Tag: Black Movie

Blackbird

Blackbird posterRelease Date:  4/24/15 (Theatrical Release, Limited); August 2015 (VOD);
2/16/14 (Pan African Film Festival)
Genre:  Drama
Rating:  Unknown
Running Time:  99 mins.
Studio:  KBiz Entertainment/Tall Skinny Black Boy Productions
Director:  Patrik-Ian Polk

Cast:  Mo’Nique (Claire Rousseau), Isaiah Washington (Lance Rousseau), Julian Walker (Randy Rousseau), Lindsay Seim (Libby), Nicole Lovince (Justine), Gary LeRoi Gray (Efrem), Hannah Moye (Chrissie Rousseau), Terrell Tilford (Pastor).

Story:  Blackbird revolves around a dysfunctional family in a religiously conservative small Mississippi town. After the young daughter goes missing, the family begins to fall apart. The son, played by newcomer Julian Walker, is a star singer in the church choir, but later comes to realize he is gay – something that does not settle well with the Baptist community. Ridiculed by his mother (Mo’Nique) and supported by his father (Isaiah Washington), the family struggle to stay together as one.

Trailer: 

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Details:  As reported in Deadline on January 6, 2014, this is Mo’Nique’s first screen starring turn since the ferocious portrayal as an abusive mother in 2009′s Precious won her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Patrik Ian Polk-directed Blackbird, an adaptation of the novel by Larry Duplechan.  Mo’Nique is also exec producer with her husband, Sidney Hicks, through Hicks Media. Newcomer Julian Walker plays the star singer in the church choir who feels like a misfit in his high school and struggles with his sexual awakening and the realization he is gay, something that doesn’t land well in a religiously conservative small Mississippi town. This coincides with his younger sister going missing and his parents splitting up. Mo’Nique plays another character who’s not going to win mother of the year awards: the youth’s heartbroken mom, who blames her son’s lifestyle revelation for his sister going missing. Washington plays his supportive father trying his best to help his son’s transition to manhood.  (Source(s): Movie Pilot, Deadline).

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Beyond The Lights

Beyond The Lights postera/k/a Blackbird

Release Date:  November 14, 2014
Studio: Relativity Media
Genre:  Drama
Rating:  Not Available
Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Cast: Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Noni Jean), Nate Parker (Kaz Nicol), Danny Glover (Captain David Nicol), Minnie Driver (Macy Jean), Elaine Tan (April), Aisha Hinds (J Stanley), Aml Ameen (Trey), Hayley Marie Norman (Shai).

Story: Noni Jean is a hot new award-winning artist who is primed for superstardom. But not all is what it seems, and the pressures cause Noni to nearly fall apart – until she meets Kaz Nicol, a promising young cop and aspiring politician who has been assigned to her detail. Drawn to each other, Noni and Kaz fall fast and hard, despite the protests of their parents who urge them to put their career ambitions ahead of their romance. But can Kaz’s love give Noni the courage to find her own voice and break free to become the artist she was meant to be? (Synopsis adapted from comingsoon.net).

See what the critics are saying about this film at Critics’ Connection.

Trailer:

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Sweet Thunder

Sugar Ray RobinsonStatus:  Development Unknown (Script as of 1/17/17)
Release Date:  TBA
Genre:  Drama/Biography
Rating:  Not Available
Studio:  Specialty Films
Director:  Not Available
Cast: David Oyelowo, Danny Strong

Details:  Deadline reports that David Oyelowo is ready to play iconic boxer Sugar Ray Robinson in a biopic based on the Wil Haygood biography Sweet Thunder: The Life And Times Of Sugar Ray Robinson.  Moneyball producer Rachael Horovitz and Game Change scribe Danny Strong will produce, and Oyelowo will be executive producer.

According to Black Actors, the film will focus on Robinson’s early career and possibly the organized crime circles that controlled the boxing industry in the 1940s and 1950s. (Source(s): Deadline; Black Actors).

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Take My Wife

Status:  Development Unknown (Script as of 3/14/17)
Release Date: TBA
Genre: Comedy
Rating: Not Available
Studio: Lionsgate Films
Director: TBA
Cast: Tyler Perry
Dwayne Johnson
Story:  A recently divorced man attempts to find his ex-wife a new man in order to avoid paying alimony, but in the process, he falls in love again and then must compete for his ex-wife’s affection. (Source: Movie Insider)

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Toussaint

Status:  Development Status – Script as of 9/17/17
Release Date:  TBA
Genre:  Biography
Rating:  Not Available
Studio:  Louverture Films
Director:  Danny Glover
Cast: TBA
Story:  Haitian revolution hero Toussaint L’Ouverture led one of the few successful slave uprisings in history. The slaves defeated French, Spanish and British armies and established the first independent Black republic, naming L’Ouverture president for life. He was captured and imprisoned by the French and died a year later.

Details:  As reported in The Guardian, on July 27, 2012, for more than 30 years, Glover has been trying to make a biopic about the leader of the Haitian revolution. True, the story of L’Ouverture has been told before, notably in a play by CLR James that was staged in London’s West End in 1936 starring Paul Robeson, and more recently in a French TV series starring Haitian actor, Jimmy Jean-Louis.  But Glover believes his treatment will be the first to “have the epic scale these events require.”

But when will we see this directorial debut?  In 2006, Glover assembled a cast including Wesley Snipes, Angela Bassett, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Mos Def, and planned to shoot his film in South Africa and Venezuela, thanks to $18m from one of Glover’s heroes, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. Six years on, filming has not started. “We’ll get the film done,” says Glover. “We came so close so many times, you could almost taste it, man. We came that close and we’re going to do it.” (Source: Shadow and Act).

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Tulia

Status:  Delayed
Release Date: TBA
Genre:  Drama
Rating: Not Available
Studio: Lionsgate/Lift Films
Director: John Singleton
Cast: Halle Berry (Vanita Gupta), Billy Bob Thornton
Story:  Pic centers on a lawyer’s efforts to expose a rash of drug convictions in rural Tulia, Texas, in 1999.  Adaptation of Nate Blakeslee’s book Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town, in which 10% of the black population of Tulia was incarcerated. The arrests did not produce drugs or money, causing attorneys and civil-rights groups to denounce the bust as racial profiling. The undercover agent who conducted the bust was indicted on perjury charges; most of the 46 arrestees were eventually pardoned by Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Details:  According to Indiewire Shadow and Act, as of March 20, 2013, neither Berry nor Singleton is attached to this project anymore. (Source(s): Variety; Indiewire Shadow and Act).

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