Mo'Nique, Demetrius 'Lil Meech' Flenory Jr., Da'Vinchi And La La Anthony On The Elevation Of 'BMF' Season 2

Inspired by the real-life empire, Black Mafia Family built by the Detroit-born Flenory brothers, Starz’s BMF returns for its sophomore season. Set in Detroit in the 1980s, the highly-rated drama series follows the rise and fall of Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory (Demetrius “Meech” Flenory Jr.) and Terry “Southwest Tee” Flenory (Da’Vinchi).

At the end of the first season, Terry walked away from BMF to pursue a legitimate car-service business with his father, Charles (Russell Hornsby). However, interest in Markisha Taylor (Alani “La La” Anthony), the wife of an infamous drug dealer, may push Terry back toward the streets.

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'The Best Man: The Final Chapters' Stars And Creators On Mid-Life Revelations And Saying Goodbye

Nearly 25 years after we were introduced to The Best Man, and almost a decade after The Best Man Holiday, Malcolm D. Lee is saying goodbye to his beloved franchise. The Best Man: The Final Chapters catches up with Harper (Taye Diggs), Robyn (Sanaa Lathan), Jordan (Nia Long), Lance (Morris Chestnut), Quentin (Terrence Howard), Shelby (Melissa De Sousa), Candace (Regina Hall), and Murch (Harold Perrineau). 

Picking up shortly after the events of The Best Man Holiday and closing in 2024, Peacock’s The Best Man: The Final Chapters will examine the close-knit friend group as they navigate relationships, past grievances, mid-life revelations, and crossroads. Ahead of The Final Chapters‘ eight-episode debut, Shadow and Act sat down to speak with Lee, co-showrunner Dayna Lynne North and the cast members about finishing the story, the evolution of the cast and saying goodbye. 

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'Riches' Creator And Cast Dive Into Prime Video's Deliciously Bingeable Black Family Drama

Written and created by Abby Ajayi, Prime Video’s Riches is a delicious and highly bingeable global drama series. The show follows Nina Richards (Deborah Ayorinde), whose carefully curated world in Brooklyn comes crashing around her when she learns that her estranged father, Stephen Richards (Hugh Quarshie), has died unexpectedly. Convinced by her brother Simon (Emmanual Imani) to attend their father’s funeral in the U.K., Nina realizes that the late mogul has left more than a few loose ends. 

Upon landing in the U.K. and encountering their hostile stepmother, Claudia (Sarah Niles), and half-siblings, Gus (Ola Orebiyi), Alesha (Adeyinka Akinrinade), and Wanda (Nneka Okoye), Nina and Simon learn that their father has left his beauty empire, Flair & Glory in their hands. What happens next is more than any of the Richards — especially Nina could have expected. 

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'Kindred' Creator And Star On Reimaging Octavia Butler's Iconic Story For New FX Series On Hulu: 'A Lot Of Rigor'

Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s new FX series Kindred is a 21st-century adaptation of Octavia Butler’s iconic sci-fi novel. It’s a haunting show about a modern-day Black woman who is continually snatched back and forth through time from her home in 2016 Los Angeles to a Southern plantation in 1815. 

In her first leading role, Juilliard graduate Mallori Johnson portrays Dana James, an aspiring TV writer trying to find her place in the world after her grandmother’s death. However, just as she begins to settle into her new home in LA, she is violently ripped from the present and thrust into the past, a place that has intrinsic links to her bloodline. 

Ahead of Kindred’s Dec. 13 premiere, Shadow and Act sat down to chat with Jacob-Jenkins and Johnson about the beauty of Butler’s work, updating the story, and why it’s never been more relevant. 

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'The Fablemans' Cast On Bringing Steven Spielberg's Childhood To Life

For nearly 50 years, Steven Spielberg has been in the filmmaking game. A prolific director with movies like Jaws, Schindler’s List, and The Color Purple under his belt, the 75-year-old auteur has brought some aspect of himself to every single story he’s put his stamp on. However, his latest film, The Fablemans, is his most personal film yet. 

Based on his childhood in the 20th century and his profound admiration of film, The Fablemans is a complex and touching portrait of an American family whose dreams and desires pulled them together and split them apart. 

