The nominees for the 42nd Annual NAACP Image Awards were recently announced. The press release is long, so I’m breaking it up over several posts:
“42ND NAACP IMAGE AWARDS” NOMINEES ANNOUNCED
Special Airs Live Friday, March 4, on FOX
The 42ND NAACP IMAGE AWARDS nominees were announced today during a live press conference from the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills, CA. Actresses Kimberly Elise and Sanaa Lathan, actor/rapper Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, singer/songwriter Smokey Robinson, actor Columbus Short and Actor/Comedian Affion Crockett joined NAACP IMAGE AWARDS chairman Clayola Brown and 42ND NAACP IMAGE AWARDS executive producer Vic Bulluck to announce the categories and nominees.
The 42nd NAACP IMAGE AWARDS celebrates the accomplishments of people of color in the fields of television, music, literature and film. The awards also honor individuals or groups who promote social justice through creative endeavors during the two-hour event airing live Friday, March 4 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on FOX. ABC and NBC lead the nominees in the TV categories, each with 18 nominations, followed by TBS with 12, CBS with 10, and Lifetime Movie Network with 9. In the recording category, Columbia Records leads with seven nominations, followed by J Records and Island Def Jam Music Group both with six and Epic Records with 5 nominations. Lionsgate/34th Street Films leads with seven nominations, while Fox Searchlight followed with six, and Magnolia Pictures with five in the motion picture category.
Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. The organization’s half-million adult and youth members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities and monitor equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.
Event sponsors for the 42nd NAACP Image Awards include FedEx, UAW/Chrysler, Wells Fargo, Anheuser-Busch, Ford Motor Company, Bank of America, and Hyundai.
Showing posts with label Columbus Short. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Columbus Short. Show all posts
Friday, January 14, 2011
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Review: "The Losers" is Just Not Good
The Losers (2010)
Running time: 97 minutes (1 hour, 37 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence, a scene of sensuality and language
DIRECTOR: Sylvain White
WRITERS: Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt (based upon the comic book series written by Andy Diggle and illustrated by Jock and published by DC Comics/Vertigo)
PRODUCERS: Kerry Foster, Akiva Goldsman, and Joel Silver
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Scott Kevan
EDITOR: David Checel
COMIC BOOK/ACTION/MILITARY
Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Columbus Short, Oscar Jaenada, Jason Patric, and Holt McCallany
The film, X-Men, which debuted in 2000, is seen as the film that began the current wave of superhero movies. In the 10 years since X-Men’s debut, the worst movie based upon a comic book that I have seen was The Punisher in 2004.
The Losers, a military-style action thriller which hit theatres this past April, is based upon a comic book of the same name. The Losers was published by DC Comics under its Vertigo imprint for 32 issues from 2003 to 2006. Written and created by Andy Diggle and drawn by the artist Jock (the British comics artist, Mark Simpson), the series followed a Special Forces team tied to the CIA and later betrayed by their CIA handler, Max.
The Losers is the worst comic book movie I’ve seen since The Punisher. The movie introduces an elite U.S. Special Forces unit sent into the Bolivian jungle on a search-and-destroy mission. The team is led by Franklin Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and includes William Roque (Idris Elba), Jake Jensen (Chris Evans), Linwood “Pooch” Porteous (Columbus Short) and Carlos “Cougar” Alvarez (Oscar Jaenada).
Despite a few surprises, the mission goes well until Clay and company are betrayed by their commander, Max (Jason Patric), a man whom they’ve never met. Presumed dead, the men struggle to make enough money to return to the U.S., but Clay is approached by Aisha (Zoe Saldana), a beautiful operative who offers to help them get home. Her price is what amounts to a suicide mission – kill the heavily-guarded Max. Meanwhile, Max is plotting to embroil the world in a global war by launching an environmentally-friendly bomb with the power of a nuclear weapon. But some of the people on this mission are also hiding secrets and plotting betrayal.
