, a decade later, Mwangi is still working tirelessly to expose the country's corrupt political system. Soko's Softie unpacks what it costs Mwangi to speak up and force change. 

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Nicole Beharie's Magnetism Carries 'Miss Juneteenth'

The past haunts many of us. Roads we could've taken regularly play over in our minds, suggesting what might've been. From the outside looking in, this doesn't appear to be the case for Turquoise Jones (Nicole Beharie); She has moved on from the events of yesterday.

She's a waitress at Wayman's BBQ & Lounge, a fiercely protective mother to her precocious 15-year-old daughter, Kai (Alexis Chikaeze) and a beloved member of her Black Ft. Worth, Texas community. Turquoise puts all her energy into giving Kai the opportunities she never had. Yet, the heartbreaking thing about director Channing Godfrey Peoples' debut feature is that all of the ambitions Turquoise desperately has for Kai were once within her own grasp. 

As Miss Juneteenth opens, Turquoise stands in the mirror with a glistening crown atop her fluffy curls, with the Black national anthem "Lift Every Voice and Sing" booming in the background. Turq has a radiance and youthfulness about her, despite the weariness that comes with working yourself to the bone and raising a strong-willed teenage daughter. She is reminiscing on the beauty queen title she held fifteen years prior. Back in 2004, Turq won the Miss Juneteenth pageant, which commiserates the day slavery was abolished in Texas. Her title earned her a scholarship to a Historically Black College or University of her choosing.

Yet, life has a way of putting your mind at war with your heart. For Turquoise, it's a battle she's been fighting with Kai's father, her estranged husband Ronnie (Insecure's Kendrick Sampson), for over 15 years. Despite his past and present choices, Turquoise is still smitten by the immature but charismatic mechanic. All of these years later, she still desperately wants Ronnie to live up to all of his promises. 

Miss Juneteenth is a breathtaking canvas for Beharie's emotional range, deliberate choices and profound warmth as an actress. It begins slow, with Peoples meticulously fleshing out Turquoise's world. The chemistry between mother and daughter even elevates the sometimes choppy narrative. Beharie has a way of channeling both friendship and an authoritative tone in the same breath or with one look. Though Turquoise recognizes that Kai has different aspirations than she once did, she is incapable of fully accepting this. Kai's desires are mainly to join a dance team, attend the big state school and slay in Battle of the Bands. However, Turq's desperate desire for her daughter to achieve what she never did overwhelms her. 

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Maïmouna Doucouré's 'Cuties' Confronts Betrayal Of Young Black Girls

Throughout the world, the pain, suffering and voices of little girls are often ignored and silenced. French filmmaker Maïmouna Doucouré's debut film Cuties (Mignonnes) is an arresting assessment of the hyper-sexualization of young girls and grapples with the juxtaposition of this issue in a society where women are becoming increasingly sexually liberated.

The bold and disquieting film follows Amy, an 11-year old girl who moves with her mother and young brothers from Senegal to a jam-packed Paris housing project. While her mother, Mariam (Maïmouna Gueye), has become preoccupied with the devastating news that her husband has taken a second wife, Amy is left to parent her younger siblings. This includes everything from watching them, feeding them and doing the grocery shopping for the household. Similar to films like Beasts of the Southern Wild, Crooklyn and Eve's Bayou, Doucouré shines a light on how quickly Black girls are expected to stand in and complete tasks typically ascribed to adults. In contrast, little Black boys often basque in the attentions of their mothers, free of such expectations.

Though her mother has raised her as a devout, conservative Muslim, Amy soon gets her hands on an iPhone and begins to emulate the more provocative images of women she sees online and in music videos. An outcast in her plain clothing and large Afro puff, Amy soon finds herself fascinated with her classmate, Angelica, a Latinx girl who wears her slick straight hair and quick temper as armor. Angelica is fearless and volatile--the queen bee of her friend group that's dubbed themselves the Cuties. Eager to garner Angelica's attention and earn her place on the Cuties crew, Amy begins wearing her brother's t-shirts as crop-tops while intensely studying the Cuties' mannerisms and behaviors. What starts as an innocent desire to fit in and have a place in her new environment becomes a cautionary tale for not just young girls, but for the rest of the world that has decided that young girls (especially young girls of color) aren't worthy of protection.

