Thursday, August 20, 2020

BET Her Presents Breonna Taylor Special by the NBA's Kyrie Irving

BET Her, the Network Dedicated to Black Women, Partners With PlayersTV to Air Kyrie Irving’s Breonna Taylor Special, “#SayHerName, Justice For Breonna Taylor”

The One-hour Special Premieres Saturday, August 22, 2020 at 9 PM ET/PT Only on BET Her and Saturday, August 29 at 11 PM ET/PT on BET

In addition to driving action around Breonna Taylor’s case, the special will feature panel conversations with Kyrie Irving, Common, Jemele Hill, Dr. Brittney Cooper, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, among other leading voices on the frontlines of the movement

#JusticeForBreonnaTaylor

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BET Her announced the airing of “#SayHerName, Justice For Breonna Taylor,” produced by six-time NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving. On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was fatally shot in her home by Louisville police enforcement, executing a no-knock search warrant. The warrant was not issued for Breonna Taylor. More than three months later, the officers responsible for her death still walk the streets as free men.

The one-hour special explores the importance of movements like #SayHerName and examines how Breonna’s murder highlights the lack of awareness around Black women victims of police brutality. Premiering Saturday, August 22, 2020 at 9 PM ET/PT on BET Her, “#SayHerName, Justice For Breonna Taylor,” will feature panel conversations with leading voices on the frontlines of the movement, including six-time NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving, award-winning artist Common, acclaimed journalist Jemele Hill, author Dr. Brittney Cooper, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham, and Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza. Additionally, the special will provide viewers with several actionable steps to drive change and demand #JusticeForBreonnaTaylor. An encore presentation of “#SayHerName, Justice For Breonna Taylor,” will air Saturday, August 29, 2020 at 11 PM ET/PT on BET.

    “Too often, there is silence when Black Women are killed by law enforcement. While millions of protestors have taken to the streets demanding change, we must continue calling for justice for Breonna Taylor whose case remains largely disconnected from the broader narrative”

“It is critical to magnify how Black women are, tragically, also subject to lethal police brutality, and we must demand that Breonna Taylor’s killers are brought to justice. We are committed to utilizing our platforms to drive awareness and sustainable impact. We stand in solidarity with Breonna’s family and all of the voices on the frontlines fighting for justice to be served.” said Scott Mills, President, BET.

“Too often, there is silence when Black Women are killed by law enforcement. While millions of protestors have taken to the streets demanding change, we must continue calling for justice for Breonna Taylor whose case remains largely disconnected from the broader narrative,” said Tavia Pitts, VP of Ad Sales, "BET Her is dedicated to bringing awareness to important issues directly affecting the Black community, specifically Black women. We are proud to partner with Kyrie, PlayersTV, and the many leading voices in the frontlines fighting for bold reforms that address racially biased policing and misuse of force. Together, we will not be ignored.”

Throughout the broadcast, specific calls to action will be made available to the public, including:

  •     Dial 844-298-2731 to demand Louisville City Leadership get #JusticeForBreonnaTaylor via Color of Change.
  •     Check your voter registration status and register to vote at Vote.Org.
  •     Sign the Justice For Breonna Taylor petition today on Change.Org.
  •     CALL Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron at 502-696-5300 and demand he charge the officers who murdered Breonna Taylor via Until Freedom.
  •     Post on social media using #SayHerName and #JusticeForBreonnaTaylor to raise awareness about Breonna's case.

The program is also supported by Color Of Change, Vote.org, Until Freedom, Black Future's Lab, The Gathering For Justice, MoveOn, Vera Institute For Justice, Harness, ACLU, Campaign Zero, Imagine Justice and PlayersTV.

“#SayHerName, Justice For Breonna Taylor,” joins BET’s roster of programs produced from its media-focused initiative “Content For Change.” The initiative helps address systemic racism, and inequities in America including racial justice, economic empowerment, education, health, and civic participation.

For more details on “#SayHerName, Justice For Breonna Taylor,” please visit www.bet.com and follow @BETHerTV & @BETNews across social platforms to join the conversation using the hashtag #JusticeForBreonnaTaylor.


About BET:
BET, a subsidiary of ViacomCBS Inc. (NASDAQ: VIACA, VIAC), is the nation's leading provider of quality entertainment, music, news and public affairs television programming for the African American audience. The primary BET channel is in 90 million households and can be seen in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, sub-Saharan Africa and France. BET is the dominant African-American consumer brand with a diverse group of business extensions including BET.com, a leading Internet destination for Black entertainment, music, culture, and news; BET HER, a 24-hour entertainment network targeting the African-American Woman; BET Music Networks - BET Jams, BET Soul and BET Gospel; BET Home Entertainment; BET Live, BET’s growing festival business; BET Mobile, which provides ringtones, games and video content for wireless devices; and BET International, which operates BET around the globe.

