Media Important To POC
50 Black LGBTQ+ Films To Watch
preview.houstonchronicle.com, Joey Guerra, 6-16-2020
Between The World And Me (2020)
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 2015 bestseller “Between the World and Me” became the defining work of a new reckoning on race in America, and, even at a mere 152 pages, it stands mighty on its own — essential reading for anyone who wishes to be a cognizant part of the country’s future. It’s no small challenge, therefore, to try to translate the book’s powerful mix of memoir and scholarship into a film.
Working from the 2018 staging she first directed at the Apollo Theater (and later at the Kennedy Center), Kamila Forbes enlists an impressive array of talent (Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, Jharrel Jerome, Wendell Pierce, Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, Angela Davis, Oprah Winfrey, Tip “T.I.” Harris and Courtney B. Vance, among many others) to read sections of the book against a constantly moving collage of pictures, animation, clips and other artful and often surprising segues.
The project was filmed in August, under pandemic conditions and, more important, in the midst of nationwide waves of anger after the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville. Taylor’s death, in particular, resupplies much of the anger Coates initially harnessed in the book, expressed in the form of a letter to his teenage son: “Here is what I’d like you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the Black body. It is heritage. There is no uplifting way to say this. . . . Son, we are captured, surrounded by bandits. This has happened in our only home.”
One Night In Miami (2020)
One Night in Miami is a 2020 American drama film about a fictionalized meeting of Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke in a room at the Hampton House in February 1964, celebrating Ali’s surprise title win over Sonny Liston. Directed by Regina King.
The Breeding (2018)
An erotic thriller about a young artist whose obsession with a taboo fetish leads to life altering consequences. Directed by Daniel Armando.
Jackie’s Back! (1999)
Mockumentry” 60’s diva Jackie Washington (Jenifer Lewis). Lewis is our leading lady with an incredible singing voice. Jackie is planning her comeback tour coinciding with Edward Whatsett St. John (Tim Curry) as her interviewer. Famous faces are dishing the dirt on her, including Bette Midler, Whoopi Goldberg, David Hyde Pierce, and Chris Rock. This is an ONYX Mid-Atlantic favorite!