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'Bad Hair' Has A Lot To Say But Never Says It [REVIEW]

Justin Simien's Bad Hair begins with a trauma that many Black women can relate to across the globe--their first perm. Eager to look like her dazzling older cousin, Linda, pre-teen Anna Bludso looks longingly at a box of relaxer while the creamy crack sits in her coils and kinks. Unfortunately, the result is disastrous. Just minutes later, the chemicals penetrate her scalp and clumps of hair snap from the roots. Her shrill scream zips the audience forward in time to Los Angeles in 1989. 

Anna (Elle Lorraine), now a grown woman, lives with the painful memory and a scar from her first and only relaxer. Currently trusting only her own hands to care for her soft afro, she's become a more timid version of her younger, bolder self. Though she carefully styles her hair with bows and wraps, Anna is virtually invisible at Culture, the music video based TV show where she works. As an executive assistant desperate for her own chance to host a show, she's constantly passed over in an entertainment industry that only finds value in Black women who present like Janet Jackson in her Control era, with long-flowing curls and caramel-to-light skin and Eurocentric features.  

When the network's top executive (James Van Der Beek) shakes things up by placing ex-supermodel Zora (Vanessa Williams) at the helm of Culture, she sees promise in Anna, whose ideas have been stolen or ignored for years. However, Zora warns Anna that to seize her spot as host of the new Cult, she needs a new look. Desperate to be seen, Anna suppresses her fear and goes to Virgie (Laverne Cox) for her first sew-in. Though Anna's new look transforms her image and her career, it comes at a cost that she never expected. 

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J.J. Abrams & The Cast Of ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ Talk Landing the Final Skywalker Saga Vehicle

After 40 years and nine films— J.J. Abrams is putting the final bookend on Star Wars’ Skywalker Saga with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Back in 1977— George Lucas gave the world, A New Hope. Astonished fans across generations watched Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) leave the Tatooine desert to fulfill his destiny of becoming a Jedi master.

Now, more than four decades later — the Resistance, Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), and Poe (Oscar Issac) will face the First Order for the final time as the conflict between the Jedi and the Sith collides.

Ahead of The Rise of Skywalker’s debut, blackfilm.com sat in on a press conference moderated by Ava DuVernay — where writer/director J.J. Abrams, producer Kathleen Kennedy, and the entire cast reflected on a franchise that has transcended generations and changed filmmaking forever.

“The difference between my first day on The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker was that the pressure shifted,” Abrams told DuVernay. “We didn’t know at the beginning of Force Awakens what it would look like to have Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Issac, and John Boyega. We had to figure it out. By the time we got to our first day on Rise of Skywalker, we knew those things were working; what we didn’t know what everything else. This is wrapping up not one film, not three films but nine. The responsibility was significant and the scale of this movie is pretty enormous. We knew that none of this would matter if you didn’t care deeply.”

Continue reading at BlackFilm.com

Image: Disney.

EXCLUSIVE: Naomi Ackie Gets Candid About Her Mysterious Character In ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’

Four years after it was first introduced — Stars Wars’ Skywalker Saga is coming to an end. Helmed by J.J. Abrams — Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will chronicle the year after the events of The Last Jedi. The remaining members of The Resistance — Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), and Poe (Oscar Issac) team up once again for a final battle against the First Order. The conflict between the Jedi and the Sith is also set to explode in this epic conclusion.

The Skywalker Saga won’t be going out quietly. As things come to a head, new members of the Resistance are introduced, including an old friend of Poe’s —Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell) and a mysterious new character, Jannah, played by relative newcomer Naomi Ackie who plays a pivotal role in the fight to the end.

Ahead of The Rise of Skywalker’s premiere, blackfilm.com talked to Ackie about stepping into the Star Wars franchise, embodying Jannah, and why she’s not concerned about any potential backlash.

“It’s something that doesn’t even click in now,” Ackie said wistfully of becoming a part of the epic space opera. “It’s weird. You take it day by day, and sometimes forget on purpose that you’re in it because otherwise your mind gets a bit blown. When I think about the scale of this film — how far-reaching it is, how many people it touches; it sometimes messes with my head. But, I really do try my best to celebrate it. Thankfully you’re part of an ensemble cast. They’re all bearing the brunt of it together.”

Continue reading at BlackFilm.com

Image: Instagram.

EXCLUSIVE: Billy Dee Williams Talks Returning To Lando Calrissian 40 Years Later & What He Really Thought Of Donald Glover’s Performance

Legendary actor Billy Dee Williams‘ history in the Star Wars franchise is unlike any other actor’s journey in the epic space opera. When Williams slide on Lando Calrissian‘s cape in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back — he became the embodiment of charisma and cool — proving that style and swag could also be otherworldly.

