Notizie

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited hundreds of artists and executives to join the organization!

Wicked star Ariana Grande, Dune‘s Jason Momoa and girlfriend, Hit Man star Adria Arjona, Superman‘s Rachel Brosnahan and Anora breakout Mikey Madison are among the actors who have “distinguished themselves by their contributions to motion pictures.”

“We are thrilled to invite this esteemed class of artists, technologists, and professionals to join the Academy,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang shared in a statement. “Through their commitment to filmmaking and to the greater movie industry, these exceptionally talented individuals have made indelible contributions to our global filmmaking community.”

Keep reading to see the full list of invitees…

According to the Academy website, “Membership selection is based on professional qualifications, with an ongoing commitment to representation, inclusion and equity remaining a priority. Of the 2025 invited class, 41% are women,...

Oscar has its new voters.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences handed out its annual invitations to membership today, with 534 new invitees. If all of them accept, the new overall membership would be 11,120, of which 10,143 would be eligible to vote for Oscars and run for governance elections.

Among those on the list are newly minted Oscar winners Mikey Madison (Best Actress for Anora) and Kieran Culkin. Among all the invitees this year 91 are past Oscar nominees including 26 winners. The prominent star names include Ariana Grande, Dave Bautista, Jodie Comer, Jason Momoa, Aubrey Plaza, Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Gillian Anderson, Stephen Graham, Andrew Scott, Danielle Deadwyler, and on and on.

The Academy said 41% of the new class are women, 45% belong to underrepresented communities and 55% are from 60 countries and territories outside the United States. If all accept, it would result in an overall AMPAS membership of 35% women,...

I’m old enough to remember when Jacques Rivette films were the domain of dark-web networks and substandard DVD rips, a conspiratorial network worthy of his cinema. It’s still a little strange seeing that April will feature a 10-film, one-short Criterion Channel program that combines of his canonized masterpieces with decidedly lesser-seens––plus Va Savoir, which I really hope is the recently unearthed four-hour cut for which there’s no substitute. Penélope Cruz is also subject of a retrospective in April, which––more than making me pine for a Rivette collab that never was––will include both Abre Los Ojos and Vanilla Sky, some Almodóvar, and another in the Channel’s ongoing let’s-add-a-Woody-Allen-movie campaign, Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

For themed series, J. Hoberman has curated a series on the dangers of ’60s and ’70s New York that runs from Michael Roemer’s recently restored The Plot Against Harry and...

The cast of Ava DuVernay’s latest film, inspired by Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” is now complete with the addition of Blair Underwood, Finn Wittrock, Victoria Pedretti, Isha Blaaker, Leonardo Nam, Donna Mills and Emily Yancy.

The seven actors join Oscar nominee Aunjanue Ellis, who was previously announced as the lead in the film, as well as Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga, Niecy Nash-Betts, Nick Offerman, Jon Bernthal, Audra McDonald, Connie Nielsen, Jasmine Cephas Jones and Myles Frost.

Announced in October 2020, DuVernay serves as the writer and director of “Caste,” which adapts Wilkerson’s acclaimed book. Described in The New York Times as “an instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far,” the book — and subsequently DuVernay’s film — examines the system of hierarchy that has shaped America.

DuVernay also produces the project alongside frequent...

Blair Underwood, Finn Wittrock, Victoria Pedretti, Isha Blaaker, Leonardo Nam, Donna Mills and Emily Yancy have been added to the ensemble cast for Ava DuVernay’s latest film, the adaptation of Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.

They join a cast that already includes Aunjanue Ellis in the lead role, plus Vera Farmiga, Niecy Nash, Nick Offerman, Jon Bernthal, Audra McDonald and Connie Nielson. Writer-director DuVernay is producing Caste alongside Paul Garnes of Array Filmworks.

Wilkerson’s nonfiction book is told through multiple real-life stories and examines how America, throughout its history, has been shaped by a caste system, or a human hierarchy that dates back generations, but still affects the present.

Underwood worked with DuVernay on the limited series When They See Us, and his credits include Showtime’s Three Women and Netflix’s Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madame Cj Walker.

