Negromancer News Bits and Bites from November 1st to 5th, 2016 - Update #15

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MOVIES - From Variety:  Rami Malek, the Emmy-winning star of "Mr. Robot," play the late rock singer Freddie Mercury in a long-developed biopic.  Bryan Singer may direct.

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BOX OFFICE - From BoxOfficeMojo:  Update - "Doctor Strange" has a $9.4 million Thursday night.

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MOVIES - From Variety:  Adam Driver and Rooney Mara join Leos Carax's "Annette."

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SPORTS - From ChicagoTribune:  Chicago Cubs win 2016 World Series.

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BOX OFFICE - From BoxOfficeMojo:  "Doctor Strange" set to go kaboom at the weekend box office.

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MOVIES - From YahooMovies:  Quentin Tarantino reiterates that he is retiring after his 10th film, which mean he has two left.

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MOVIES - From Variety:  Samuel L. Jackson joins Travis Fimmel in the sci-fi film, "Inversion."

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BLM - From MintPressNews:  San Francisco 49ers quarerback, Colin Kaepernick, has started a camp to help children fight oppression.  It seems inspired by the Black Panthers.

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BOX OFFICE - From Variety:  Disney has best ever box office year - beating its own record from 2015.

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MOVIES - From YahooMovies:  Entertainment Weekly has a cover feature on next year's like action "Beauty and the Beast" from Disney.

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OBIT - From Variety:  The actor, Don Marshall, has died at the age of 80, Sunday, October 30, 2016.  The African-American actor is known for his appearances in "Star Trek" (the original) and "Julia" and for a recurring role on "Land of the Giants."

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BOX OFFICE - From YahooMovies:  Why has the Fall 2016 movie box office been bleak?

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POLITICS - From YahooNews:  President Obama sings Prince's "Purple Rain" to a kid dressed as Prince at the White House Halloween party.

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COMICS-FILM: From Variety:  Rick Famuyiwa leaves Warner's "The Flash."

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TELEVISION - From Variety:  "The Good Fight," the spinoff of CBS' "The Good Wife," begins production.

TRAILERS:

From YouTube:  New "Wonder Woman" trailer.

From YouTube:  Official trailer for "A Cure for Wellness" which is due February 2017.

Negromancer News Bits and Bites from June 1st to 4th, 2016 - Update #26

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OBIT - From RollingStone:  Boxing legend, world icon, and American legend, Muhammad Ali, has died at the age of 74, Friday, June 3, 2016.

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COMICS - From WeGotThisCovered:  The title of Warner's "Justice League" movie is "Justice League."

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COMICS - From CinemaBlend:  Chris Evans (Captain America) like the idea of Oscar-winner Brie Larson as Captain Marvel.  Marvel is reportedly in talks with Larson to play the role.

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COMICS - From CinemaBlend:  Marvel Studios may have recovered the film rights to Namor the Sub-Mariner.

From CinemaBlend:  and actor Brian Tee has started campaigning to be Namor.

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COMICS - From TheWrap:  Bryan Singer, the director of several X-Men movies, wants there to be a Mystique movie.  Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence currently plays the character.

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OBITS - From YahooSports:  Donny Everett, a freshman pitcher for Vanderbilt University, has died at the age of 19, Thursday, June 2, 2016.  He apparently drowned while fishing with friends.

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POLITICS - From the LATimes:  Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick on the unnecessary atomic bombing of Japan during WWII.

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COMICS - From SlashFilm:  Ben Affleck's solo Batman movie will tell an original story.

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MOVIES - From THR:  Bill Skarsgard will play "Pennywise the Clown" in the new 2-part film adaptation of Stephen King's "It."

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COMICS - From THR:  Warner Bros. has picked Rick Famuyima to replace Seth Grahame-Smith as director of its "Flash" movie.  Famuyima earned acclaim for his film, "Dope."

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MUSIC - From YahooNews:  Tests show Prince OD'd on opiods.

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BLACK LIVES MATTER - From Slate:  Rich white Oklahoma man who shot and killed a Black man while playing deputy sentenced to four years in prison.

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MOVIES - From THR:  Indiana man has been accused of killing three people in attacks modeled after the 2013 film, "The Purge."

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MOVIES - From THR:  Stefano Sollima named the director of the "Sicario" sequel, which is entitled "Soldado."

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COMICS - From CinemaBlend:  Simon Kinberg, one of the problems with the 2015 Fantastic Four reboot, talks about what went wrong with the film.

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COMICS - From CBR:  Marvel cannot use the classic Avengers villain, Kang, in Marvel movies.

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COMICS - From Variety:   Oscar-winner Brie Larson (Room) is the frontrunner to play "Captain Marvel" in the Marvel Studios film of the same name.