More than just defining the surface level attributes of his character — Williams also kicked open the door for Black actors in Stars Wars. With his turn as Lando, he became the first Black actor with a major role in the franchise. It’s something we did not see again until Sameul L. Jackson’s Mace Windu in the ‘90s and again in 2015’s The Force Awakens when John Boyega put on Finn’s Stormtrooper armor. 

Now, nearly 40 years after he first brought Lando Calrissian to life — The Lady Sings the Blues actor has returned to the Star Wars franchise. His return marks one of the most prolonged intervals between portrayals of a character by the same actor in American cinema history.

Closing out the nine-part Skywalker Saga — Williams has the chance to bring his own brand of suave and wit to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Ahead of the film’s premiere — blackfilm.com got an opportunity to sit down and chat with the Mahogany actor about reprising his role after all of these years and what he really thought of Donald Glover’s take on Lando.

“I didn’t watch any of the old stuff to get back to Lando,” Williams revealed when asked about doing a character refresh with The Empire Strikes Back or 1983’s Return of the Jedi. “I just jumped right in.”

For the Batman actor, it was getting the opportunity to work with director/writer/producer J.J. Abrams again that convinced him to return to space. “I just have a lot of admiration for the young man,” he explained. “When I worked with George [Lucas], there was an opportunity to work with somebody extraordinary, and here again, I have the chance to work with somebody who is remarkable. We worked together on Lost — I played myself playing a killer — which I thought was a very interesting idea. I thought, ‘This guy is crazy — famously crazy.’ This has been a great pleasure for me coming back to do Lando. I didn’t believe that it would happen, I just wrote it off. I said, ‘I did what I had to do, and that was it.’ But, when I got the call from J.J. and even when we met, I just sat there, and I just chuckled because I thought this was a gift, so I’m a very happy human being right now.” 

Continue reading at BlackFilm.com

Image: Disney

Julia Roberts as Harriet Tubman was a racist idea, but that's quite common in Hollywood

Hollywood hardly has had a stellar track record when it comes to diversity and inclusion, from its dismal (and continuing) use of yellowface, its past (and present) utilization of blackface or the prevalence of brownface in movies as wide-ranging as "West Side Story," "Argo," "A Beautiful Mind" and "House of the Spirits." However, a recent revelation proves just how absurd its insistence on relying on such tropes really is, and how resistant the industry has been to change.

In a recent interview with Focus Features, Gregory Allen Howard, the screenwriter behind2019's Harriet Tubman biopic "Harriet," dropped a bombshell. Howard, who has been working for more than two decades to get Tubman's story to the big screen, said that, when he first began his journey in 1994, a studio executive suggested that Julia Roberts — then a 27-year-old starring in a summer rom-com with Nick Nolte — should portray the former slave, freedom fighter and abolitionist.

"I was told how one studio head said in a meeting, 'This script is fantastic. Let's get Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman,'" Howard remembered. "When someone pointed out that Roberts couldn't be Harriet, the executive responded, 'It was so long ago. No one is going to know the difference.'"

Continue reading at NBC THINK.

Image: Focus Features.

Adrienne Warren Is Absolutely Astonishing In 'Tina: The Tina Turner Musical'

Many of us grew up listening to Tina Turner's soulful vocals, and learned about her personal life from her revealing memoir, I, Tina, and the 1993 biopic What's Love Got To Do With It? As much as Angela Bassett embodied the queen of rock n roll, the spirit of Tina Turner also lives within powerhouse talent, Adrienne Warren. Her performance in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical is electrifying. (Nkeki Obi-Melekwe steps into Turner's dancing shoes during matinees.)

Like the film's iconic opening scene, the play begins with a young Anna Mae Bullock singing in a Nutbush, Tennessee church during the 1940s. Matching her elder counterpart's out of this world vocals, actress Skye Dakota Turner blew the top off the theater with a gospel rendition of "Nutbush City Limits." From that moment, it was clear that Tina is something special.

Helmed by director Phyllida Lloyd and written by The Mountaintop playwright Katori Hall with Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins, Tina follows the traditional beats of a musical biopic. A teenage Turner, at the urging of her ailing Gran Georgeanna (Myra Lucretia Taylor), leaves behind her southern hometown for St. Louis. Turner moves to the city with her stern and emotionally withholding mother, Zelma (A Different World alum Dawnn Lewis), and sister Alline (Mars Rucker). There is, of course, a significant focus on the icon's relationship and marriage with the volatile Ike Turner (Daniel J. Watts), and their work as The Ike and Tina Turner Revue. However, Lloyd and the writers' handling of the Ike and Tina years, as well as Warren's passionate and tireless performance, elevates Tina to one of the most exquisite performances on Broadway.

Continue reading at Shadow and Act.

Mati Diop Is Doing More Than Just Storytelling: EXCLUSIVE

Set in Senegal’s bustling capital Dakar, Mati Diop’s Atlantics is mesmerizing, poetic and haunting. The filmmaker is the first Black woman to win a Jury Grand Prize at Cannes Film Festival. As the first frame of Atlantics was displayed on the screen, it became clear why this story stood out. Based on her 2009 short film of the same name, Atlantics follows Ada (Mama Sané), a captivating and headstrong woman banging against the traditional Muslim norms of her culture to speak for herself and listen to her heart.

Engaged to a wealthy but arrogant man, Ada longs for her true love Souleiman (Ibrahima Traoré), who has sailed across the sea in search of better work opportunities. As her wedding day looms –Ada becomes increasingly haunted by memories of her lover, despite her family and friends urging her to look towards her future. Atlantics isn’t just about love–greed, class status and politics are also themes in this film. The added layer of supernatural mystique only serves to draw the audience in further—leaving them enraptured until the very last moment of the film.

Ahead of Atlantics’ Netflix debut, STYLECASTER sat down to chat with Diop about her inspiration for the film, her filmmaking process, and what it has meant to be the first Black female Palme d’Or winner.

“Atlantics the short, was initially supposed to be a scene in a movie that became a short film,” Diop explained. “I was witnessing a lot of young people leaving the country for Europe. What was most striking, was not the fact that they wanted to leave, but how they were doing it. They were crossing the ocean by boat. That’s a real risk to your life.”

When Diop initially made the short film, she had no idea what would come of it. “The young man I filmed throughout the night who was crossing the sea– it was unclear to both of us what would happen,” she revealed. “His story was epic and poetic. That’s what I actually wanted to capture. I wanted to hear a crossing from the point of view of somebody who experienced it. But it needed to be positioned heroically. I wanted to make sure to add dimension to the story as opposed to how the media was treating these people. I was so sick of it. As a French Senegalese filmmaker with the tools of cinema, I decided to put my cinema at the service of that situation. It took me a little while before I realized that, but I knew I needed to continue to talk about this situation.”

Adding the supernatural aspect to her story was also important to Diop’s vision. “I was moved by the connection between reality and fantasy,” she reflected. “There was also a coherence as I was talking about a lost generation—a ghost generation. These people have disappeared in the ocean, trying to reach a better future. I felt that there was nothing better than using a fantasy film to talk about this ghost generation. I wanted to talk about loss, about being hunted by these boys in the neighborhood–to really feel the difference between their presence in the neighborhood and their absence, and how it just transforms the society and the women who stayed behind.”

Continue reading at STYLECASTER.

Image: Instagram.

'Sunday Girl' Almost Breaks Traditional Rom-Com Tropes For Women

The modern dating scene is a harrowing place—particularly for women who find themselves seeking heterosexual partnerships with men. Dating apps of the 21st century intersecting with misogynist ideals from a past time can make it feel like we’re all trudging through mud. There seems to be a constant misunderstanding of one other. Instead of communicating effectively, we continue to walk in circles. Most single women find the experience utterly exhausting. Unfortunately, cinema hasn't made it much better when it comes to how women are portrayed when it comes to breakups. 

Thankfully— Peter Ambrosio's new film, Sunday Girl, offers a unique and mostly refreshing perspective. The movie follows Natasha (Dasha Nekrasova), an introverted artist who finds herself keeping company with five different men. Though each man has his merits (for the most part) —Natasha decides she wants to have a real shot at a relationship with her on-again, off-again boyfriend — George (Brandon Stacy).

On one particular day, dressed in a bold red coat with matching flats —Natasha sets off to break up with her four "extra" men. In letting go of these other attachments, Natasha hopes to clear a real path for her relationship with George. What ensues next is what makes much of Ambrosio's film such a standout in films that center romance. Too often, films position women as hysterical people who can't deal with the fall out of broken relationships. However, in Sunday Girl, the tables are turned. 

It's mesmerizing to watch Natasha break up with each guy. From Victor (Bilar Mir), a poet who is absolutely tortured by Natasha's dismissal of him -- to Winston (Morgan Roberts), who literally cannot handle the news that Natasha has been seeing other people. Watching these varied and nuanced reactions from men is almost unheard of in cinema. However, when the film is not focused on the breakups — it stumbles. 

