Movies
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Racing Champion Willy T. Ribbs Reminds Us All of His Place in Black History With Brilliant Victory Lap Uppity
Throughout the course of history, we’ve been taught that there is a clear hierarchy in regard to a black person’s place in society. As such, the term “uppity”—which first surfaced in the 1800s as the snarky descendant of its equally demeaning predecessor “ungrateful”—has served to both dissuade and disparage those of us who’ve dared to…
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Black Movie Fridays: Love Jones Is the Iconic Black Love Movie but for Me, Brown Sugar Is the GOAT
The 1990s and early aughts were a good time for black movies. From Boyz n The Hood to Menace II Society to What’s Love Got To Do With It to sleeper classics like The Wood, almost every year we got several dope black movies that showed us some version of blackness that existed in our…
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10 Very Black (Non-Spoiler) Reasons to Go See The Photograph
The Photograph, a new black love story starring Issa “Lookin’ Like a Bag of Money” Rae and Lakeith “Can I Measure Your Tree?” Stanfield, comes out in theaters nationwide on Friday, Feb. 14 (also known either as Valentine’s Day or “National I Don’t Celebrate That Commercialized Obligation of Love Day”). I had a chance to…
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And the Skippy Goes To!: The Root's Inaugural The Blackest Awards Winners
What’s up, Black America! Now that the Oscars have come and gone and awards were given to winners and what not and henceforth, it’s time to redirect that energy back into what matters most: celebrating Blackness in all of its Black Excellence Achievement. And that is exactly what we’re doing here with the Skippies. You…
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Ava DuVernay's Nipsey Hussle Doc Lands at Netflix After Major Bidding War
Netflix is taking a victory lap after landing rights to a feature-length documentary about the life of Nipsey Hussle. Streamers including Apple and Amazon are also reported to have vied for the project in an intense bidding war that ended in an eight-figure deal. Ava DuVernay will direct in a collaboration between her ARRAY film…
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Oscars 2020: Matthew A. Cherry Manifests #HairLove Success and Janelle Monáe Welcomes Us to the Neighborhood
It’s the biggest (and whitest) night of film once again and we’re here to give you the scoop. The 92nd Academy Awards marks the conclusion of awards season (but not really because there are at least two big award ceremonies I’ll be attending later this month as Los Angeles loves to pat itself on the…
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Black Movie Fridays: Just Wright Is a Fun Romantic Comedy But It Couldn’t Have Happened in Real Life
I’m one of those people who gets hung up on the little things in movies and television shows. Like, I’ll be sitting in a movie theater minding my business watching some varying level of black cinematic excellence set in 1980-whenever, and an era-specific song will come on to really give you a sense of time,…
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From Kickstarter to Kickin' It At the Oscars: Matthew A. Cherry and Karen Rupert Toliver Talk Hair Love
Animation raised me. Yes, I know we all grew up watching Saturday cartoons and animated movies, but those little doodles of Roger Rabbit and Mickey Mouse shaped my desire to tell stories. I wanted to create animated films. I wanted to be Cree Summer. I wanted to have anything and everything to do with the…
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First Look: Boyz N The Hood Is Now Available on 4K Ultra HD With Bonus Tribute to John Singleton, Who 'Changed Hollywood'
I’ll never forget the day I found out that John Singleton died. I was gallivanting about the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, not realizing that my current location would mean so much more than it already did to a cinephile like myself. Having some idle time on my hands, I scrambled to write up a proper…
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Sneak Peek: Black Canary Knows It's a Man's World but It'll Be Nothing Without a Woman or a Girl in Birds of Prey
In a follow-up to Suicide Squad, D.C. Comics is continuing the saga of Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) after her epic split with the Joker as she “joins superheroes Black Canary, Huntress and Renee Montoya to save a young girl from an evil crime lord.” James Brown gave us one of the best lyrics of all…