Tag: Mini-series

The Good Lord Bird

Release Date:   10/4/20 Series Premiere; Showtime (Limited)
Genre:   Drama
Rating:  NR
Director(s):  Albert Hughes, Haifaa Al-Mansour, Michael Nankin
Studio(s):   Blumhouse Television, Showtime Networks

Cast:   Joshua Caleb Johnson (Onion), Ethan Hawke (John Brown), Daveed Diggs (Frederick Douglass), Orlando Jones (The Rail Man), Wyatt Russell (U.S. Army Officer J. E. B. Stuart), McKinley Belcher III (Broadnax), Rafael Casal (Cook), Hubert Point-Du Jour (Bob), David Morse (Dutch Henry Sherman), Wyatt Russell (Jeb Stuart)

Story:   Filmmaker Albert Hughes is joining as executive producer and will make his television directorial debut helming multiple episodes of the new Showtime limited series The Good Lord Bird from Blumhouse Television, based on the National Book Award-winning novel The Good Lord Bird by bestselling author James McBride.  The Good Lord Bird is told from the point of view of Onion (Joshua Johnson-Lionel), a fictional enslaved boy, who is part of John Brown’s (Hawke) motley crew of abolitionist soldiers during the time of Bleeding Kansas, eventually participating in the famous 1859 raid on the Army depot at Harpers Ferry. Brown’s raid failed to initiate the slave revolt he intended, but was the instigating event that started the Civil War.  The eight-part limited event series will premiere on Sunday, February 16, 2020 at 10 PM ET/PT.  Source(s):  Deadline; IMDB; Vital Thrills; Wikipedia; Themoviedb.org.

Trailer:

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The New Edition Story

the-new-edition-story-stillRelease Date:  1/24/17, 1/25/17, 1/26/17; BET
Genre:  Biography
Rating:  NR
Director:  Chris Robinson
Studio(s):   Black Entertainment Television (BET), Jesse Collins Entertainment.

Cast:   Bryshere Y. Gray (Michael Bivins) Dante Hoagland (Young Michael), Elijah Kelley (Ricky Bell), Caleb McLaughlin (Young Ricky), Luke James (Johnny Gill), Algee Smith (Ralph Tresvant), Jahi Winston (Young Ralph), Keith Powers  (Ron Devoe), Myles Truitt (Young Ron), Woody McClain (Bobby Brown), Tyler Williams (Young Bobby), Anika C. McFall (Carolyn Busby), La La Anthony (Flo DeVoe), Durrell Babbs (Jheryl Busby), Raven Bowens (Teasha Bivins), Noel Braham (Ray Parker, Jr.), Bre-z ( Peanut Bell), Yvette Nicole Brown (Shirley Bivins), Monica Calhoun (Patricia Tresvant), Lisa Nicole Carson (Mae Bell), Chelsea Diggs-Smith (Amber Tresvant), Faizon Love (Maurice Starr).

Story:  The miniseries follows the rise and fall of the ’80s boy band (featuring Bobby Brown, Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, DeVoe, Johnny Gill and Ralph Tresvant) that paved the way for other groups like Boyz II Men, NSYNC, The Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block.  The group reached enormous heights in the ’80s and ’90s, but struggled to share the limelight, causing tension and deep rifts between its individual members.  Source:  ETonline.  Photo Source:  BET.

Trailer:

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The Book of Negroes

The Book of Negroes Movie StillRelease Date: 2/16/15 (Made-for-TV)
Genre: Drama
Rating: Not Available
Director: Clement Virgo
Studios: Conquering Lion Pictures, Out of Africa Entertainment

Cast:  Aunjanue Ellis (Aminata Diallo), Cuba Gooding, Jr. (Sam Fraunces), Ben Chaplin (Captain John Clarkson), Louis Gossett, Jr. (Daddy Moses), Greg Bryk (Robertson Appleby), Jane Alexander (Maria Witherspoon), Allan Hawco (Solomon Lindo), Rick Roberts (General Washington), Lyriq Bent (Chekura Tiano), Stephan James (Cummings Shackspear).

Details:  According to Shadow and Act, the novel’s synopsis reads: abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffle—a string of slaves— Aminata Diallo is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. But years later, she forges her way to freedom, serving the British in the Revolutionary War and registering her name in the historic “Book of Negroes.” This book, an actual document, provides a short but immensely revealing record of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the US for resettlement in Nova Scotia, only to find that the haven they sought was steeped in an oppression all of its own.

Aunjanue Ellis stars as Aminata Diallo, while Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lou Gossett, Jr. play Sam Fraunces and Daddy Moses respectively.  Gooding’s Fraunces is a freed slave from Jamaica who runs his namesake tavern (Fraunces Tavern), participates in several historical events, and later moves to Mount Vernon to run George Washington’s household.  Daddy Moses is Moses ‘Daddy’ Wilkinson or Old Moses, an African American slave, and Methodist preacher in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone. Though blind and crippled, Wilkinson led a band of runaway slaves to freedom in 1776.  Also Lyriq Bent is playing Chekura, who, as a young boy, made the crossing with Aminata when she was sold into slavery, is separated from her, and later reunites with her when they are adults, and have a child together.

The adaptation of the novel will be a 6-hour TV mini-series which will air on BET Networks in the U.S. in February 2015 and CBC in Canada on January 7, 2015.

Source(s): Shadow and Act; IMDB.

Trailer:

 

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