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MOVIES - From DarkHorizons:  Danish director Susanne Bier has made a shortlist of directors who may helm the next James Bond film.  Bier directed "In a Better World," the winner of a "Best Foreign Language Film" Oscar.

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COMICS - From CourtoftheDead:  The "Court of the Dead" merchandising line will be a comic book.

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COMICS - From THR:  FX orders 8 episodes of "Legion," an X-Men television series.

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COMICS - From ScreenRant:  Set photos from "Wolverine 3" reveal that the film may be adapting the popular "Old Man Logan" story from the comic book.

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HARRY POTTER - From BBC:  Photos of the actors in the stage play, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," have been released.  Previews of the show begin June 7, 2016.

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TELEVISION - From YahooCelebrity:  The actor Michael Jace, who appeared on the television series, "The Shield," was convicted by a jury of the second degree murder of his wife.

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COMICS - From Collider:  The third "Thor" film will integrate the "Planet Hulk" storyline, including the character, The Gamemaster.

COMICS - From JoBlo:  A "Guardians of the Galaxy 2" villain is revealed.

TRAILERS:

From YouTube:  Here is the new trailer for the film, "Monster Trucks."  Yeah, it's come to this.

Movie Review: "Brown Sugar" Was Much Needed

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 62 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux


Brown Sugar (2002)
Running time: 109 minutes (1 hour, 49 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for sexual content and language
DIRECTOR: Rick Famuyiwa
WRITERS: Michael Elliot and Rick Famuyiwa, from a story by Michael Elliot
PRODUCER: Peter Heller
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Earvin “Magic” Johnson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jeff Barnett and Enrique Chediak (director of photography)
EDITOR: Dirk Westervelt
Black Reel Award winner

ROMANCE with elements of drama

Starring: Taye Diggs, Sanaa Lathan, Mos Def, Nicole Ari Parker, Boris Kodjoe, and Queen Latifah

National Basketball Association legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson entered the world of filmmaking as executive producer in what 20th Century Fox billed as a hip-hop romance, Brown Sugar. The truth of the matter is that the hip-hop has very little to do with the romance other than being window dressing. The fact of the matter is that Brown Sugar is actually a nice romance.

Dre (Taye Diggs) and Sidney (Sanaa Lathan, Love & Basketball) have been friends since childhood. Dre is a successful record executive and Sidney wrote articles on hip-hop music for the Los Angeles Times before moving on to run XXL magazine. They’re each other’s best friend, sharing the good times and the bad and sharing gossip and the intimate secrets of their lives. They only once came close to consummating their deep friendship as serious love, but avoided it. However, when Dre rushes into marriage with Reese (Nicole Ari Parker, Remember the Titans), a high society money girl that he hasn’t known very long, Sidney has mixed feelings, and her deeper love for Dre begins to surface.

Director Rick Famuyiwa (The Wood) and co-writer Michael Elliot seemed determined to make a film that’s simply about romance in which hip-hop is as important to the story as the romance is. Both characters are obviously big fans of hip-hop; both their careers are built around it. The writers even have the characters mouth platitudes about how great hip-hop is. But no matter how much they talk about hip-hop, rap music, or whatever you want to call it, the story of the film is about two friends finally succumbing to the love they have for each other that they both denied for so long, a denial that has one in a bad marriage and the other about to enter into one. The hip-hop love jones is strained and forced, and it severely hampers the romantic center of this movie; the love story is natural and flows.

This film may not be as well known as more “mainstream” and “traditional” romantic films like Sleepless in Seattle or When Harry Met Sally, but Brown Sugar is good. It’s not perfect, but when I was growing up, films like this simply didn’t exist. They couldn’t; racist Hollywood didn’t want to make them, and the beast always claimed that there was no audience for such a film. Well, there’s always an audience for good films; it may not be as large as the audience for Titanic, but people will find a good movie.

I must say that the performances outshine the film. Taye Diggs is a good actor, and he has the stature and emotional range to play a leading man. Can’t you just see how much fun he would have been in something like Boomerang? Ms. Lathan is new to me, but I like what she has to offer. She easily skates through her character of this soft script, managing to be a comedian, a heroine, and a lovelorn professional gal just looking for true love. Queen Latifah adds spark to this film, although her part is quite small, but her hip-hop colleague, Mos Def, is another find. He played the sidekick very well, and he manages to be “real” as a hip-hop artist without once calling a bitch a ho or threatening to peal a nigga’s cap back. He’s a natural, quite comfortable on screen, and I hope to see more of him.

If Magic Johnson has more films like Brown Sugar up his sleeves, by all means, he should go to fewer Laker games and more studio briefings.

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