20th Anniversary of Love and Basketball

One of my fave romantic movies was released 20 years ago today in the Gina Prince Bythewood directed film Love and Basketball that starred Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan.

I was at my local movieplex the weekend it debuted to watch the story of Quincy McCall and Monica Wright begin when her family moved from the ATL to Los Angeles in 1981 to become the next door neighbors of the McCall family. 

After a contentious early start, it was clear that Quincy and Monica had a love of basketball as the basis of their friendship.   Over time, they developed a relationship as the movie follows them from that first day they met on Quincy's backyard basketball court through high school, college and young adulthood as masculine and feminine basketball prodigies. 

It also highlighted the differences in how they were treated by society, and the lack of respect women basketball players got then (and still don't get).   



Monica not only had to fight to get her opportunities on the court, she also had to fight off challengers who stepped up to try to wrest Quincy away from her in high school, college and later young adulthood.

I'll let y'all see how it ended for those of you who may have never seen Love and Basketball, but it's one of my fave movies that I rewatch from time to time.

And Gina, if you're reading this, I'd love to see a sequel to it. 

Today Starts Blade Runner Month

  If you are a fan of the 1982 sci-fi movie Blade Runner, you know that the opening scene of the movie sets it in Los Angeles in November 2019.

As of today, that movie is no longer one that in the future since we have now hit November 1, 2019.

It is interesting to seethe hits and misses on a lot of this they projected in the movie.   Pan Am Airlines is long gone, we don't have any off world colonies yet or flying cars.

Neither do we have Nexus 6 replicants walking around, but robotics scientists around the globe are trying to get there.. 

I own the DVD of that movie and the sequel, so at some point this weekend I'll probably five up the DVD player and some popcorn and watch i.t

Another 'Shaft' Movie Coming Next Month

I saw the original 1971 Shaft movie starring Richard Roundtree, and the 2000 John Singleton directed Shaft remake starring Samuel L Jackson that along with the OG Shaft movie is part of my DVD collection.

I was happy to discover that another Shaft movie is due to hit my fave multiplex on June 14.

Samuel L. Jackson is reprising his role as John Shaft II and Richard Roundtree is reprising his as his uncle John Shaft.    They are joined by Jessie Usher playing John Shaft, Jr. 

JJ is an MIT educated FBI cybersecurity expert who enlists his father and uncle's help to investigate the murder of one of his friends.  Regina Hall plays his mother in the new film.

And as you guessed, there is plenty of butt kicking going on as the investigation gets deeper.  As Shaft II tells his son, "I'm an equal opportunity azz whupper."



And yes, I'm already planning on being there for opening weekend.

My Trip To Wakanda

I went to check out Black Panther today at the AMC 8 Houston.   I've been looking for an excuse to go there since they bought it, and am happy I now have another inside the Loop movie theater option to choose when I'm ready to see a movie.

For you Houstonians going 'What movie theater downtown?", it was the former Angelika Theater in Bayou Place that closed down in August 2010, then reopened as a Sundance Cinema before being bought out by AMC where I attended the 1 PM screening of it.

But back to Black Panther.   Was it worth the wait?   All I have to say about it for now since I don't want to spoil it for you folks who haven't seen it yet is hell yeah and WOW!

It was so nice not only seeing myself represented on the silver screen, but so many kick butt women.

I also watched Black Panther in 3D, and will probably see it again    This movie is shattering box office records, and is cruising toward a $210-215 million dollar opening weekend, which is the highest ever for any Marvel Cinematic Universe film,

Vanillacentric privileged people are hating on it for doing so to the point they are trying to 'scurr' other white folks into NOT going to see the movie by posting fake news of violence that hasn't occurred.

Oh well, y'all can #BeMad and #StayMad about that.  We're going to keep bum rushing the multiplexes to see it

One of the things that did bother me was having a young white male in line at the theater I went to see it at in downtown Houston show up with a small backpack and roller suitcase. 

The reason it bothered me was because I remember the mass shooting that happened in an Aurora, CO movie theater back in 2012.  It was why I was concerned this person's suitcase and backpack weren't inspected before they let him in.