Following their stellar Main Slate lineup, the 60th New York Film Festival has unveiled its Spotlight section, featuring a number of notable world premieres. Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s David Johansen documentary Personality Crisis: One Night Only will debut at the festival, along with Maria Schrader’s She Said, Chinonye Chukwu’s Till, Elvis Mitchell’s Is That Black Enough for You?!?, and James Ivory and Giles Gardner’s A Cooler Climate.

Also in the lineup is Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All, Sarah Polley’s Woman Talking, a special 50th anniversary presentation of Solaris with a new live score, a new documentary on the late Robert Downey, Sr. by Chris Smith and new series from Lars von Trier and Marco Bellocchio.

“Ranging from illuminating portraits and affecting personal stories to uncomfortable histories that ignite change, the third edition of our NYFF Spotlight section is a curated mix of world premieres,...

Gritty inner city crime pix don’t get any rougher than this — I witnessed the walk-outs personally. Barry Shear and a crack crew filmed in Harlem for this downbeat crime pic that could be called ‘Every Thief For Himself.’ Paul Benjamin just wants to score some mob money and leave the mean streets behind — but a single slipup brings the worst of the Mafia and the black mob down on his neck. It’s neither a ‘stick it to whitey’ saga nor a plea for justice: it’s story 8 million and 1 in The Naked City. Stars Anthony Quinn, Anthony Franciosa and Yaphet Kotto provide more acting fireworks, with solid assistance from Gloria Henry, Antonio Fargas and Marlene Warfield.

Across 110th Street

Region-Free Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 120

1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 102 min. / Street Date April 27, 2022 / Available from / Aud 34.95

Starring: Anthony Quinn, Yaphet Kotto, Anthony Franciosa, Paul Benjamin, Ed Bernard, Antonio Fargas, Richard Ward,...

March will see the return of a fan-favorite series, the launch of a spinoff of a fan-favorite series and a handful of noteworthy films added to Amazon Prime Video.

Below, we’ve assembled a complete list of what’s new on Amazon Prime Video in March, and it includes the highly anticipated second season of the sci-fi comedy series “Upload,” which premieres March 11. Additionally, the new series “The Boys Presents: Diabolical” premieres on March 4 and promises eight all-new animated stories set within the R-rated superhero world of “The Boys.”

Also on March 4, the Amy Poehler-directed documentary “Lucy and Desi” premieres, chronicling the relationship between Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

In terms of library titles, March 1 brings the Ryan Reynolds-Sandra Bullock rom-com “The Proposal,” the classic “Dead Poets Society,” the sci-fi “Alien” prequel “Prometheus,” the comedy spoof “Spaceballs” and a number of other films to the streaming service.

Look, not every month is gonna be full of bangers. Amazon Prime Video’s list of new releases for March 2022 is extremely light but still has a couple of good options for streaming obsessives.

The biggest title this month is undoubtedly The Boys Presents: Diabolical on March 4. This series presents eight different stories set in The Boys‘ universe, all offered up by different writers. Since each of the eight mini-episodes are animated, it’s probably fair to say this is The Boys‘ Animatrix. Call it the “Anivought”.

Read more TV The Boys Season 3: Herogasm Will Be The TV Event of the Summer By Alec Bojalad TV How The Boys Pulled Off Its Wildest Episode By Bryan Cairns

Also arriving on March 4 is season 2 of the high concept comedy Upload. Set in a digital afterlife, this series created by The Office‘s Greg Daniels asks some big questions about where technology is taking us.

Sanford and Son, the first mainstream, primetime sitcom in television history with an almost-all Black cast, debuted on NBC on Jan. 14, 1972. Created by Norman Lear, and starring legendary “blue” comedian Redd Foxx as an African American bigot, it was seen as a direct answer to CBS’ All in the Family. But the Bunker family series was a social satire which took its laughs seriously. The Sanfords presented pure comedy, any lessons it taught were intentionally coincidental. The most controversial part of the show, when it first aired, was its lead actor.

Foxx was already an underground comedy legend when Cleavon Little, best known for his role as Sheriff Bart in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles, suggested him for the lead in the mid-season replacement. Little wasn’t available, but worked with Foxx on Ossie Davis’s 1970 neo-noir film Cotton Comes to Harlem. Before Foxx played the junk dealer stuck with the bale of genuine Mississippi cotton,...

