In The Adam Project, a time-traveling pilot teams up with his younger self and his late father to come to terms with his past while saving the future.
Much Love,
Movie Scene Queen
The Black students at Winchester University are back for their senior year in the final season of “Dear White People.” Starring Logan Browning and DeRon Horton, the Netflix series brings the tumultuous life of undergraduate studies at an Ivy League school to an end for Sam White and her friends.
The highlight of Sam White’s studies is her controversial student radio show, “Dear White People,” and her hopes to one day become a film director.
Logan Browning, who plays Sam White, has consistently portrayed a beautifully flawed college student. Her character’s wisdom and wit strokes even the nerdiest egos, while her sass and spunk create the Black Girl Magic we all fell in love with freshman year.
Sam White, who’s typically a pitbull in a skirt, is soft and vulnerable in this season as she meets her match with new student, Iesha Vital (Joi Liaye). The unlikely pair builds friction causing the gang to resolve some unspoken issues and fight to produce an all-Black variety show on a predominantly White campus.
The topics tackled in this season were on point, per usual. The most relevant one is the continuous division amongst Black people. The public divide amongst Black people, especially in an academic or professional setting, is devastating.
As my mom would say, “What happens in this house, stays in this house.” So, when Black folks have a public disagreement, it almost lets White people pick out the weaknesses to capitalize on our dispute. These types of conflicts also take attention away from the true matter, delaying the work in progress.
The claim that some Black people are not Black enough or do not do enough for “the cause” is also a nasty setback to moving the needle forward. The Black student caucus at Winchester University faces all those things as Sam White and Iesha Vital rise as leaders of two different packs.
Read more at he New Pittsburgh Courier, Netflix’s ‘Dear White People’ returns for its final season, adds a twist
Movie Scene Queen and Netflix would love to invite you to attend the virtual premiere of SWEET GIRL. Filmed in Pittsburgh and starring Jason Momoa and Isabela Merced, Sweet Girl will premiere virtually on Wednesday, August 18, 2021. You will have the opportunity to watch the film for two days prior to it’s premiere on Netflix on August 20th.
Sign up below and tell them Movie Scene Queen sent you! https://bit.ly/SWEETGIRLPAPremiere
Much Love,
Movie Scene Queen
Typically, when Netflix audiences flock to social media with recommendations, I am skeptical, if not apprehensive, to tune in. But the memes and Facebook statuses twisted my arm into watching Netflix’s newest series, “Ratched.”
After all the posts I stumbled across, I was interested in one particular person, Sophie Okonedo.
The 52-year-old actress plays a patient, Charlotte Wells, who is suffering from multiple personality disorder. Based on Nurse Ratched in Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Ratched” follows a wacked-out nurse (Sarah Paulson) who terrorizes a California psychiatric hospital in hopes to set her serial-killer brother free.
SOPHIE OKONEDO
The Netflix show also stars Finn Wittrock, Sharon Stone, Cynthia Nixon and Judy Davis.
This eight-part adaptation, which is set in 1947, is oddly wonderful. The familiar faces of American Horror Story, gruesome storylines, and quirky punchlines are a wonderful potion to great TV. But Sophie Okonedo steals the show.
Her raw talent is actually what saves the entire series for me because when “Ratched” gets slow she picks it up. When “Ratched” gets redundant and starts to look like every other season of American Horror Story, Okonedo pulls up with the craziest (no pun intended) monologue I have ever heard on a Netflix series.
She does not have much screen time and we are not introduced to her until the fifth episode, but it is just enough for her to capture audiences with her conviction and aptitude.
She is better than James McAvoy in Split (2016) and Glass (2019). She passed the “Acting with Multiple Personalities Disorder” test with flying colors. Since we are talking about how social media fads completely take over the world, let me add my two cents—it’s her range and commitment for me.
Read more at the New Pittsburgh Courier, Sophie Okonedo successfully tackles mental illness in Netflix’s ‘Ratched’
It has been two and half decades since veteran actor Delroy Lindo and Academy Award winning director Spike Lee hooked up for a feature film. The pair reunited for Netflix’s newest release, Da 5 Bloods, a tale of five Vietnam War veterans who return to Asia to tie up some loose ends.
Lindo portrays Paul, a veteran suffering with PTSD, wrestling with some war secrets, and battling with a “fractious” relationship with his son. Even in this vulnerable role, he is a fierce, strong, and proves why he works well with a visionary like Spike Lee.
“I needed to do this,” said Lindo referring to his part in the film.
In a virtual roundtable hosted by the African American Film Critics Association, Lindo tells me, “Spike inviting me to be part of his projects has gifted me with these brilliant characters to play as an actor.” Lindo has graced us with his presence in three Spike Lee joint previously- Malcolm X (1992), Crooklyn (1994), and Clockers (1995).
“That’s a gift to any actor that a creative worker of Spike’s statute would just call you and say “hey man come do this”, not only the invitation to participate in the work, but the content of the part,” said Lindo.
There is an undeniable alchemy when Spike Lee is sitting in the director’s chair and Delroy Lindo is on the other side of the camera. Both Lee and Lindo admitted some of the most powerful scenes in the movie are opportunities where Lindo and the cast improvised such as the riverboat market scene and when Lindo’s character breaks off from the group.
Give Delroy Lindo his flowers now. He continues to solidify his seat with the Hollywood greats, and he is tremendously talented.
Also starring Chadwick Boseman, Isiah Whitlock, Jr., Norm Lewis, Clarke Peters, and Jonathan Majors, Da 5 Bloods, even in 2.5 hours, is hard not to watch. The suspense, intensity, and striking attractiveness of war brothers coming together calls for a really good cinematic picture.
This film is a dark reminder that Black soldiers went halfway around the world defending a country where they were barely free. Black servicemen fought on the front lines in Vietnam, while their brothers and sisters fought for voting, desegregation, and basic civil liberties.
The Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War were running congruently. Dr. King, Malcolm X, and JFK were all assassinated during this time. Imagine being a freedom fighter or person of color fighting a war abroad when there’s one in your own backyard.
For millennials, like myself, Da 5 Bloods is definitely an eye-opener. Even in fiction, the drops of relevant, thought-provoking history cause for deeper conversation about how Black people respond to war and the sacrifices a Black solider endures. I did not know much about the Vietnam War before watching this film, but I am now on a journey to find out more.
That is powerful remnants of a great film.
Netlfix released a 10-chapter series (April 28) about the Black students at the Ivy League college Winchester University.
Few in numbers, these students quickly discover that race plays a significant role in their interactions on campus. After a prestigious White group throws a Blackface Halloween party, tensions rise and creates a domino effect of other racially-motivated events.
I appreciate the transition from the big screen to computer screen. The Netflix series picked up right where the 2014 film left off, and, equally important, the TV series retained some actors from the movie. I was skeptical at first. But, the TV show version of “Dear White People” ceases all apprehensions with its dry humor and hard truths.
Even the title makes White people cringe of guilt and misconception. What is typically the proper letter salutation has now become an outcry for millions of voices to be heard.
Read more at the New Pittsburgh Courier: ‘Dear White People:’ A letter to the masses (Merecedes’ TV Column, May 10)
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