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Marsai Martin: Heir To Black Hollywood

Marsai Martin knows exactly who she is. Though her dewy skin, bright smile, and deep dimples give away her sparkling youth, Marsai’s spirit isn’t bogged down with the uncertainty of teenhood. The 18-year-old carries a sense of self many people don’t embody until at least the third decade of their lives. The black-ish alum certainly hasn’t had the typical upbringing, but her parents, Joshua and Carol Martin, have always been loving anchors for her —her bridges to normalcy. Marsai’s confidence is why she has no problem taking up space. 

Marsai’s eight-year stint on black-ish came to a close earlier this year. However, the Genius Entertainment Productions Founder has yet to slow down. You don’t become the youngest person to ever produce a movie by being complacent. Her latest film, Fantasy Football, where she stars alongside Omari Hardwick, Kelly Rowland, and Rome Flynn, will debut on Paramount+ on November 25. The film was initially written as a father/son story. However, things changed when Marsai joined the project as an executive producer and star. 

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From 'Devotion' To 'Shirley,' This Is Christina Jackson's Moment

Christina Jackson’s acting career was a happy accident. Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, she had no interest in sports, but her love of reading prompted her seventh-grade teacher to suggest the drama club. “The first play, I played Frenchy in Grease, and I was terrible because I was so nervous,” she tells ESSENCE. “I vowed I would never let that happen again.” After learning to work through her nerves, Jackson embraced the energy of the theater. “You can hear the laughs. You can hear the tears —the sniffles,” she reflects. “You can hear everything in real-time, even though you’re supposed to block all of that out. I think there’s something very connected about theater.”

Those first plays in elementary school invigorated The Good Fight actress’s love of storytelling. For over a decade, she’s worked on series like Outsiders, Boardwalk Empire and Deception. But now, in her upcoming role in the war epic Devotion, where she stars opposite Jonathan Majors, Jackson is starting to feel a fundamental shift. 

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'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' Is A Truly Immersive Experience Through Dolby Cinema

When Chadwick Boseman’s shocking death reverberated worldwide in August 2020, as the earth sat frozen in time amidst a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, the pain was excruciating. A bonafide movie star who had given the world so much was gone almost as quickly as we’d begun to know him. Just two years after the debut of the history-making Black Panther, T’Challa was dead. 

While we were able to lean into one another in grief as we absorbed so many other unfairnesses swirling around us, continuing the Black Panther franchise without the Academy Award nominee at the center seemed implausible. For the cast and crew, especially director Ryan Coogler the thought of pressing forward without Boseman was too much to bear. “I was at a point when I was like, I’m walking away from this business,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “I didn’t know if I could make another movie, period, [let alone] another Black Panther movie, because it hurt a lot. I was like, Man, how could I open myself up to feeling like this again?”

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‘The Good Doctor’ Star Freddie Highmore and Co-Showrunners on the 100th Episode and the Power of Neurodiverse Storytelling

The Good Doctor has been a compelling and emotionally charged staple for ABC on Monday nights, breaking ground with its depiction of the autistic Dr. Shawn Murphy navigating a prestigious hospital as well as fraught workplace and personal drama.

But the show, which marks its 100th episode Nov. 21, had a long path to air, with Daniel Dae Kim, who bought the rights to the 2013 Korean series of the same name, shopping it for several years before it finally landed with House creator David Shore and Sony Pictures Television.

Continue reading at The Hollywood Reporter.

'Wakanda Forever' examines grief and rage in a powerful way

A stunning tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” begins with the death of his character, T’Challa. Desperate to save her brother from the illness that has consumed him, a frantic Shuri (Letitia Wright) flits around her science lab, attempting to unearth the antidote that might save the Wakandan king. Tragically, her efforts are fruitless. Before the opening credits roll on the film, a despondent Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) tells her last living child, “Your brother is with the ancestors.”

The real-world trauma of Boseman’s shocking death from colon cancer in August 2020 collides with the aftermath of his character’s passing in “Wakanda Forever.” It’s an action-packed film full of grief, rage and the towering burden of legacy. His spirit stands at the film’s center as director Ryan Coogler examines why rage and trauma can be both a determinant and a pillar to communities of color. 