It became a problem halfway through my viewing of the film when it was stopped and the lights went up in the auditorium after the folks who had been seated by him in the back part of the theater ( I was in the sixth row) noticed he wasn't there and reported it to the ticket booth and manager.

They searched the auditorium for a few minutes to make sure he and his bags weren't there before turning the auditorium lights back down and resuming the film.

Despite that drama and having to do a sprint to the bathroom when my attempt to hold my bladder until the movie ended became an emergency sprint to the lavatory when my bladder said 'screw what you want ' and demanded immediate attention.

I was planning on seeing it again anyway.,and now I have even more of a reason to do so

Happy Wakanda Day!

The hate is still flowing from vanillacentric privileged folks mad that Black Panther is hitting the multiplexes today and probably by the end of this weekend will be the number one movie in America

You mad about that?   Stay mad.

White supremacists are tripping about this film to the point where they were plotting to jack with the film's scores on the Rotten Tomatoes website by inundating it with negative reviews.  Wouldn't be surprised in FOX Noise VP John Moody comes up with another racist op-ed attacking this movie.

Even Breitbart's shady azz, that never missed an opportunity to demonize trans people and the LGBTQ community, had the nerve to post a story asking where was the TBLGQ representation in this movie.   Your azzes were mute about the topic when it came to Star Wars and every other white dominated superhero movie, so stay mute about this one.

While they hate, Black Panther is selling out theaters and has become a cultural touchstone moment for Black America.

Happy Black History Month!   What was that noise Hollywood that movies with Black superheroes don't draw a great box office?   Blade ring a bell?

It's also nice seeing a superhero who looks like us and coincidentally happens to be royalty on top of it.  It is a joy to see a movie that is unapologetically immersed in our African culture.   It is also going to be so cool to see all the kick butt women who are part of this movie from Queen Mother Ramonda to Princess Shuri, the genius kid sister of T'Challa, to the Dora Milaje.

So no conservadevils, we will not allow you to steal our joy in Black Panther debuting now that Wakanda Day is finally here.

It's even more important for our kids to see themselves reflected on the silver screen   That's probably the major reason why you conservafools and vanillacentric privileged clueless peeps are hatin' on the film.. 

This is not 'just a movie' to Black America.  My friends who have already seen it are raving about it in their words being a love letter to Blackness, and it's making me even more determined to see it this weekend.

Well, y'all can be mad and stay mad as we in Black America and our allies and accomplices head to the multiplexes to see this long awaited  movie which will probably end up getting a sequel.

A sequel in which if they follow the Black Panther story, will end up with Princess Shuri becoming Queen of Wakanda and by extension, the next Black Panther. 

Why Y'all Still Mad About The Black Panther Movie?

So hate on haters.   Come Black History Month 2018, I and other Black Panther fans will be going to and having a lot of fun at the local multiplex watching a superhero that looks like us.-TransGriot, 'Why Y'all Mad About The Black Panther  Movie?  June 16, 2017 

As the February 16 premiere date of this looks like a blockbuster movie gets closer, the white folks hating on this movie are not only still tripping, but are revealing their pointed hoods in the process.

Word has gotten out that a group of 2000 people who claim they are fans of the DC Comics universe have such off the charts frothing at the mouth hatred for Black Panther they are planning to go on the Rotten Tomatoes website once the movie opens to deliberately give it low marks on the site and plant nasty and disparaging reviews 

Haters gotta hate.   BTW, here's the link to Rotten Tomatoes.com for you to combat the caucasity and defend the movie.

But I have to ask the same question I did back in June.   Why are you white folks so bothered about a movie that features an intelligent African descended superhero from a technologically advanced African nation? 

Never mind, I answered my own question once again. 

Black Panther is shattering presale records.   It's on track for a possible $120 million opening weekend, and there's no doubt once it hits the multiplexes and dominates whatever movie competition dares to debut that weekend there probably will be a Black Panther sequel movie.

So y'all be mad and stay mad about that.


TransGriot Note:  The Wired and C-SPAN images created by Darian Robbins 

Black Panther Premiere In LA

It's almost that time that me and my friends are eagerly awaiting in terms of the public release of the Ryan Coogler directed Black Panther film on February 16.