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"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" Crosses One Billion in Global Box Office

The Magic Continues as “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” Crosses the Billion-dollar Mark at the Worldwide Box Office

The film’s hugely successful release in China pushes its global box office take past the billion-dollar milestone

BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nearly two decades after first enchanting movie audiences, the first of the Harry Potter blockbusters, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” has crossed $1 billion at the global box office. The announcement was made by Andrew Cripps, President, International Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures.

    “We are thrilled to see ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ delight a new generation of audiences. The popularity of the film with moviegoers in China, who are discovering it for the first time, proves that the appeal of these stories is truly timeless and universal.”

The 4K 3D restoration of the beloved Wizarding World film opened in China on August 14, 2020 and has taken in an estimated $1,001,260,000 worldwide to date and still climbing. It is now the second film in the film series to reach the billion-dollar milestone following “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2,” which was released in 2011 and has grossed $1.34 billion globally. It is another benchmark for the enduringly popular film franchise, which has now earned $7.74 billion.

Andrew Cripps stated, “We are thrilled to see ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ delight a new generation of audiences. The popularity of the film with moviegoers in China, who are discovering it for the first time, proves that the appeal of these stories is truly timeless and universal.”

“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” tells the story of a boy who, on his 11th birthday, learns that he is the orphaned son of two powerful wizards and possesses unique magical powers of his own. Invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry embarks on the adventure of a lifetime. At Hogwarts, he finds the home and the family he has never had.

Warner Bros. Pictures presents a Heyday Films/1492 Pictures/Duncan Henderson Production of a Chris Columbus film, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, John Cleese, Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, Richard Griffiths, Richard Harris, Ian Hart, John Hurt, Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw, Maggie Smith and Julie Walters.

The film was directed by Chris Columbus from a screenplay by Steve Kloves, based on the beloved novel Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling. David Heyman produced the film, with Chris Columbus, Mark Radcliffe, Michael Barnathan and Duncan Henderson serving as executive producers.

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Tuesday, August 18, 2020

THE CONTENDER: The Story of Marlon Brando (Negromancer Book Review)

THE CONTENDER: THE STORY OF MARLON BRANDO
HARPERCOLLINS – @HarperCollins @HarperBooks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: William J. Mann – @WilliamJMann
ISBN: 978-0-06-242764-9; hardcover (October 15, 2019)
736pp, B&W, $35.00 U.S.

Who is Marlon Brando?  Some would, will, and will always tell you that he was and is the greatest American film actor of all time.  Marlon Brando won two Academy Awards, for his performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954) and again for his performance as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972).  His performance as Terry Malloy is considered the performance that changed film-acting in American motion pictures.

Marlon Brando the Hollywood legend was born Marlon Brando Jr. on April 3, 1924 to Dorothy Julia “Dodie” (Pennebaker) and Marlon Brando Sr. in Omaha, Nebraska.  He grew up in Libertyville, Illinois (where he met Wally Cox, an actor who would be a lifelong friend), and even attended a military school.  But who was Marlon Brando?

The award-winning film biographer, William J. Mann (Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn), presents a deeply-textured, ambitious, and definitive portrait of Marlon Brando.  The greatest movie actor of the twentieth century was also elusive, and Mann brings his extraordinarily complex life into view as never before in the biography, The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando.

The most influential movie actor of his era, Marlon Brando changed the way other actors perceived their craft.  His natural, honest, and deeply personal approach to acting resulted in performances, especially in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront, that are considered to be without parallel.  Americans hailed Brando as the “American Hamlet.”  He was the Yank who surpassed Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, and Ralph Richardson, the holy trinity and the royalty of British stage and screen, as the standard of greatness in mid-twentieth century acting.

Brando’s impact on American culture, however, went beyond acting.  He was was also one of the first American movie stars to use his fame as a platform to address social, political, and moral issues, and he courageously and boldly called out the United States' deeply rooted, persistent racism.

The Contender illuminates this cultural icon for a new age, and Mann, its author, argues that Brando was not only a great actor, but also a cultural soothsayer.  Mann reveals that Brando was a Cassandra warning America about the challenges to come.  Brando’s admonitions against making financial gain the primary purpose of nearly every aspect of the nation's culture, and his criticisms that the news media's obsession with celebrity and other shallow and ultimately unimportant subjects were prescient.  Many public figures, from fellow Hollywood actors to politicians and media figures, criticized Brando's public protests against racial segregation and discrimination at the height of the Civil Rights movement. Yet less than half a century later, Brando's actions as an activist and an advocate have become the model many actors follow today.