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Aldis Hodge Is Devoted To Transforming The Image Of Black Men On-Screen

With a career that spans three decades, Aldis Hodge has been a pillar of Black representation in Hollywood for years. The actor got his start in the ’90s and hasn’t taken his foot off the gas since. After smaller parts throughout his childhood and teen years, Hodge got a breakout role in Leverage at age 21. Since then, he’s captivated us in projects like Underground, Hidden Figures, The Invisible Man and City on a Hill. A true leading man, he has an ability to reinvent himself and take up space in Hollywood that can’t be understated.  

“For me, the ambition is to continually change the perspective [on] and the approach to the identity of Black men and Black people fully,” says Hodge, 36. “That’s something that we, the community, need—so that we can maintain and control the professional narrative and affirm our value in Hollywood. We’re not sitting here waiting on a call. We’re creating that avenue of opportunity for ourselves.” 

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Netflix's 'From Scratch,' Starring Zoe Saldaña, Is An Act Of Pure Love For Attica And Tembi Locke

Black women experience epic love stories. It may not seem that way based on what the media says and how often Hollywood ignores the romantic lives of Black women, but like everyone else, we have moments that sweep us off of our feet and take our breath away. Writer/producer Attica Locke has always known the importance of seeing all facets of Black women’s lives on-screen, especially as leading ladies. Therefore, the Little Fires Everywhere writer learned that her sister, Tembi Locke, was penning her memoir, From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home, about her epic love story; Attica knew that it also needed to come to life on screen. 

Before Tembi even finished penning the novel, Attica pitched the film to Hello Sunshine — Reese Witherspoon’s production company. “I literally pitched my sister’s entire book in one sitting and said, ‘You have to read it,'” the From Scratch showrunner told Shadow and Act. “[Hello Sunshine President Lauren Neustadter] went, ‘Okay.’ She was a little dubious like, ‘Your sister wrote a book?’ But they read it, and within a week, we were in their office just talking about ‘How are we going to do this?'”

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A Decade Later, Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson Reflect On “American Promise

Education has always been seen as a golden ticket in this country. In 2015, the Schott Foundation for Public Education released a disheartening report stating that only 59% of Black males graduated from high school in the United States. While Black girls — who share many of the same risks as their male counterparts — have fared better on average in the U.S. education system, anti-Black racism in our schools is failing Black boys. 

Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, a Harvard-and Stanford–trained psychiatrist and a Columbia Law School graduate and filmmaker, respectively, knew the statistics. As their son, Idris Brewster prepared to enter kindergarten; the couple knew they needed to take charge of his education. The Dalton School — a private, predominantly white school located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side — seemed to offer avenues for the brightest future for Idris. After being criticized for its lack of diversity, the school was actively seeking Black and brown students.  

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'Till' lays bare a palpable fear of Black mothers in white America

The story of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black boy kidnapped and brutally murdered in Mississippi by two white men before they dumped his body in the Tallahatchie River in 1955, is not new. That level of racist vileness has been experienced by victims who came before and after the bright-eyed Chicago boy’s time, echoing recently in the 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery. 

Yet, in “Till,” filmmaker Chinonye Chukwu offers viewers a different window into Emmett’s life through the perspective of his poised and graceful mother, Mamie Till-Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler). 

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'Is That Black Enough For You?!?' Is A Powerful Examination of Black Film Representation That Will Leave You Wanting More [NYFF Review]

Black films have existed since the silent era. Filmmakers like Oscar Micheaux and later Spencer Williams worked tirelessly to write, direct and represent Black life on screen. However, amid unbridled anti-Blackness and the Jim Crow era, Hollywood studios, who owned the biggest movie houses at the time, locked Black films out of their cinemas. White writers, directors and producers of that era had their own ideas about Black life — ones that were riddled with demeaning stereotypes and degrading roles. 

Yet, as film scholar and historian Elvis Mitchell describes in his dense but riveting film essay, Is That Black Enough For You?!?, racism didn’t stop Black people from falling in love with movies. Nor did it stop the deep yearning within many of them, Mitchell included, from wanting to see themselves represented on the big screen. 