Myself and many of my friends are already planning to check out Black Panther when it opens at our local multiplexes, and there are Black Panther themed parties planned for that weekend across Wakanda, er Black America.

Tickets are already selling out for the opening weekend, and I would not be surprised if this movie, opening smack dab in the middle of Black History Month, makes some serious money.

Because I damned sure want to see some Black Panther sequels

A sign that we're getting closer to the Black Panther debut was its world premiere in Los Angeles at the Dolby Theatre last night.   The stars of the film walked the PURPLE carpet (purple is the royal color of African royalty FYI) in African themed attire that being called by the best red carpet event of 2018.

The fabulousness of the cast walking the purple carpet in African attire paled in comparison to the movie.   The reviews have been embargoed until February 6, but word and praise for the movie is already filtering out that calls Black Panther the best of the Marvel superhero movies so far.

The Los Angeles Times Tre'vell Anderson said on his Twitter feed  "BlackPanther is a love letter about blackness, to a world that often ghettoizes it without realizing that it is on black backs that this planet revolves." 

Hey, I expected nothing less.     See y'all at the multiplex.

Only Eight Weeks To The Black Panther Debut!

February 18, 2018 is going to be the day in which me and a a lot of African American moviegoers head to our local multiplexes to watch a movie featuring an African descended superhero in
Black Panther.   

Ever since the X-Men movies started hitting the screens, Black moviegoers have been wondering when the one featuring T'Challa, the king of Wakanda would be made, how it would be done and who would play the title role.

Chadwick Boseman eventually got the role, and the Black Panther movie has been eagerly awaited and anticipated ever since it waa announced it had been greenlighted for production. 

With every released trailer, the buzz already developing in Black America concerning this film continues to build..

And we are now eight weeks from its debut.

Going to be interesting to see if people do cosplay in honor of its debut, but I'm already hearing about people planning viewing parties or people planning to go in groups with friends on that February 18 day. 

Why Y'all Mad About The 'Black Panther' Movie?

One of the movies I'm looking forward to  seeing next year is the long awaited for me and the rest of Black America Black Panther movie starring Chadwick Boseman.  

The trailer was released a few days ago, and elements of the white community are losing their damned mind over it on social media as the trailer became the third most watched one in movie history.

What bothers some of y'all so much about seeing a Black superhero who is the king of the technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda?

Oh yeah.  Never mind.  Forget I asked that question.

I haven't seen elements of White America lose their mind over a movie centering Black folks since White Man's Burden came out in 1994.  That movie starred Harry Belafonte and JohnTravolta in a world in which the societal script was flipped and it was Black peeps on top of the societal totem pole and white peeps living in the 'hood.

I enjoyed trolling peeps as they walked out the theater.  I said to one guy "What's wrong?  You can't handle this fictional world?   This is mine and non-white peeps everyday reality."

Moving on from that trip down Moni Memory lane and back to discussing Black Panther.

Y'all need to get over it because this superhero exists, has since 1966 and predates the founding of the Black Panther Party, FYI, and yeah, T'Challa is a badass who for a minute was married to Storm.

Looking forward to seeing the Dora Milaje kick some serious behind as his royal security guards,

I'm also looking to see how T'Challa's kid sister Shuri, the future Black Panther and Queen of Wakanda, is portrayed.   .

So y'all need to chill with the ridiculous assertion being bandied about online that Black Panther is 'racist'.   Black Panther is a fictional African character based in Africa, and y'all doing over the top tripping about it.

So hate on haters.   Come Black History Month 2018, I and other Black panther fans will be going to and having a lot of fun at the local multiplex watching a superhero that looks like us.

Now if they'll get that third installment of The Best Man on the silver screen ASAP I'll be doing a happy dance at the snack bar.

40th Anniversary of the Original 'Star Wars' Film Debut

40 years ago in a galaxy called the Milky Way on a planet named Earth, a film debuted on this date that has become a iconic classic, sparked a revival in the science fiction genre and spawned a media empire that is now owned by Disney.