In The Contender, William J. Mann shows the sides of Marlon Brando that many moviegoers never imagined him to have.  From his childhood traumas to the evolution of his professional life and the growing mess of his personal life, Marlon Brando is revealed anew.

THE LOWDOWN:  William J. Mann's biography of Marlon Brando is a story that runs over 600 pages.  That is not counting the section entitled “Marlon Brando Stage and Television Credits;” a two-page “Sources” section; and a 60-page “Notes” section.  Mann's The Contender is not only “psychologically astute” as the book's press materials state; it is also painstakingly and masterfully researched.  Mann's research is based on new material, previously revealed material, and interviews with the people who knew Marlon Brando, some of whom died during the time Mann worked on this book.

Mann's book is not a Hollywood tell-all, nor is it a celebratory festival of Brando's work.  The Contender explores the man that Brando was, and being a ground-breaking, celebrated, and revered actor was only part of the man.  To that end, The Contender and its author told me things that I did not know about Brando.  I did not know that he was “sexually fluid,” having sexual relationships with both men and women.  I did not know that he was a hopeless philanderer and womanizer; Brando cheated on every woman he dated or was married to – often with multiple women.

I did not know that Brando did not consider acting to be something important.  He certainly had a fidelity to his vocation, as seen in his numerous performances on film, but he did not take the profession seriously.  He did not tolerate people whom he believed took acting too seriously.

I had no idea that Brando supported human rights causes for African-Americans and supported the Civil Rights movement, both financially and in person, up to the time of his death.  He participated in numerous marches, including some in the American south.  Brando was also a participant in the 1963 “March on Washington.”  Brando was also a vocal and tireless advocate for Native Americans, which including him declining his best actor Oscar for The Godfather at the 45th Academy Awards on March 27, 1973 in protest of the way the U.S. had treated American Indians.

It is not so much that Mann tells Brando's story in vivid detail, which he does.  It is also that Mann uses his prose to transport readers back to the times and places of many key moments in Brando's life.  Mann puts us there, right next to his subject, and the result is the story that makes you think and feel the man, his life, and his times.  This is a big book for a monumental figure in American culture.  The Contender is a dazzling biography, the kind befitting our nation's greatest actor.

It took me forever to read this biography – seven months.  By the time, I finished, however, I wished there were more.  The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando is for all time the biography for Marlon Brando fans and admirers, present and future.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans and students of Hollywood films and of Marlon Brando will want to read The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando.

[The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando includes sixteen pages of photographs.]

8 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


https://williamjmann.com/
https://twitter.com/WilliamJMann

Facebook: @Harper1817
Instagram: @HarperBooks


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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Monday, August 17, 2020

BOOM! Studios Shipping from Diamond Distributors for August 19, 2020

BOOM! STUDIOS

JAN201335    ANGEL SEASON 11 LIBRARY ED HC    $29.99
APR201364    FAITHLESS II #3 CVR A LLOVET (MR)    $3.99
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FEB201290    GO GO POWER RANGERS TP VOL 07    $16.99
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APR201374    JIM HENSON DARK CRYSTAL AGE RESISTANCE #10 CVR B MATTHEWS CO    $3.99
APR201371    ONCE & FUTURE #10    $3.99
FEB201340    OVER GARDEN WALL SOULFUL SYMPHONIES TP    $14.99
JUN200764    POWER RANGERS DRAKKON NEW DAWN #1 CVR A MAIN SECRET    $4.99
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MAR201359    QUOTABLE GIANT DAYS GN    $14.99
JUN208620    SOMETHING IS KILLING CHILDREN #7 (2ND PTG)    $3.99

Dark Horse Comics Shipping from Diamond Distributors for August 19, 2020

DARK HORSE COMICS

APR200392    ART OF DRAGON PRINCE HC    $39.99
JAN200399    CYBERPUNK 2077 KITSCH PUZZLE    $19.99
JAN200400    CYBERPUNK 2077 NEOKITSCH PUZZLE    $19.99
JUN200310    DRAGON AGE BLUE WRAITH HC (RES)    $17.99

DC Comics Shipping from Diamond Distributors for August 19, 2020

DC COMICS

MAR200619    BATMAN BY GRANT MORRISON OMNIBUS HC VOL 03    $75.00
OCT190663    GREEN ARROW LONGBOW HUNTERS OMNIBUS HC VOL 01    $150.00

Dynamite Entertainment Shipping from Diamond Distributors for August 19, 2020

DYNAMITE

APR201139    BETTIE PAGE #1 KANO LTD VIRGIN VAR    $50.00
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