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For Danielle Deadwyler, Black Women Define Legacy

Black women are central to Danielle Deadwyler’s artistry. Just days before the debut of the highly-anticipated historical drama Till, the actress is enjoying a moment of calm. In the movie, Deadwyler stars as activist Mamie Till-Mobley, whose 14-year-old son, Emmett Till, was kidnapped and lynched in Money, Mississippi, in 1955. The film, helmed by Clemency director Chinonye Chukwu, is already getting awards buzz, which means a whirlwind is certainly on the horizon for Deadwyler.

For now, the Atlanta-born actress is reflecting on Maime’s story and the stories of every woman she’s embodied throughout her career. From Cuffee in The Harder They Fall to Yoli in P-Valley, these Black women and their stories have all been puzzle pieces in the foundation of Deadwyler’s life’s work. 

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'Bones and All' Starring Taylor Russell And Timothee Chalamet Is As Intriguing As It Is Bloody [NYFF Review]

When we think of horror films, there is often a feeling of edginesses and tension. Certain tropes and beats are used to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

Though filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s latest movie, adapted from Camille DeAngelis’ novel of the same name, Bones and All, has horror elements, it subverts all of the traditions of the genre to offer something profoundly moving, gory, and rich.

The film opens in 1988 in rural Virginia. Maren (a mesmerizing Taylor Russell) has just moved to a small town with her quiet but slightly overbearing father (a criminally underused André Holland). 

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'Making Black America: Through The Grapevine' Directors On Exploring Harlem Renaissance, All-Black Towns, Black Twitter And More On PBS

One of the major components of white supremacy is entitlement. In addition to racism, white people have felt the need to inject themselves into the lives of people of color. Though they touted segregation, allowing Black people to exist beyond their gaze was something they could hardly bear. Yet, from the moment the first Black person landed on American shores, we’ve learned how to live and thrive beyond the view of the mainstream. The scholar W.E.B. DuBois called it “life behind the veil.” In his latest PBS docuseries, Making Black America: Through the Grapevine, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., travels through the Black experience from the 18th century to the present, unpacking the people, places, and experiences that have helped form who we are as a community.  

Helmed by directors Stacey L. Holman and Shayla Harris, the four-part series unpacks everything from establishing Black schools for formally enslaved post-Emancipation, the Harlem Renaissance, all-Black towns, and even Black Twitter. Countless experts and scholars, including Charles M. Blow, Angela Davis, André Holland, Fab 5 Freddie, Jason King, and Killer Mike, also lend their voices to the series. 

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In ‘Saint Omer’ Alice Diop Reframes A Horrendous Crime [NYFF Review]

Society has failed to unpack the madness of motherhood. The lifelong responsibility of caregiving is often reduced to smiling women cooing at babies on television and glossy Instagram photos of perfectly poised tots celebrating their birthdays or the holidays. Only when something unconscionable happens does anyone think to examine the tax of motherhood and how it might impact someone’s mental health. 

In 2013, a 39-year-old Senegalese Frenchwoman named Fabienne Kabou sat her 15-month-old baby on the beach in Berck-sur-Mer, France, and let her get carried away by the sea. It was a horrific crime that shocked the country and fascinated documentary filmmaker Alice Diop, who was pregnant at the time of Kabou’s 2016 trial. 

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“The Spectacular Now” and the First Loves That Gutted Us

At 16, when I told my mother I was in love with my first boyfriend, she scoffed at me. Her pitying look did nothing but enrage me and propelled me to distance myself further from her, burying myself headfirst into my teen angst. I know now that my mother’s reaction came from the outcome of her own teenage love affairs and her desire for me to focus on my dreams and aspirations instead of some boy. The inner lives of teenagers have always been of interest in our society, but teenage love affairs are often genuinely heartbreaking to the adolescents inside them.

As a smack-dab-in-the-middle millennial, I gravitated toward teen romance flicks like Clueless, She’s All That, and Crazy/Beautiful. I admired Cher’s (Alicia Silverstone) chic wardrobe and was enthralled with the chaos of Nicole’s (Kirsten Dunst) mental anguish. But none of that felt familiar or even real to me. These glamorous California teens were a world away from the South Side of Chicago. There were a few films like A Walk to Remember and Save the Last Dance that felt more tangible to my experiences. Like Mandy Moore’s character in the 2002 Adam Shakman film, my mother began battling cancer when I was 18, succumbing to the disease when I was 20. 

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