First Look | Straight Outta Compton

Recently, media caught up with director F. Gary Gray who is in the pre-production stages of his next film, the N.W.A. biopic, Straight Outta Compton. Gray discusses what he hopes his film will achieve.

Five Flix | Charles Burnett

The phrase “independent filmmaker” gets thrown around and many use the art form as a way to break into mainstream films. One individual who remained true to his roots for the past 30 years is the underappreciated Charles Burnett.

Five Favs Black Movie Villians

This feature first appeared in Jet Magazine.com. To read this review at its original source, click here.

This week at the movies, iconic financial super villain Gordon Gekko returns in the sequel to the 1987 film, “Wall Street in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” But Gekko can’t hold a candle to our Five Favorite Black Movie Villains who in their own special way make everyone’s life a living hell!

Reel Shorts | The Lottery Ticket

This feature first appeared in Jet Magazine.com. To read this review at its original source, click here.

Fifteen years ago, F. Gary Gray’s comedy, “Friday” cleverly explored the story of two friends who spend the day smoking weed, chasing the neighborhood ladies and learning life lessons. While “The Lottery Ticket” treads the same terrain, this updated version lacks the imagination and humor, and wallows in negative stereotypes of African Americans disguised as comedy.

Reel Images | Lottery Ticket

Here is a gallery for the Bow Wow and Brandon T. Jackson hood comedy, “Lottery Ticket.”

10 Fearless Movie Fathers

This feature first appeared in Jet Magazine.com. To read this review at its original source, click here.

Throughout the long history of films, no member of the family has been more misunderstood than “dear old dad.” While Hollywood has routinely portrayed African-Americans fathers either as comic relief, absent or negatively, these men have largely been an afterthought in mainstream films until recently.

Conversations with . . . Ice Cube

by Kam Williams

Chilling with Ice
O’Shea Jackson was born on June 15, 1969, and adopted the cool alias “Ice Cube” before founding N.W.A. in the late 1980s. As the lyrical mastermind behind the legendary group’s Straight Outta Compton album, he literally launched the gangster rap revolution. And his subsequent solo material, including such early Nineties classic CDs as AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted and Death Certificate, solidified his place in the pantheon of the genre’s more socially-aware artists.

Reel Shorts | Are We Done Yet?

Back in the late-1980s and the early-1990s, long before he made his film debut as Doughboy in John Singleton’s searing classic, “Boyz ‘N the Hood,” Ice Cube was known primarily as an incredible lyricist.