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28 Jan

Aldis Hodge Says Playing Hawkman in Black Adam is Still a Responsibility for Representation

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Warner’s DC Extended Universe films continues navigating an unconventional era, having premiered Wonder Woman 1984 as a day-and-date HBO Max streaming exclusive (until Jan. 24) in lieu of a prospectively profitable wide theatrical release. However, a grandiose return to theaters is eyed to start in 2022 with a barrage of DCEU movies, which will eventually yield the Dwayne Johnson-starring Black Adam. Auspiciously, that film will also debut the DCEU’s version of winged hero Hawkman, as played by Aldis Hodge, who comes into the role with extensive comic book research and the weight of being a black superhero on the big…
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27 Jan

How The Long Song Spotlights Ignored Black Caribbean History

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This article contains spoilers for The Long Song. The Long Song is the first miniseries featured in PBS Masterpiece’s 50th Anniversary season, and it’s U.S. arrival nearly three years after airing on BBC One is highlighting themes that some viewers may not be ready to process but that remain incredibly important. The show is an adaptation of Andrea Levy’s 2010 novel recounting the story of how Jamaican slaves gained their freedom in the 1830’s. Levy worked with white screenwriter Sarah Williams on the script for The Long Song before her death in 2019. Although some may want to criticize Williams’ involvement…
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18 Jan

Magic: The Gathering – The Legend of the Black Lotus Continues

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Every trading card game has those rare cards that are so few and far between, getting a glimpse at one in real life feels special. In Pokémon Trading Card Game, you’ve the likes of the pre-release Jungle Raichu, or the Pikachu Illustrator, and in Yu-Gi-Oh there’s the original print of Dark Magician Girl, or the Chinese Blue Eyes White Dragon. For Magic: The Gathering, there’s  the Power Nine, the most valuable of which is Black Lotus, and one’s about to become available – if you’ve got the money for it. The Power Nine are a set of cards that stretch…
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30 Dec

Does Marvel’s New Spider-Man Costume Point to a Black Widow Villain Connection?

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Ah, the new superhero costume reveal. That thing where the comic companies muck with some of their most iconic visuals to get a rise out of the fans, get eyes on their product, hopefully tell some kind of story with it, then go back to the status quo. Just now I’m getting memories of Norm MacDonald on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, breaking from the script to openly complain about Electric Blue Superman. While most of the time, these new looks get rather negative reactions, they at least happen for a reason. When Batman was redesigned in the ’90s to…
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21 Dec

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Ending Explained

Netflix, New DVD release, , , ,
This Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom analysis contains spoilers. You can find our spoiler-free review here. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom tells the story of a group of 1920s musicians, composites of session players at the time, waiting for “the Mother of the Blues” to bring her big voice to the big room at Hot Rhythm Recordings. “Ma” Rainey, positively channeled by Viola Davis in the film, owned the copyrights of her songs, some of which became blues standards. Her trumpet player, Levee, masterfully captured by Chadwick Boseman in his cinematic swan song, doesn’t catch that break. The young horn player spends…
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18 Dec

The Journey Of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom From Stage To Screen

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The new Netflix film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, starring Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman in his final screen role, is a searing drama set in 1920s Chicago, based on a Tony-winning play by legendary playwright August Wilson. The 1982 show is part of Wilson’s 10-play “Pittsburgh Cycle,” a series of plays mostly set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, each in a different decade, that use families in that neighborhood (where Wilson himself was born) as the lens through which Wilson examines the Black experience in America throughout the 20th century. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the exception. Set in…
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18 Dec

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Review: Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman Bring Fire to Blues

Netflix, New DVD release, , , , , ,
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a powerful, slow-building, jangling film that’s full of life. It may feel loose, but from the script to the cast, there’s not an ounce of fat on it. When the time comes, it delivers a brutal gut-punch, and then one more for the road. Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis take up all the oxygen every time they’re in the room, which makes the anticipation of their eventual showdown feel breathless. In sweltering 1927 Chicago, the legendary “Mother of the Blues” Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) is in town to record an album; her panic-y white manager…
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17 Dec

How Chadwick Boseman Created His Final Performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

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Last August, the world lost Chadwick Boseman, an incredibly talented actor whose relatively short filmography already included a number of great films. His indelible work as T’Challa in the groundbreaking Black Panther and other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — along with his transformation into a bona fide movie star — was a major step forward for the expansion of Black filmmaking and cultural recognition, both inherent aspects of Boseman’s career aspirations. Despite his struggle with colon cancer, which finally claimed him at the age of 43, Boseman made one last film before his death. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,…
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16 Dec

How Viola Davis Became A Blues Legend in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

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Premiering on Netflix this week, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a film adaptation of the award-winning 1982 play of the same name by August Wilson. The stage version was part of Wilson’s 10-play Pittsburgh Cycle, which acted as a chronicle the African American experience in the 20th century. And in the Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom portion of that cycle, events take place over the course of a single recording session in 1920s Chicago. There a fictionalized version of real-life blues singer Ma Rainey (played in the film by Viola Davis) and the members of her band–including the ambitious and hot-headed…
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11 Dec

Black Widow Sticking with Movie Theaters Shows Flaws in HBO Max Model

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You could practically hear the gasps of disappointment last night. Marvel fans around the world were so sure Disney’s call to investors would confirm what they wanted to hear—that Marvel Studios’ Black Widow is coming straight to Disney+. Instead they were forced to face Disney’s cold reality: It still doesn’t make much economic sense to release a potentially massive blockbuster like Black Widow on streaming without some type of theatrical window. At least not yet. To be sure, Disney is not against experimenting with putting major films on their streaming service. This year alone they have (or will soon) release…
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11 Dec

Is Black Widow in the Loki TV Series?

