Movies
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Numa Perrier's Jezebel Transforms the Exploitation of Black Girl Sexuality in the Most Tender, yet Powerful Way
When a black girl is seen—truly seen—its effect lingers on my skin like the warmest hug. With her feature film debut, Numa Perrier presents Jezebel, a strikingly beautiful coming-of-age exploration serving as a love story to the free agency of a black girl’s sexuality. Written and directed by Perrier, Jezebel also introduces us to the…
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King of Acting Denzel Washington in Talks to Star in New Macbeth Film
King Kong didn’t have shit on Denzel Washington in Training Day—now it looks like the fictional King of Scotland (in the 1600s, that is) won’t be able to, either. The two-time Academy Award winner is in talks to star in the latest screen adaptation of Shakepeare’s Macbeth, set to be helmed by Joel Coen, who…
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Pixar Animator Frank Abney Speaks on His Short Film Canvas and the Importance of Black Voices in Animation
I love animation. I especially love when the strikingly beautiful images and the folks who create those images look like me. Enter Frank Abney, a writer-director who also works as an animator at Pixar Animation Studios. His work has been featured on Coco, Incredibles 2, the upcoming Toy Story 4, and much more. It was…
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A Thinkpiece About Thinkpieces About Us
*Spoiler Alert: This article may contain details and plot points about the film Us. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, why the hell did you click on this article? Once upon a time, in my 11th-grade literature class, the teacher separated students into groups and handed out poems. We were given 30 minutes to…
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10 True Facts About the Various Armchair Analyses of Jordan Peele's Us
This past weekend, Jordan Peele’s Us hit theaters, and it looks like we all went to see it. This is great for his bottom line and shows that after 2017’s Get Out, Peele is not experiencing a sophomore slump. Thing is, this movie is polarizing as fuck. One stroll through the social media shows you…
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Us Broke a Big Box Office Record—Consider It the Umpteenth Reminder that Black Narratives Are Marketable
The movie that had one of the best marketing campaigns known to man (shout-out to the scissors and fan art, just to name a couple), was helmed by a man debuting a highly anticipated follow-up to his first feature (a huge hit!), and dominated every social media feed for the past few months since its…
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Watch: Sundance Darling The Last Black Man in San Francisco Trailer Is a Must-See
Perhaps no other city in America is as synonymous with gentrification as San Francisco. In 1970, around 96,000 black people lived in the city—about 13 percent of the San Francisco’s total population, according to the Census (h/t Huffington Post). In that past 40 years, that percentage has been halved. Now, as real estate prices and the…
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Here's Why Winston Duke is Wearing a 'Howard' Sweatshirt In Us
At 6 feet 5 inches, Winston Duke already stands out as the gentle giant who has to get brolic in Jordan Peele’s new nightmare Us. But the real star is what he’s wearing throughout the film—a sweatshirt with the word “Howard” emblazoned across it. This fact was not lost on the campus of Howard University,…