Browsing: Entertainment

      Throughout his entire career, renowned author Walter Mosley has penned powerful, thought-provoking pieces of work and now the bestselling novelist will be honored for his contributions to the literary world. The National Book Foundation announced that Mosley will be the recipient of its 2020 lifetime achievement award.

     Stanley Crouch, the lauded and fiery jazz critic, has died. According to an announcement by his wife, Gloria Nixon-Crouch, Stanley Crouch died at the Calvary Hospital in New York on Wednesday, following nearly a decade of serious health issues.

           John David Washington has crossed a bridge. He’s no longer just the son of a superstar actor. He is a superstar actor. Seconds after he’s on screen, you get the deal. He is as confident, adventurous and acrobatic as Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible series. As cool and debonair as any of the Bond men. As his character becomes more poised and powerful, you become more assured that you are watching the blossoming of an actor who can dominate scenes that should have been stolen by veterans like Kenneth Branagh and Michael Caine.

A Look Into: Black Independent Filmmaking by Mann Robinson is a guide to succeeding in the world of filmmaking. If after watching a movie, you have ever wondered about creating a movie yourself, or have thought of bringing your imagination to reality via filmmaking, Mann Robinson is the person for you.

With a career that spans more than 35 years, Mills has distinguished herself as an actress and performer whom her manager says is just as much at home on the Broadway stage as in the recording studio. Her endless string of hit records include, “Whatcha Gonna Do with My Lovin,’” “Never Knew Love Like This Before,” “If I Were Your Woman,” “I Feel Good All Over,” “You Putting a Rush on Me,” “I Have Learned to Respect the Power of Love,” “Something in the Way You Make Me Feel,” and “Home.”

     Williams, whose transformed R&B, pop, and gospel music over her extraordinary five-decade career, joins Stephanie Mills, Anthony Hamilton, Carlos Santana, and Salt-N-Pepa in a star-studded lineup of musical talent appearing at the first virtual conference in the 193-year history of the Black Press and the 80th anniversary of the NNPA.

     If you have not found Pete Davidson funny after six years on “Saturday Night Live,” two hours watching his semi-biographical film “The King of Staten Island” likely will not change your mind. Prolonged adolescence, arrested development, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have become cultural mainstays for the generation who have grown up post-9/11, and Davidson is a member of that group. Davidson, who lost his father in the 9/11 attacks, has struggled with severe depression, a struggle mirrored in this Judd Apatow-produced Amazon special, available for streaming.

OWN was Tuesday night’s #2 cable network among women 25-54 with “Greenleaf” the #1 cable telecast in the key demo. OWN was Tuesday night’s #1 network on all of television, including broadcast and cable, for African American women and total viewers. Currently, OWN has four of the Top 20 original scripted series (“The Haves and the Have Nots,” “Greenleaf,” “If Loving You Is Wrong,” “Cherish the Day”) on ad-supported cable among women 25-54, which is more than any other network.

     In the 1930s, Gareth Jones (James Norton, Little Women and Belle), a young Welsh investigative journalist, is stationed in London and working for the former UK Prime Minister David Lloyd George (Kenneth Cranham). The reporter is renowned for his article about a plane trip he took with Adolph Hitler. Based on that notoriety, Jones assumes his bosses will support his idea of traveling east to dig into the real story regarding the Soviet Ukraine and hopefully debunk the USSR’s claim of prosperity for all. Jones: “Send me to Moscow to ask him (Stalin) where the money is coming from!”

Today, with the anticipated opening of the National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM), Black Music Month has officially found a new home in Music City, Nashville, Tennessee. Music lovers from around the world can celebrate along with NMAAM as the museum executes digital programming all month highlighting Black musicians, including profiles of artists who are also LGBTQ, with the appropriately named campaign ‘Black & Proud’ celebrated in conjunction with Pride month.”