Friday, March 19, 2021 at 8:00AM This one is from our vaults, first published 8 years ago but we're reupping it it with some additional bits of trivia to celebrate March 19th! If it's your birthday today you can brag that you share a birthday with the televised tradition of Oscar ceremonies. This particular ceremony, the 25th Academy Awards, held 68 years ago today was historic for many reasons...
Friday, March 12, 2021 at 9:24AM 7 random things that happened on this day, March 12th, in showbiz history...
1946 To Each His Own opened on this day 75 years ago. It would win Olivia de Havilland the first of her two Best Actress Oscars.
1969 The 11th Grammy Awards are held. "Mrs Robinson" by Simon & Garfunkel wins Record of the Year and "Hair" wins Original Cast Show album...
Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 11:00AM by Nathaniel R
Netflix announced yesterday that the next adaptation from August Wilson's Century Cycle will be his second Pulitzer winner The Piano Lesson. For those who thought Ma Rainey was way too stagey... well, you're not in luck! It's way too early to know how this will pan out given the pandemic and Broadway having been closed so long but this one is sticking even closer to the stage in a sense. The current plan is for Samuel L Jackson, Danielle Brooks (yay!!!) and John David Washington to play the central roles (and uncle and his niece and nephew) in the Broadway revival in 2022 and then go directly into filming the movie version when they're done. Having seen Danielle Brooks on stage in The Color Purple trust that Orange is the New Black barely scratched the surface of what she can do so this is exciting news for her fans.
The play, which centers on the theme of family legacies, is about a brother and sister in conflict over what to do about a family heirloom which has been connected to the family since the days when their great grandparents were slaves...
Saturday, January 23, 2021 at 12:40PM 
by Eric Blume
It's difficult to write reviews these days, because it feels like no film is ever actually "released", and all of us are scrambling to find what movies are even available, how they're available, if they're VOD, or on a streaming service, etc. Sony Pictures Classics might have made a fumble mostly holding back from view director Florian Zeller's The Father, taken from his own play, starring Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman: if more people could see it, everyone would be talking about it.
The Father is one of those Movies They Don't Make Anymore, i.e., a damn adult drama that challenges your mind and heart. This is a film where the entire creative team treats the audience with dignity and respect, trusting that you're listening and paying attention, and they will reward you with literate ideas, high drama, and an emotional experience. But The Father is more than just that: the storytelling and the visual conceit of the film are surprising and demanding, and it is not a passive undertaking for the viewer...
Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 7:00PM
Regina King’s directorial debut One Night in Miami is a wonderful departure from the traditional biopic formula. Instead of focusing on key events from the lives of the famous, One Night in Miami gives us a fictionalized, night-long conversation four iconic men might have been having at that exact moment in history. The titular night is February 25th, 1964, just after Cassius Clay’s boxing match with Sonny Liston and just before the famous athlete changed his name to Muhammad Ali.
Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), musician Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and former NFL player Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) gather together in a motel room to discuss the weight they carry as celebrities to help create social change through the Civil Rights Movement. Thanks to the lead actors, along with genius writing by Kemp Powers who adapted his own play for the screen, we’re able to get a glimpse of the real people behind the iconic personas...
