Release Date:8/18/20; DVD (Original Release – 3/27/20; Limited) Genre: Drama Rating: PG-13 Director: Mark Amin Studio(s):Hudlin Entertainment, Sobini Films Running Time:99 mins.
Cast:Dayo Okeniyi (Shields Green), Naturi Naughton (Sarah Green), Kat Graham (Delores), Mykelti Williamson (Truesdale), James Cromwell (John Brown), Bruce Dern (Levi Coffin), Harry Lennix (Frederick Douglass).
Story: Emperor is inspired by the legend of Shields ‘Emperor’ Green, a descendant of African kings turned outlaw slave in the pre-Civil War South. Seeking freedom for his family, Emperor fights his way north, joining the daring raid on Harper’s Ferry and helping alter the course of American history. Source(s): Emperor, official site; IMDB.
Cast: Trai Byers (Boston), Bashir Salahuddin (Big Joe), Aja Naomi King (Marie), Mo McRae (Walker), Tosin Morohunfola (Franklin), Mykelti Williamson (Sgt. Hayes), Thomas Haden Church (Col. Norton), Lorenzo Yearby (Lucky).
Story: The 24th tells the true story of the all-black Twenty-Fourth United States Infantry Regiment, and the Houston Riot of 1917. The Houston Riot was a mutiny by 156 African American soldiers in response to the brutal violence and abuse at the hands of Houston police officers. The riot lasted two hours and led to the death of nine civilians, four policemen and two soldiers. It resulted in the largest murder trial in history, which sentenced a total of 19 men to execution, and 41 to life sentences.
America has just entered the Great War, but is refusing to send black troops into combat. Instead of heading to the front lines, the Twenty-Fourth Infantry is sent to Houston, Texas to oversee the construction of Camp Logan for the Illinois National Guard. William Boston is forced to choose between his love for a young woman and leading an attack by 156 African American soldiers on a brutal and racist police force. This incident lead to what is now called the Houston Riot of 1917. Source(s): Deadline; sxsw.com.
Release Date: 8/30/19 Genre:Horror Rating: NR Director:Jacob Estes Studio(s): Blumhouse Productions Running Time:103 mins. Cast: David Oyelowo, Storm Reid, Mykelti Williamson, Alfred Molina, Brian Tyree Henry.
Story:Los Angeles detective Jack Radcliff fields a distressed phone call from his niece Ashley and rushes to the rescue—only to find the girl and her parents dead in an apparent murder-suicide. Then, just as the police department declares the killings an open-and-shut case, Jack gets another call from Ashley. With the cell-phone connection acting as a link between the past and the present, Jack urges Ashley to collect clues that will help him to solve her murder and change her fate. Source: Sundance.org.
Release Date: 1/18/19; In Theaters Genre: Drama/Thriller Rating: NR Running Time: Unknown Director: Rhyan LaMarr Studio(s): BondIt, Canal Street, NYC Films, Red Guerilla Productions, Smith Global Media Cast: Mykelti Williamson (Jackie Styles), Bryshere Y. Gray (Kholi Styles), Clayne Crawford (Brian), Yancey Arias (D. J. Wado), Lance Reddick (Jerry Shaw), Mekhi Phifer (Prosecutor A.J. Canton), Michael Beach (Ronald Morgan), Harry Lennix (DJ Terrance Palmer).
Story: The story centers on a father and his teenage son who uproot from the South Side of Chicago and move to Winnetka after a death in the family. The fish-out-of-water lead-up in Canal Street — moving from the South Side and readjusting to life in Winnetka — is something of a fake-out, and the story soon takes an entirely different turn. Writer-director Rhyan LaMarr states, “The son, his name is Kholi, eventually befriends Brian, a jock at the school. They end up getting invited to a homecoming party, and Kholi brings some of his friends from the old neighborhood. At the end of the night, kids being kids, they’ve been drinking, Kholi gives Brian a ride home, and then he’s going to drop his friends from the South Side off at the Red Line.
Halfway to the train, he realizes Brian has left his wallet in the car, so he turns around and he’s headed back to drop the wallet off when he sees a body lying in front of the house — and it’s Brian. Kholi’s friends are like, ‘It’s 3 o’clock in the morning and we’re in the wrong neighborhood — we need to leave.’ But Kholi, being the guy he is, says, ‘I’m not going to leave him like this’ … and in a matter of minutes, Kholi is pinned for the murder.” Kholi’s father is an attorney and takes up his son’s case. Source: Chicago Tribune.
Release Date: 12/25/16 (In Theaters) Genre:Drama Rating: Unknown Running Time:139 mins. Director: Denzel Washington Studio: Bron Studios, MACRO, Paramount Pictures, Scott Rudin Productions
Cast: Denzel Washington (Troy), Viola Davis (Rose), Mykelti Williamson (Gabriel), Russell Hornsby (Grimm), Stephen Henderson (Bono), Saniyya Sidney (Raynell) Jovan Adepo (Cory).
Story: In Fences, Denzel Washington returns to the director’s chair for the fourth time in his career. It’s based on a play by August Wilson that won a Pulitzer Prize and multiple Tony Awards, revolving around a sanitation worker in Pittsburgh who is haunted by his dream as a young man to become a professional baseball player, at a time before the major leagues were integrated. Washington starred with Viola Davis in a Broadway revival of the play in 2010, which won Tony Awards for both of them. The two are reprising their roles as Troy and Rose in the movie.Joining Washington and Davis in front of the camera are: Mykelti Williamson, Russell Hornsby, Jovan Adepo and Saniyya Sidne.
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Details:Back in 1987, Wilson’s play was set up at Paramount as a potential vehicle for Eddie Murphy, who was looking for a serious role. He had his eye on a part as the older son of Troy Maxson, currently played by Washington in both a stage version of the play and the movie. By December 1988, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, now extinct, had Murphy rewriting his own character, which, according to the paper, he thought “came off too wimpy in the play.” Eventually, he left the writing to Wilson, but the project became tangled in the playwright’s insistence that Fences, which deals with racial barriers and intricate family relations, should have a black director. “Until the industry is ready to hire a black to direct De Niro or Redford, blacks should at least be able to direct their own experience,” he said in January 1990, at a conference sponsored by the California Afro-American Museum. “White directors are not qualified for the job. The job requires someone who shares the specifics of the culture of black Americans,” Wilson added.
Actually, Paramount was trying to accommodate. A black executive worked on the film and by 1992 Paramount was in talks with John Singleton, who was then riding high on his success with Boyz N The Hood. Ultimately, Singleton bowed out, as did Murphy. Produce Scott Rudin appears to have gotten involved in about 1997, when he was still a powerhouse producer at Paramount. Eventually, Rudin sent Wilson’s script to Washington, as a potential director. Washington, according to people who have tracked the project through the years, said yes; but he wanted to revive it first on Broadway, which he did. Wilson died in 2005, but his one-man campaign for a black-directed film became something of a movement.
Fences which opens nationwide on Christmas Day, is beginning to look like a serious rival to Nate Parker’s The Birth Of A Nation along with Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight and perhaps others to carry the torch for black cinema. Sources: Shadow and Act; Movies.com; Deadline.
Release Date: 8/18/20; DVD (Original Release – 3/27/20; Limited)
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Black Cinema Connection 