Tommy Lane, an actor and stuntman who appeared in such classic films as Shaft and Live and Let Die, died Monday at Fort Lauderdale’s Florida Medical Center after a long battle with Copd. He was 83.

His daughter, Kamala Lane, confirming his passing to Deadline.

Born on December 17, 1937, in Miami, Lane primarily was active as an actor from the 1960s through the 1990s. In Gordon Parks’ classic 1971 private eye thriller Shaft, he played gangster Bumpy Jonas’ (Moses Gun) hitman, Leroy, who memorably is dragged up steps and thrown out of a window by Richard Roundtree’s detective John Shaft. In Guy Hamilton’s 1973 Bond film Live and Let Die, starring Roger Moore, he portrayed Adam, a gangster and enforcer reporting to Yaphet Kotto’s Mr. Big and Julius Harris’ Tee Hee.

Yaphet Kotto Dies: Bond Villain, ‘Homicide’ Star, ‘Alien’ & ‘Midnight Run’ Actor Was 81

Lane’s film credits also include Cotton Comes to Harlem...

Stuntman and actor Tommy Lane, who appeared in films including “Live and Let Die” and “Shaft,” died Monday in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. He was 83.

His daughter Kamala reported that he died after a long bout of Copd.

In Richard Roundtree’s “Shaft,” his character Leroy could be seen crashing through Richard Roundtree’s Times Square office window. “That’s some cold shit, throwing my man Leroy out the window. Just picked my man up and threw him out the goddamn window,” says Willy in the 1971 blaxploitation classic.

In the 1973 James Bond film “Live and Let Die,” he played Adam, one of Kananga’s henchmen who chases Roger Moore in a speedboat off the coast of the fictional island of San Monique. His character threatens, “You made one mistake back on that island, Bond. You took something that didn’t belong to you. And you took it from a friend of Mr.

The July lineup at The Criterion Channel has been revealed, most notably featuring the new Wong Kar Wai restorations from the recent box set release, including As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love, 2046, and his shorts Hua yang de nian hua and The Hand.

Also among the lineup is a series on neo-noir with Body Double, Manhunter, Thief, The Last Seduction, Cutter’s Way, Brick, Night Moves, The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, and more. The channel will also feature a spotlight on art-house animation with work by Marcell Jankovics, Satoshi Kon, Ari Folman, Don Hertzfeldt, Karel Zeman, and more.

With Jodie Mack’s delightful The Grand Bizarre, the landmark doc Hoop Dreams, Orson Welles’ take on Othello, the recent Oscar entries Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time and You Will Die at Twenty, and much more,...

After unveiling the discs that will be arriving in April, including Bong Joon Ho’s Memories of Murder, Olivier Assayas’ Irma Vep, and more, Criterion has now announced what will be coming to their streaming channel next month.

Highlights include retrospectives dedicated to Guy Maddin, Ruby Dee, Lana Turner, and Gordon Parks, plus selections from Marlene Dietrich & Josef von Sternberg’s stellar box set. They will also present the exclusive streaming premieres of Bill Duke’s The Killing Floor, William Greaves’s Nationtime, Kevin Jerome Everson’s Park Lanes, and more.

Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which recently arrived on the collection, will be landing on the channel as well, along with a special “Lovers on the Run” series including film noir (They Live by Night) to New Hollywood (Badlands) to the French New Wave (Pierrot le fou) to Blaxploitation (Thomasine & Bushrod) and beyond. Also...

Anthony Chisholm, the Tony-nominated actor who appeared in several movies and TV series, has passed away. The news comes from The Katz Company with a post on Facebook, although a cause of death hasn't yet been revealed. He was 77 years old.

"The Katz Company is saddened to announce the passing of our longtime friend and client, Tony-Nominee, Anthony Chisholm," the post reads, including a photo of the veteran performer. "Affectionately called 'Chiz,' he was an actor and storyteller like none-other, embodying loyalty, devotion, and compassion to his artistry. We lost a great one today."

Chisholm was born on April 9, 1943 in Cleveland, Ohio. After serving for the United States Army in the Vietnam War, Chisholm pursued acting by performance on stage at Cleveland's Karamu House. By 1968, he had made his movie debut in Jules Dassin's Uptight, and more movie and TV roles were quick to follow. This includes roles in...

