Pharrell Williams, A$AP Rocky, and LeBron James have been tapped as the co-chairs for the 2025 Met Gala, which will be tied to the upcoming exhibit on menswear and Black style, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” Joining the two star musicians and NBA legend as co-chairs will be actor Colman Domingo …
Read More »George Lucas, Mark Hamill, More Remember 'Legendary' James Earl Jones
Hollywood is mourning a legendary actor. On Monday, following the death of James Earl Jones, dozens of celebrities shared tributes to the actor who voiced Mufasa in The Lion King and Darth Vader in Star Wars. Jones died at his home in New York at the age of 93. In …
Read More »How the Cast of 'Sing Sing' Broke Free From Prison to the Big Screen
Growing up in Brooklyn, John “Divine G” Whitfield was a natural performer. As a Bruce Lee-obsessed teenager, he and a friend would create karate movies, charging 10 cents a pop to view the action-packed films. He grooved on the local television program Soap Factory Disco and enrolled in a High …
Read More »'Sing Sing' Stages a Play in Prison — and Makes a Case for Healing Power of Art
You do not meet John Whitfield, known to friends and enemies alike by his nickname Divine G, as a person convicted of a crime. You are introduced to him onstage as a performer, bringing a production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream to a close as an audience of fellow incarcerated …
Read More »'The Color Purple' Drained Danielle Brooks. She Says She'd Do it Again
Danielle Brooks knows The Color Purple’s Sofia inside out. She spent a year as the boisterous wife in the Broadway revival in 2015, and boasts that she knows everything from the character’s Zodiac sign to the color socks she wore. A decade before her fiery onstage performance, a 15-year-old Brooks …
Read More »'Drive-Away Dolls': Ethan Coen's Queer Buddy Comedy Is a Car-Wreck
A road trip. A mix-up. A fast-talking hero, prone to tossing off bewilderingly verbose sentences. Some criminals who run the gamut from eccentric to psychotic to painfully inept. (Sometimes, they’re all three at once.) Dangerously sudden violence. Dangerously dark humor. Dangerously outrageous hairdos. The feeling that you’re watching a vintage …
Read More »Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, America Ferrera, and More Become First-Time Oscar Nominees
Nearly a dozen actors will now have an Academy Awards section added to their Awards and Nominations page on Wikipedia. Bright and early on Tuesday morning, Zazie Beetz and Jack Quaid announced the 2024 Oscars nominations live from Los Angeles. With 20 nominees across four acting categories, some names were …
Read More »'The Color Purple' Director: This Movie Is 'Sacred Healing Work'
Blitz Bazawule could care less about The Color Purple’s recent award nominations. The film’s director isn’t worried about the movie-musical’s Best Picture snub at the Golden Globe or wowed by the musical’s five Critics Choice nominations and three mentions on the Oscars’ shortlist for its music. He understands the significance …
Read More »Colman Domingo Was 'Born to Play' Bayard Rustin
Although Colman Domingo’s spent three decades in the entertainment industry, with title roles in the theater, he says he’s been sidelined in film and television. He played a trombonist in Chadwick Boseman’s final film, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; counselor to Zendaya’s troubled Rue in Euphoria; a violent, turn-on-a-dime pimp in …
Read More »'Rustin': Hollywood Finally Gives a Great American Hero His Due
The 1963 March on Washington did not merely come together on its own via a whim, a wish, and good will. It took years of strategizing, planning, building coalitions, dodging bureaucratic obstacles and opponents both within and outside the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement. Students and veteran activists worked phone lines, …
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