Like many current action movies, The Losers is slickly produced and offers plenty of flashy visuals, but it feels clunky and moves with an awkward gait, like a kid whose legs and feet are growing faster than he can adjust to them. In fact, for all the fast moving The Losers does, there is no sense of urgency in the characters. This is a guy movie about a band of guys (and one girl) who kick ass, but they just aren’t very interesting. Also, as Clay, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is just not cut out to be the lead in a movie.
Early in the film, Clay and his unit are supposedly desperate to go home, but don’t really seem to be doing much to get back. The entire bomb sub-plot just doesn’t have that ticking-time-bomb sense of urgency that films about bombs have (like the hugely underrated The Peacemaker from 1997). There is really only one truly cool moment here, and that is when Chris Evans’ Jake Jensen breaks into Goliath Worldwide Headquarters. The scene is so funny that it seems out of place with the rest of this sluggish movie.
Here, even the witty banter that is standard for a standard action flick is lame. Director Sylvain White, who used his flashy style to make Stomp the Yard feel so electric three years earlier, seems to know what he wants to do with The Losers. He simply made movie that makes it seem as if he didn’t know what he was doing. With The Losers, the viewer is the real loser.
2 of 10
D
Thursday, August 19, 2010
--------------------------
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Review: Sylvain White Made "Stomp the Yard" Step with Fire
TRASH IN MY EYE No. 79 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux
Stomp the Yard (2007)
Running time: 114 minutes (1 hour, 54 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for a scene of violence, some sexual material, and language
DIRECTOR: Sylvain White
WRITERS: Robert Adetuyi (based upon Gregory Anderson’s earlier screenplay)
PRODUCERS: William Packer and Rob Hardy
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Scott Kevan (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: David Checel
NAACP Image Awards nominee
DRAMA/MUSIC/ROMANCE
Starring: Columbus Short, Meagan Good, Ne-Yo, Darrin Dewitt Henson, Brian J. White, Laz Alonso, Valarie Pettiford, Jermaine Williams, Allan Louis, Harry J. Lennix, Allan Louis, and Chris Brown
In the film, Stomp the Yard, “stepping,” an ages-old style of dance done by African-American college fraternities, takes center stage. Steppers demonstrate complex moves and use their bodies to create rhythmic sounds (slapping their legs, clapping their hands, stomping their feet, etc.) While the drama is certainly good, this film’s electric vibe is the result of both Sylvain White’s direction and Dave Scott’s choreography.
After the shooting death of his brother, Duron (Chris Brown), Darnell James Williams or DJ (Columbus Short), a talented Los Angeles street dancer, finds himself in Atlanta with his Aunt Jackie (Valarie Pettiford) and Uncle Nate (Harry J. Lennix) and attending the historically black college, Truth University. As DJ struggles to adjust to this new world, much of it about class and privilege, his life becomes even more complicated when two rival fraternities recruit him. Mu Gamma Xi has won the college step championship for 7 years in a row. Theta Nu Theta wants to win, and they see DJ, with his hip-hop inspired moves, as the stepper who will get them over Mu Gamma’s title hump. However, it is DJ’s romance of April Palmer (Meagan Good), the refined daughter of Dean William Palmer (Allan Louis) and the girlfriend of Mu Gamma’s star stepper, Grant (Darrin Dewitt Henson), that just might derail his college career.
It is of great importance to reiterate how good the film’s raucous dancing is and how much of the film’s drama is invested in these astonishing dance moves. That’s why quite a bit of the film’s success should be credited to Dave Scott, who also choreographed You Got Served. Scott skillfully blends various dance styles into something new and very explosive.
Still, it’s director Sylvain White (I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer) who builds a sustainable narrative structure and riveting character drama out of the dancing. For the film’s opening minutes, White creates a sequence that is as intense and visually vibrant and forceful as anything in the film 300, which was released about a month after Stomp the Yard. White adroitly balances the eye-popping dance numbers with the drama of college life. In fact, White has directed the most realistic film about African-American college life since Spike Lee’s School Daze.