Anthony Chisholm, whose long acting career spanned Broadway, film and television, died today at age 77. No cause was given by The Katz Company, his talent management.

Chisholm earned a 2007 Tony nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role in August Wilson’s play Radio Golf.

He was born on April 9, 1943 in Cleveland, Ohio, and was drafted by the US Army in the 1960s, serving as a platoon leader for the 4th Armored Calvary, 1st Infantry Division in the Vietnam War. Upon returning to the US, Chisholm performed in The Boys from Syracuse and The Threepenny Opera at Karamu House in Cleveland, Ohio.

He made his film debut in the 1968 Uptight, directed by Jules Dassin. That launched a career that saw him in such films as Putney Swope in 1969 and Cotton Comes to Harlem in 1970.

In 1987, Chisholm’s Vietnam War experiences were the inspiration for the HBO television series Vietnam War Story.

This weekend marks the 49th anniversary of the release of “Shaft.” Released in 1971, it grossed about $90 million in adjusted prices — a huge success, more than 25 times its cost. More importantly, it forced studios to acknowledge the Black audience segment that was long taken for granted.

Hollywood studio filmmaking is 105 years old. But it took more than half of those years for major studios to release a film from a Black director. There were Black directors, but they were too few and far between. And The first Black director was silent filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, whose parents were former slaves. In the sound era, the first Black director was Spencer Williams, an actor best known as Andy of Amos n’ Andy. And while films in the 1960s began to tell Black stories such as “Lilies of the Field” and “A Raisin In the Sun,” they inevitably reflected white perspectives and denied Black...

George Litto, a longtime Hollywood talent agent who represented blacklisted writers and collaborated with Melvin Van Peeples and Ossie Davis, has died. He was 88.

Litto passed away at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on April 29 from complications of aortic stenosis, his daughter and business partner, Andria Litto, told Deadline.

George Litto started in the mailroom at William Morris New York in 1954, and worked his way up to an agent, booking summer stock theatre. Among his early successes was helping Mae West secure a role in Come On Up (Ring Twice).

There would be many other famous clients when he moved to boutique agencies in Los Angeles before opening The George Litto Agency in the mid-1960s.

Litto represented Mel Davenport, aka Waldo Salt, who at the time was working in New York under his pseudonym because he was blacklisted. George put him to work under his own name on the film, Midnight Cowboy (1969).

Soon after,...

Here’s something I never expected to see: I ran to the blaxploitation attraction Willie Dynamite because I like actress Diana Sands, and it’s her last picture in a too-short career. But the main character on view, a gaudy fur-wearing pimp, is played by none other than Roscoe Orman, well known to a couple of generations of kids as none other than ‘Gordon’ in the long-running TV show Sesame Street. It’s like watching MisterRogers play Hannibal Lecter!

Willie Dynamite

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 102 min. / Street Date January 8, 2019 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95

Starring: Roscoe Orman, Diana Sands, Thalmus Rasulala, Joyce Walker, Roger Robinson, George Murdock, Albert Hall, Norma Donaldson, Juanita Brown, Royce Wallace, Tol Avery, Robert DoQui, Slim Gaillard.

Cinematography: Frank Stanley

Film Editor: Aaron Stell

Original Music: J.J. Johnson

Written by Ron Cutler & Joe Keyes Jr.

Produced by Richard D. Zanuck, David Brown

Directed by Gilbert Moses...

Amazon Prime members who like action films targeted to African American audiences — including Shaft, Cotton Comes to Harlem, and Foxy Brown — can get their fill today by subscribing to Brown Sugar. The $3.99 a month, ad-free subscription VOD service that Bounce TV launched last year will be an offering on Amazon Channels. Brown Sugar is also accessible on Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Kindle, Android and Apple smartphones and tablets and web browsers. It also…...

Amazon Prime members who like action films targeted to African American audiences — including Shaft, Cotton Comes to Harlem, and Foxy Brown — can get their fill today by subscribing to Brown Sugar. The $3.99 a month, ad-free subscription VOD service that Bounce TV launched last year will be an offering on Amazon Channels. Brown Sugar is also accessible on Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Kindle, Android and Apple smartphones and tablets and web browsers. It also…...

