IBE 2011 Living Legend Award Winner - Cicely Tyson

Cicely Tyson is a living legend and a woman of true talent and beauty -- Inside and out.  I have admire her on the big and little screen for as long as I can remember. She has always been, in my mind, a woman who represents the strength and sophistication of  women in the African Diaspora.  Mama Cicely, I salute you.  Also, I love you.  God bless you.

Red Tails (2012) HD Movie Trailer - Lucasfilm Official Trailer

I have to go see this film this weekend. As most of us know, the first weekend is the most important. Let us all as Americans go out to see this film. We should support it to be educated, entertained, and to give honor to service members and former service members who have served and given their lives for this country. Happy Friday! Peace~

Photo and Thought from MLK

"Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think."  ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

MC Spotlight: Kings of the Evening

In a time where many African Americans depictions in film are centered on comedy and sex, I found Kings of the Evening (2008) to be aesthetically and immaculately refreshing. It was a simple story with familiar but somewhat complicated characters.

Kings of the Evening is set during the Great Depression in the United States. The film is about Homer Hobbs (Tyson Beckford), a young man who is released from prison just to find that his mother (seemingly his only family) has left town. Suddenly, he has to fend for himself and ends up in a boarding house filled with characters that help make Kings of the Evening a success. Each character has a story which led them to the boarding house, and each found out why they were all led there together.

Its principled approach to filmmaking was like something borrowed from the past. The writers and directors of this film didn’t seem to concentrate on industry standards that are riddled with often offensive scenes and dialogue. Instead, they concentrated on the frailty of human beings, and how it is so important to encourage one another through a kind act or word. It was a descent movie for the entire family. The film has a star-studded cast including Glynn Turman, Lynn Whitfield, Bruce McGill, Steven Williams, and Reginald Dorsey.

The film also featured television and stage actors Lou Myers and the upcoming Ms. Linara Washington, who plays the young, troubled factory worker, “Lucy Waters.” I was especially enamored by the Sunday social that featured and picked the “King of the Evening.” I’m sure audiences will enjoy every minute.

Overall, this film may go down as a holiday favorite. I hope to see more positive depictions of Africans in America.  Besides, as the character Mr. Gamba (Steven Williams) states: “When a man can stand up to the mirror, he can stand up for life.”  In the end, I was delighted to find that there were both kings and queens who stood up to mirror.  Yes, there was a teardrop.  Rent or buy today.


Personal Rating: 8/10
MPAA Rating: PG
A Film By Andrew P. Jones

Harlem Renaissance Poet: Countee Cullen

Incident

Once riding in old Baltimore,

Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,

I saw a Baltimorean

Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,

And he was no whit bigger,

And so I smiled, but he poked out

His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore

From May until December;

Of all the things that happened there

That's all that I remember.

Countee Cullen was a leading figure along with others who helped to define the Harlem Renaissance. Countee Cullen suffered high blood pressure and uremic poisoning and died suddenly on January 9, 1946. He was 42.  Read more...

Sources:  wikipedia, blackfacts.com, and American National Biography Online

Happy Birthday, C.L.R. James

The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (1938), by Afro-Trinidadian writer C. L. R. James (4 January 1901–19 May 1989), is a history of the 1791-1804 Haitian Revolution.

Sources:  Blackfacts.org and Wikipedia.