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Disney dropped so much exciting info during this week’s Investors Day that it was hard to keep up, but in terms of trailers for its upcoming Disney+ Marvel series, it only had three full reels to show – a new trailer for the Scarlet Witch and Vision show, WandaVision, a first proper look at The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and a magnificent, face-melting few minutes of Loki, its highly anticipated and pricey series featuring Tom Hiddleston reprising his role as the MCU’s fan-favorite villain over six long episodes coming to streaming next year. After the Loki trailer arrived, there…
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11 Dec

Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa Will Not Be Recast for Black Panther 2

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Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige confirmed today that the upcoming Black Panther sequel, known as Black Panther II, will not recast the central role of T’Challa, originally embodied by Chadwick Boseman. The announcement came near the tail end of Marvel’s presentation during Disney Investor Day, in which the multimedia conglomerate plotted out its ambitious upcoming schedule of movies and TV series for investors (and the world at large). Feige set aside some time to honor the life and legacy of Boseman, who died this August following a protracted, yet mostly private battle with colon cancer. According to Feige, the sequel…
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04 Dec

The Internet Wonders if Jack Black Could Replace Marvel Star Chris Pratt in Everything

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It’s been, ohh, maybe a week tops since Twitter last spent a solid amount of time dunking on Chris Pratt, but in the latest round of “wailing on Chris Pratt for [insert valid and not-so-valid reasons]” the platform’s users have posited that Pratt could easily be replaced by School of Rock star Jack Black in any role he’s inhabited to date. Why? Well, why not? It’s Twitter. The wealthy Pratt, who married Arnie’s daughter Katherine Schwarzenegger in 2019, has starred in a string of major blockbusters, including Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Endgame, Jurassic World and The Lego Movie,…
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03 Dec

Link Tank: Looking Back at Black Swan Through the Perspective of Ballerinas

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Black Swan may be a great movie, but a terrible reflection of the ballet world. Ten years later, that perception among ballerinas has not changed. “Ask any dancer: Ten years in the backbreaking world of ballet can be a lifetime, and Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is certainly starting to show its age. To some, it’s a time capsule from an ancient age in dance history, when misogyny and sexual exploitation went unchecked. But beneath its theatrics and fever dream of a third act, Black Swan still presents a mirror those dancers would rather bash and shatter…” Read more at Thrillist. From The Godfather to…
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30 Nov

Black Bear

Max SchindlerMovie reviews
At a remote lake house in the Adirondack Mountains, a couple entertains an out-of-town guest looking for inspiration in her filmmaking. The group quickly falls into a calculated game of desire, manipulation, and jealousy, unaware of how dangerously convoluted their lives will soon become in the filmmaker’s pursuit of a work of art, which blurs the boundaries between autobiography and invention.Rated: Not RatedRelease Date: Dec 04, 2020
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27 Nov

Best PS5 Holiday Gifts for Black Friday

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The PlayStation 5 is essentially sold out everywhere, though sporadic restocks are expected at retailers between now and Christmas. If you’re lucky enough to snag one, you’re going to make the gamer in your life very happy this holiday season. If you have managed to track a PS5 down, there are plenty of accessories and games that would make perfect companion pieces to Sony’s next-gen console. To help you out a bit, Den of Geek has picked the best PS5 gifts to get this holiday: PlayStation 5 $499.99 with disc drive, $399.99 without disc drive The hottest gift of the…
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27 Nov

Best Tech Holiday Gifts for Black Friday

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What’s better than a new getting a cool new gadget during the holidays? A new PC to game on, a brand new phone that doubles as a high-tech camera, a virtual reality headset that lets you explore game worlds like never before, or maybe you just want a bluetooth mug that keeps your coffee and tea at the right temperature. When it comes to cool tech gifts, the possibilities are truly endless! In fact, there’s almost too much choice. That’s why we’ve picked out the best tech gifts you can buy in various categories, from phones and PC gaming to…
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27 Nov

Best Xbox Series X Holiday Gifts for Black Friday

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With the Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft has entered the next generation of console gaming. As we said in our review, the Series X is the most powerful Microsoft console to date, with plenty of quality of life improvements that longtime Xbox fans will love. And thanks to a formidable lineup of next-gen titles as well as Xbox Game Pass and backward compatibility, there are plenty of games to play on the new console right out of the box. If you’re wondering how to get your hands on one of these consoles as well as what accessories and…
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27 Nov

Black Beauty Review: Disney+ Movie Leans Into the Horse Girl Tropes

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Since its release in 1877, Black Beauty has been published more than 50 millions times and seen at least a dozen screen and stage adaptations—most notably for this millennial, a 1994 film version featuring David Thewlis, Sean Bean, and Alan Cumming as the voice of Beauty. With a built-in audience like that it’s obvious why Disney wanted to get in on the horse story action with their own 2020 version. The result is less an adaptation of Anna Sewell’s original work and more a hodgepodge of horse-girl narrative tropes with some Black Beauty names and loose plot points slapped on…
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26 Nov

How to Buy a PS5 and Xbox Series X on Black Friday

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Black Friday is a retail nightmare, but for the unfortunate gamers still trying to get their hands on a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S before the end of 2020, the biggest shopping weekend of the year may be their best bet. While the already chaotic nature of the next-gen retail market will likely make buying a PS5 or Xbox Series X during Black Friday weekend very difficult, we have found several retailers that have either confirmed that they will be selling next-gen consoles during Black Friday weekend or are highly likely to be among your best bets. Here’s where…
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DVD Guide reviews current dvd releases of movies and TV shows. The reviews of these dvd releases are my thoughts and understandings of the movie, dvd releases or TV show and not be taken as fact.

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