Welcome back for Day 11 of Daily Dead’s fourth annual Holiday Gift Guide, readers! Once again, our goal is to help you navigate through the horrors of the 2016 shopping season with our tips on unique gift ideas, and we’ll hopefully help you save a few bucks over the next few weeks, too. For our second-to-last day of this year’s Gift Guide, we’re going to be featuring several great cult films that arrived on Blu-ray in 2016, as well as Star Wars books, a ton of horror-themed enamel pins, the amazing artwork of Hero Complex Gallery, FiverFingerTees, and much more!

This year’s Holiday Gift Guide is sponsored by several amazing companies, including Mondo, Anchor Bay Entertainment, DC Entertainment, and Magnolia Home Entertainment, who have all donated an assortment of goodies to help get you into the spirit of the season. Daily Dead also recently teamed up with...

Brown Sugar, a streaming service featuring classic blaxploitation movies, launched on Thursday. The service is now available for mobile phones and tablets in the Google Play Store and iTunes App Store and for computers at BrownSugar.com. There is a free initial trial period for subscribers with a retail price of $3.99 per month thereafter. Brown Sugar features an extensive library of iconic black movies, all un-edited and commercial-free. Classics available now include: “Foxy Brown,” “Shaft,” “Super Fly,” “Dolemite,” “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” “Uptown Saturday Night,” “Cooley High,” “Black Caesar,” “Cleopatra Jones,” “Mandingo,” “Car Wash” and many more. Also Read: Could 'Fences' and 'Hidden Figures'.

The third week of September has a lot of fantastic horror and sci-fi home entertainment offerings coming our way, including an incredible pair of Criterion Blu-ray releases—Cat People (1942) and Blood Simple—as well as the 30th Anniversary Edition of Labyrinth and the Special Edition of Brian Trenchard-Smith’s Dead End Drive-In. Other notable titles being released on September 20th include the horror doc The Blackout Experiments (which premiered earlier this year at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival), Sacrifice, The Rift (1990), Beware! The Blob, and a Blu-ray set featuring all kinds of Twin Peaks goodness.

Beware! The Blob (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray & DVD)

Newly Re-mastered in HD! The Blob returns... more outrageous than ever in this 1972 sequel to the popular sci-fi classic! Plenty of familiar faces, including Robert Walker Jr. (Ensign Pulver), Larry Hagman (Dallas), Sid Haig (Busting), Burgess Meredith (Rocky), Dick Van Patten (Eight is Enough), Godfrey Cambridge...

Towering aggressively over the legacy of the problematic film movement of 1970s Blaxploitation is the iconic figure of actress Pam Grier, emblazoned in our memories as the self-reliant beauty holding her own (well, mostly) with her male co-stars prior to her white female counterparts, like Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton. She’s an important cinematic figure, and much like the symbolic essence of Marilyn Monroe, her reputation outweighs familiarity with many of the films that brought her iconicity. Arriving in the middle of her gamut of classic titles was 1975’s Friday Foster, of which Grier is the eponymous star. Campy, cringe worthy, and so remarkably asinine it may just as well be classified as sci-fi, production values and an impressive supporting cast surely solidifies the title as requisite viewing for Grier’s fan base. Unfortunately, for all involved, their talents (a common complaint of the genre) are worthy of less slipshod silliness.

Welcome to the latest episode of The ScreamCast!

In honor of Black History Month, hosts Sean Duregger and Brad Henderson begin a month long look into the Blaxploitation phenomenon of the 1970s. This week they lay the groundwork by discussing the explosion of Blaxploitation Cinema once Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was unleashed by legend Melvin Van Peebles. Other films discussed are Cotton Comes To Harlem, Superfly and Shaft.

Don’t forget to check out TheScreamCast.com for the show notes and for more news and reviews of Scream Factory releases and make sure to follow them on Twitter too!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download...

By Mark Cerulli

Robert McGinnis…

For fans of movies of the 1960s and ’70s, his name ranks up there with the stars who made the major studio films of that era. Even though he didn’t actually “make” movies, his work most definitely did. Best known as the artist behind the “classic” James Bond posters, McGinnis worked for almost every publisher and major magazine for decades, putting his distinctive stamp on a huge, well, body of work, which is fully (and gloriously) represented in The Art of Robert E. McGinnis, a lush 176-page hardback now on sale from Titan Books. Since McGinnis is one of the most influential and iconic movie poster artists of the 20th Century, Cinema Retro was pleased to see him honored in this way.