White makes the best of his leads, Columbus Short, who is more willing as an actor than he is skilled (so far), and Meagan Good, who is pretty but still very raw as an actress. Short is an accomplished dancer, having toured with Savion Glover’s “Stomp” dance extravaganza. Through the duo of Short and Good, however, White makes potent social statements about class conflict amongst African-Americans and also poverty and justice, and all the while, Stomp the Yard dances until your heart and spirit soar with these stunning steppers.
7 of 10
B+
Friday, May 18, 2007
NOTES:
2008 Image Awards: 3 nominations: “Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture” (Columbus Short), “Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture-Theatrical or Television” (Sylvain White), and “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture” (Meagan Good)
Stomp the Yard (2007)
Running time: 114 minutes (1 hour, 54 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for a scene of violence, some sexual material, and language
DIRECTOR: Sylvain White
WRITERS: Robert Adetuyi (based upon Gregory Anderson’s earlier screenplay)
PRODUCERS: William Packer and Rob Hardy
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Scott Kevan (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: David Checel
NAACP Image Awards nominee
DRAMA/MUSIC/ROMANCE
Starring: Columbus Short, Meagan Good, Ne-Yo, Darrin Dewitt Henson, Brian J. White, Laz Alonso, Valarie Pettiford, Jermaine Williams, Allan Louis, Harry J. Lennix, Allan Louis, and Chris Brown
In the film, Stomp the Yard, “stepping,” an ages-old style of dance done by African-American college fraternities, takes center stage. Steppers demonstrate complex moves and use their bodies to create rhythmic sounds (slapping their legs, clapping their hands, stomping their feet, etc.) While the drama is certainly good, this film’s electric vibe is the result of both Sylvain White’s direction and Dave Scott’s choreography.
After the shooting death of his brother, Duron (Chris Brown), Darnell James Williams or DJ (Columbus Short), a talented Los Angeles street dancer, finds himself in Atlanta with his Aunt Jackie (Valarie Pettiford) and Uncle Nate (Harry J. Lennix) and attending the historically black college, Truth University. As DJ struggles to adjust to this new world, much of it about class and privilege, his life becomes even more complicated when two rival fraternities recruit him. Mu Gamma Xi has won the college step championship for 7 years in a row. Theta Nu Theta wants to win, and they see DJ, with his hip-hop inspired moves, as the stepper who will get them over Mu Gamma’s title hump. However, it is DJ’s romance of April Palmer (Meagan Good), the refined daughter of Dean William Palmer (Allan Louis) and the girlfriend of Mu Gamma’s star stepper, Grant (Darrin Dewitt Henson), that just might derail his college career.
It is of great importance to reiterate how good the film’s raucous dancing is and how much of the film’s drama is invested in these astonishing dance moves. That’s why quite a bit of the film’s success should be credited to Dave Scott, who also choreographed You Got Served. Scott skillfully blends various dance styles into something new and very explosive.
Still, it’s director Sylvain White (I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer) who builds a sustainable narrative structure and riveting character drama out of the dancing. For the film’s opening minutes, White creates a sequence that is as intense and visually vibrant and forceful as anything in the film 300, which was released about a month after Stomp the Yard. White adroitly balances the eye-popping dance numbers with the drama of college life. In fact, White has directed the most realistic film about African-American college life since Spike Lee’s School Daze.
White makes the best of his leads, Columbus Short, who is more willing as an actor than he is skilled (so far), and Meagan Good, who is pretty but still very raw as an actress. Short is an accomplished dancer, having toured with Savion Glover’s “Stomp” dance extravaganza. Through the duo of Short and Good, however, White makes potent social statements about class conflict amongst African-Americans and also poverty and justice, and all the while, Stomp the Yard dances until your heart and spirit soar with these stunning steppers.
7 of 10
B+
Friday, May 18, 2007
NOTES:
2008 Image Awards: 3 nominations: “Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture” (Columbus Short), “Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture-Theatrical or Television” (Sylvain White), and “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture” (Meagan Good)
-----------------------------
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)