Using a non-linear timeline, Sunday Girl unpacks the events leading up to Natasha's day of breakups while fleshing out the world around her. We learn about her work as an artist and the pseudo creepy boss who seems intent on bringing her on a business trip to Rome with him. Yet, none of this tells us anything real about Natasha. 

By offering such small slivers of her life, Natasha's motives when it comes to relationships become hazy. It becomes quite clear that though she wears an armor of courage —sunglasses, and cigarettes to boot, Natasha lacks any true self-confidence. This was a rather disappointing revelation to the audience after watching a woman who appears from the first frame of the film to know exactly what she wants. 

To that end, George —the man that Natasha is making all of these changes for certainly isn't worth the effort. He's withholding, dull, and quite frankly the worst. There's really no explanation as to why Natasha decides to make things permanent with George other than the fact that his aloofness appears to be a challenge for her

Though Nekrasova's performance Is quirky and compelling, Sunday Girl never really lives up to its full potential. When Natasha is seen despondent and drunk dialing on Valentine's Day, shoving aside both her work obligations and other plans she could have partaking in —she becomes much less of a hero and more of a typical rom-com character.

Sunday Girl just finished a limited theatrical run in New York City and Los Angeles.

Images: Cresmont Pictures

'ANYA' Proves That Bonds Go Well Beyond Love

As much as we still cling to fairytale versions of love and romance— science and the real world love to come sweeping in. Reality has a way of shaking us out of our unrealistic stupors, forcing us to face real facts about the life partners that we choose and the journeys that we take. In their new sci-fi romance, ANYA, directors Jacob Akira Okada and Carylanna Taylor remind us that as much as we want to be in control of our own destinies — science and the universe have a way of knocking us down a peg.

The compelling drama follows Libby (Ali Ahn), a New York City-based journalist who falls head over heels in love with Marco (Gil Perez-Abraham). The polar opposite of the driven Libby, Marco is a quiet but compassionate man haunted by his past. After allowing Marco to break through the walls around her heart, the ambitious workaholic Libby decides to go all-in — marrying him and deciding she wants to start a family with him. However, after a series of miscarriages —Marco comes clean about his true origins and why his convoluted past may be the key to the couple's infertility issues. 

Unfortunately, in this day and age, infertility is more common than one would imagine, and sadly many hopeful couples are given little to no information about the reasons behind it. Instead of laying the burden of their troubles solely on Marco and Libby's shoulders, Okada and Taylor do a deep dive into human genetics and anthropology.

When Libby turns to her ex-lover, Seymour (Motell Foster)—a geneticist for help, we learn about Marco's true origins. He comes from Narval, a fictional Caribbean community that is both physically and genetically isolated from the rest of humanity. The people of Narval are convinced that those who marry outside of their community are cursed with infertility. Working with scientists from Harvard and Carnegie Mellon University— the directors were adamant about giving Seymour's research some real-world weight to provide Libby and Marco some of the answers that they were desperately seeking.

An intriguing story with a diverse cast and a compelling subject matter, a great deal of ANYA works well. From the moment Libby and Marco approach Seymour to the slivers of Marco's past life that are slowly revealed -- the audience desperately tries to get to the root of Marco’s mysterious background and find a solution for the couple's future. 

However, because of the relatively modest run time of the film — a great deal of ANYA felt rushed. From the second they encounter one another on the streets of New York, Marco and Libby's relationship is full speed ahead. Though that reads as romantic at times, it was also troubling— as it's obvious (to everyone except Libby) that Marco is withholding information from his wife. 

Likewise, when we do finally encounter Marco's family and the rest of his Narval-born community, the audience doesn't get the payoff that they deserve. Narval’s customs and traditions are neither well explored or explained. Instead, it felt unsettling, with audience members racing to put things together quickly for themselves. 

Despite its rapid pace, and some of the questions that remain unanswered as the final credits roll — ANYA, is a film for our time. As we continue to move about and exist in a rapidly deteriorating world, what does it mean for the generations that will follow? Will our bodies and our ability to survive and procreate in the present sustain? ANYA doesn't have all of the answers, but the story does remind us that as we look toward the future, we must remember we are much more alike and connected than we think. 

ANYA will be available Nov. 26. ITUNES, AMAZON, GOOGLE PLAY, VIMEO, VUDU, XBOX & DVD

Images: Giant Pictures.