The book starts with McGinnis’s journeyman beginnings in the 1950s Cincinnati and New York advertising scenes, where he toiled away on...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: April 22, 2014

Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Olive Films

Rod Steiger is The Pawnbroker.

Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront) earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance in the classic 1964 drama The Pawnbroker, directed by the great Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Network).

Steiger plays Sol Nazerman, a survivor of a WWII Nazi death camp where his wife, parents and children were murdered. His soul robbed of hope, he takes refuge in misery and a bitter condemnation of humanity while managing a Harlem pawnshop subjected to an endless parade of prostitutes, pimps and thieves.

The film co-stars Geraldine Fitzgerald (Wuthering Heights), Brock Peters (To Kill a Mockingbird), Raymond St. Jacques (Cotton Comes to Harlem) and.Jamie Sanchez (The Wild Bunch).

Shot in gorgeous black-and-white by respected cinematographer Boris Kaufman (On the Waterfront) and featuring a memorably evocative trumpet score by Quincy Jones, The Pawnbroker is making its Blu-ray...

After all the debates, controversies, and stereotype accusations have cleared, looking back on Blaxploitation cinema today it’s easy to see healthy portions of the crime and action genres. Using these genres and the struggles of the black community, these films were created for those that wanted to see African American characters on the big screen not taking shit from the man, “getting over”, and–above all else—being the heroes in movies. In the documentary Baad Asssss Cinema, Samuel L. Jackson gives his take on the heroes of Blaxploitation: “We were tired of seeing the righteous black man. And all of a sudden we had guys who were…us. Or guys who did the things we wanted those guys to do.”

The unsung supporting players in these films that backed Fred Williamson and Pam Grier and many other stars were people acting and making a living off of it.

Shout! Factory once again is giving us a double feature DVD, one a blaxploitation film set in New York City and the other a gritty noir-flavored film set in Saigon during the Vietnam War. Both have the connection to the war itself. And I’ll be the first to say that they are both worth your time, forgotten gems that have never seen the light of a DVD release until now.

Ossie Davis directs Gordon’s War, actor and director who made what I consider the finest blaxploitation film around (Cotton Comes To Harlem) and he does wonders with a tried and through plot consisting of a man on a mission of revenge against those who wronged the people of his neighborhood in the mode of good ol’ 70′s vigilante justice. Gordon Hudson (Paul Winfield) comes home from the Vietnam War where he finds out that his wife has died from a heroin overdose.

Sun City - What are you going to when it comes time to retire? Do you really have enough money saved up to last you for the rest of your life? Can you hold out till Willard Scott puts you on the Smuckers jar and wishes you a happy 100th? Will you really be enjoying the good life with round the clock sponge baths from young orderlies? Have you done the math to figure out how much it’ll cost for a day at a retirement community in 20 years? Can your 401K hold out?

Odds are the answer is a resounding, “Maybe?”

The golden years require platinum reserves. With talk that Medicare is about to be destroyed, your budget for health insurance is about to go completely out of control. When is the last time Blue Cross hyped individual policies for people hitting 90? Even the most frugal of senior citizens...

The internet is lousy with lists of ‘The Top 100′ this and ‘The 50 All-time Greatest’ that. And generally speaking, these ranked run-downs don’t offer much in the way of surprises or thought-provoking insights (unless they carry the Entertainment Weekly stamp, of course). But the gallery that the folks over at BlackVoices.com have cooked up for Black History Month is definitely worth checking out.

In their 30 Black Hollywood Game Changers, you’ll find the obvious candidates — Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing), Tyler Perry (the Madea ouevre), and Melvin Van Peebles (Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song) — rubbing shoulders with less predictable,...

Since the earliest days of American cinema there has been a shadowy counterpart to the commercial mainstream: exploitation movies — pictures whose appeal lies in their sensational treatment and leering promotion of often lurid and prurient material. Pre-1960, when mainstream Hollywood worked within severe restrictions on content, exploitation movies offered audiences titillating glimpses of the deliciously taboo, usually under the guise of being some sort of instructional cautionary against the very subject matter being exploited i.e. sex in “hygiene” movies like The Road to Ruin (1934), drugs in anti-drug movies like Tell Your Children (1936, re-released in the 1960s/70s as camp classic Reefer Madness), and gambling in the anti-vice Gambling with Souls (1936).

