Entertainment

"Get Out"  is a thriller satirical horror movie by Jordan Haworth Peel, an renown AfroAmerican actor, comedian, writer, producer, and director.  Released on February 24, 2017, to critical acclaim and box-office success, "Get Out"  has become one of the most profitable films of all time.

Are you ready for another roller coaster season with  the phenomenal TV Show called "Empire"? If not, do. Please do! Please be ready! The runaway success of the  show about a family-run hip-hop music company that has  surprised the experts since it has started to air in 2015. It has consistently hit all the records and has always left us with a hunger and thirst  for more.

Charles Bradley, known as the "Screaming Eagle of Soul," died on Saturday, September 23, 2017 in Brooklyn, New York, from a stomach cancer. He was 68 years old.

With a powerful and fiery, often pained, performance and a raspy, funky, and energetic style, that evoked James Brown, one of his musical heroes, he took long to blossom. When he did achieve success, that came with his 2011 debut album, “No Time for Dreaming,” he became unstoppable. His first album was soon followed with “Victim of Love” in 2013, and a third, “Changes,” in 2016.

Rhiannon Giddens is a singer and multi-instrumentalist best known for her unparalleled mastery of the banjo. According to Rhiannon, in America, "in the first 100 years of its existence, the banjo was known as a plantation instrument, as a black instrument."

Fox News has fired Bill O'Reilly, one of its long term most popular hosts and money makers. In a statement by Fox News 's parent company, 21st Century Fox published today Wednesday, April 19, 2017, the network said:

He is well known for the hit rock 'n' roll songs "Mayebellene", "Roll Over", "Beethoven" and "Johnny B. Goode", that launched and continued to shape his career and expand the music genre he created.

On the night of the 89th Academy Awards, it was La La Land, first. Confusion ensued as presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway found out they had read a wrong title, using the Best Actress envelope. Then, it was confirmed that MoonLight actually was the winner of the Best Picture Award. In the end, both movies scored big.

When Moonlight was announced, the entire audience erupted in cheers and congratulations. Barry Jenkins, Moonlight director, could not believe it. "Very clearly, even in my dreams this could not be true. But to hell with dreams! I am done with it, because this is true!"

Films produced or prominently casting or featuring African-Americans, like Moonlight, won prestigious awards:

• Moonlight, that had received eight Oscar nominations, won three awards: Best Picture, Adapted Screeplay by Barry Jenkins, and Actress in a Supporting Role by Mahershala Ali
• Fences won Actress in a Supporting Role by Viola Davis
• O.J. Made in America won Documentary Feature.

In the end, both Moolight and La La Land won big. La La Land won Best Director, Actress in a Leading Role by Emma Stone, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song.

The incident, now named after the TV personality Steve Harvey, who made a similar mistake during the Miss Universe Ceremonies in December 2015, mistakenly announcing Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez instead of the actual winner and Miss Phillipines,Pia Wurtzbach.

Reacting to the incident, Steve Harvey twitted: "Call me Warren Beatty. I can help you through this!#Oscars". Harvey took responsibility for the Miss Universe blunder, but Warren Beatty appeared to blame the cards for the Oscars gaffe.

Jimmy Kimmel, a talk show host had joked earlier abour the Oscars incident that "This is very unfortunate what happened. Personally I blame Stve Harvey for this."

Moonlight tells a story of a Black man through three phases of his life: as a young boy, a teenager and an adult. The movie touches on several issues, including racial identity, drug, sexual identity, bullying, and poverty. But in the end, it also touched reconciliation, forgiveness and acceptance.

Today, I watched the movie "I Am Not Your Negro" .  "I Am Not Your Negro"  is a documentary film by Raoul Peck, based on the unfinished manuscript "Remember This House" by Black American author and civil rights activist James Baldwin.

 Denzel Washington has won the SAG Award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role on Sunday January 29, 2017. Denzel Washington won for his role in the movie  "Fences", in which he, and actress Viola Davis delivered an breath taking performance. Denzel beat out Manchester by the Sea's Casey Affleck, Hacksaw Ridge's Andrew Garfield, La La Land's Ryan Gosling and Captain Fantastic's Viggo Mortensen.

Today, I watched "Hidden Figures,"  the  biographical drama film based on the non-fiction book of Margot Lee Shetterly.  In the film star Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe as Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, respectively, the black NASA employees who participated in calculating flight trajectories for Project Mercury in 1962. 

Katherine Globe Johnson, known as the  "Black Woman Who Advanced Human Rights and Humanity With A Slide Rule and a Pencil" (see AfroAmerica Network),  is the

The Birth of A Nation: A Movie I invite Everyone to Watch; An Experience About the Price of Freedom

Are you ready for an experience that will forever change  your perspective on how the United States of America, as a nation, was really born? Are you ready to change your perspective on the role played by Black slaves in liberating America from the shackles of human hatred and cruelty against each other, not as submissive beings but as leaders? Then get ready to learn from The Birth of a Nation.  

In Chicago, on 53rd & South Dorchester,  just in front of a Subway sandwich franchise, there is a rock. An unordinary rock. It is a simple rock with a metallic plaque installed in it.  The place itself is, at first sight, unmemorable. At the most, it is not the first romantic place that would come to mind. But it is a  place where President Barack Obama, then a simple Ivy League graduate lawyer Barack Obama,  sealed his conquest of his future wife Ivy League graduate lawyer, Michelle Robinson. 

On the stone, the inscription on plaque reads an excerpt from Barack Obama's memoir: