Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude

stephan james

Entertainment, Music

Today’s Work Soundtrack Is If Beale Street Was Chopped and I’m Going to Flourish Because of It

If Beale Street Could Talk, it would say, “Y’all did that!” In writing about Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk, I made it no secret just how much Nicholas Brittell’s hauntingly beautiful score affected me. “Eden” still makes me feel feelings and see sounds, man. The film’s entire soundtrack is glorious, in fact. On…

By

Tonja Renée Stidhum

Published

March 11, 2019
Entertainment

If Beale Street Could Talk, It Would Talk About Love

Barry Jenkins sure knows how to illustrate the fuck out of love. Following the critical success of Moonlight, the much-anticipated James Baldwin adaptation whispered into our ears with teaser trailers full of rich colors. Based on the 1974 novel of the same name, If Beale Street Could Talk follows Tish Rivers (KiKi Layne) as she…

By

Tonja Renée Stidhum

Published

December 12, 2018
Entertainment, Movies

If Beale Street Could Talk Gets a Harlem Homecoming for Its Premiere

Though James Baldwin left Harlem when he was in his teens, the historic black neighborhood was never far from his mind. Harlem showed up throughout Baldwin’s work, from his influential personal essays to his fiction. Now, as Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins gets ready to take his adaptation of Baldwin’s novel, If Beale Street Could Talk,…

By

Anne Branigin

Published

August 24, 2018
Entertainment, Movies

Barry Jenkins Visually Reimagines James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk For a Full Display of Cinematic Blackness

Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) has tackled James Baldwin’s tragic, yet beautiful tale, If Beale Street Could Talk. This is the first time any of Baldwin’s work will be adapted into film in the English language. Jenkins’ goal was to keep the integrity of Baldwin’s genius but make sure the film didn’t feel like literature.…

By

Danielle Young

Published

July 11, 2018
Black Cop Kills Unarmed White Kid? Everything Isn’t as It Seems in Fox’s New Series Shots Fired

Oscar Grant. Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Freddie Gray. Anthony Hill. Philando Castile. Alton Sterling. These are just a few names from a much longer list of black men who have died at the hands of law enforcement in less than a decade. So when the new Fox show Shots Fired ran early trailers zoning in…

By

Ronda Racha Penrice

Published

March 22, 2017