By the 1950s, as the studios entered their long post-war decline, downscale producers launched a new vein of exploitation moviemaking, churning out low-budget thrillers (mostly sci fi and horror) aimed squarely at the burgeoning youth audience. Again, the movies were cheap,...

Late last week, after I saw For Colored Girls, I got into a conversation with Ms Cynthia (who works behind-the-scenes here at Shadow And Act) about the kinds of books written by black authors, that tell stories primarily about black people, that have been optioned and made (or will soon be made) into films.

We all know by now that Hollywood loves to adapt novels (amongst other kinds of original sources), and during our conversation I realized that there might indeed be a pattern or two worth noting, when one looks at the “black novels” that have been given big screen treatment.

One common complaint I’ve heard about the For Colored Girls adaptation is that the material is a yet another woman-centered black pathology tale, and a lot of you aren’t interested in that kind of narrative anymore, and understandably so. I think a lot of us feel the same way.

By Harris Lentz, III

Actor Lisle Wilson was featured as Phillip Woode, Margot Kidder’s ill-fated suitor in the 1973 psychological horror film Sisters, and was Dr. Loring in the 1977 sci-fi horror The Incredible Melting Man.

Wilson was born in Brooklyn, New York, on September 2, 1943. He began his film career in the early 1970s in such features as Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and Mississippi Summer (1971). He starred as Leonard Taylor in the ABC television sitcom That’s My Mama from 1974 to 1975. He also appeared in episodes of Alf and Tales from the Crypt, and the 1988 tele-film Disaster at Silo 7. He later taught vocal techniques at the Academy of Radio and Television Broadcasting in Huntington Beach, California.

Lisle Wilson died in Rancho Mirage, California, on March 14, 2010, at age 66.

Oh yeah, baby who's yo daddy...Didn't you hear the word on the street??? Blaxploitation is back and it's bringin' with it a PG-friendly trailer this time...

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Since the red band trailer of this indie gem came out about a year ago, in the fanboy circuit, Black Dynamite has been getting some real attention. When I seen it, I couldn't stop talking about it. I made sure everyone I knew checked it out and if they had already I had to see what they thought. The reason I dig it is cause it looks and feels more like an Actual blaxploitation movie rather than a Spoof, even though satire is clearly what they're going for. Being a fan of Shaft, Cotton Comes to Harlem and everything Pam Grier, I can't wait to check this thing out.

Since hitting the festival circuit, Sony Pictures bought the movie and now the wonders...

Ossie Davis, the arresting, charismatic actor who was one of the leading figures of the African-American acting community alongside his wife, Ruby Dee, was found dead Friday morning in Miami; he was 87. Davis was discovered in his hotel room in Miami Beach, where he was making a film called Retirement, which he had just started shooting on Monday; a cause of death has not yet been determined, but police have ruled out any foul play. A renaissance man when it came to performing, Davis acted, wrote, directed, and produced for the stage, screen, and television, making his presence known far and wide in a variety of different projects, from Broadway shows to television miniseries. Davis' career began in 1939, where he joined a theater group in Harlem and met a number of influential civil rights activists and writers, including W.E.B. DuBois and Langston Hughes. After serving in World War II, Davis made his Broadway debut in 1946 in the play Jeb opposite Ruby Dee; the two were married two years later, and became one of the classic acting duos of the 20th century. In addition to acting, both were important pioneers for civil rights, balancing both political and artistic agendas throughout their entire careers. Davis appeared in a number of movies and television shows throughout the 50s and 60s (among them The Cardinal, The Hill, and The Scalphunters, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination), and made his directorial debut with 1970's Cotton Comes to Harlem. Working almost non-stop in a variety of mediums, Davis became well-known to a new generation through his films with director Spike Lee (including Do the Right Thing) and his role on the sitcom Evening Shade, as well as innumerable TV miniseries and movies. In 2004, both Davis and Dee were both selected to receive the Kennedy Center Honors. Davis is survived by Dee, 80, and their three children. --Prepared by IMDb staff...