On May 25, 1977, Star Wars debuted to the delight of science fiction nerds like myself.  We flocked to our local multiplex theaters in droves to see the space saga and fictional galaxy in which good as repped by the Rebellion and a Luke Skywalker trained in The Force triumphed in this movie over the evil Galactic Empire run by Emperor Palpatine and his Sith apprentice and enforcer Darth Vader.

It is a saga that has now spawned seven films with the eighth in the series, The Last Jedi to debut in December 2017

As the original film became a trilogy and spawned a 1980 sequel The Empire Strikes Back, it was renamed in 1981 Star Wars Episode IV- A New Hope

>The inaugural Star Wars movie raked in over $450 million in the US alone and another $775 million worldwide and has significantly impacted pop culture and even politics as Reagan's embrace of the term 'evil empire' to describe the then Soviet Union aptly is an example of.

In 1989, Star Wars was selected along with The Empire Strikes Back in 2010 by the Library of Congress to be preserved in the US National Film Registry for culturally dded to its

Star Wars also borrows from politics and history.  The Galactic Empire's stormtroopers share the name from the Nazi stormtroopers.   The Empire's black political officer, commander and guards uniforms are modeled on the Waffen SS, and the Imperial fleet uniforms borrow elements from the World War II era German Wehrmacht.

Palpatine's rise to power is is similar to how Hitler came to power in 1930's Germany.   Palapine was first elected chancellor of the Galactic Republic before seizing power to become dictator and declaring himself emperor. then subsequently having the Jedi Order exterminated. .

May the Force be with you on this 40th anniversary date of the debut of a movie that became part of our lives   May be time for me to check out my DVD copy of it again in honor of today's anniversary

'The Best Man Wedding' Coming In 2016!

One of my fave all time movies is The Best Man.   I was at my fave multiplex when it debuted in 1999 and when the Best Man Holiday sequel came out 14 years later (boo hiss). 

I'm booing about the 14 too long years it took to get that sequel made, not the quality of the film, of which it and The Best Man are in my personal DVD collection.

The sequel picked up where it left off chronicling the lives of Harper, Robyn, Lance, Mia, Julian, Candy, Shelby, Jordan and Quentin as they get together at Lance's palatial mansion for Christmas.  I was in another multiplex laughing, crying and munching on my popcorn at all the twists, turns and jaw dropping surprises when it was released in 2013.  

Despite the fact the sequel was 14 years late, The Best Man Holiday made $70.5 million in the US box office, which doubled the $35.1 million the original movie made at the box office. 

Since The Best Man Holiday cost only $17 million to make and made all that mad loot in the US market, it was a no-brainer Hollywood decision to bring back the entire cast for a third movie that will be called The Best Man Wedding.

Taye Diggs, Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, Harold Perrineau, Terrence Howard, Sanaa Lathan, Melissa De Sousa, and Regina Hall will all be back for The Best Man Wedding.  

The third installment of  The Best Man movies will pick up where the last one left off in terms of following the announcement of playa-playa Quentin at the end of the sequel that he was getting married, and the hilarious events leading up to his wedding.  


We have a date for when that third movie in The Best Man series will be released, and according to the Hollywood Reporter it will be on April 15, 2016.

Malcolm D. Lee (Spike Lee's cousin) will once again be writing and directing it, and the Universal press release stated the entire cast will be back.  Does that also include Monica Calhoun, whose character Mia shockingly died in the second film?.  .If it does, going to be interesting to see her character in flashbacks.. 

We The Best Man fans will also be eagerly awaiting the answer to the question of  who is the woman that finally got Quentin to put a ring on it, and is it Shelby?   

And speaking of couples, are Jordan and Brian still together?  How are Robyn and Harper adjusting to parenthood?   What's up with Julian and Candace and have they moved on from the marital squabble they had in The Best Man Holiday?

And the big question is how is Lance adjusting not only to his retirement from pro football, but life after losing his soulmate Mia?

And who is Shelby's daughter Kennedy's daddy?   Remember Quentin and Shelby seem to keep falling into bed despite their mutual distaste for each other, and Kennedy is the right age for being Quentin's child if Shelby ended up pregnant after they hooked up after Lance and Mia's wedding in The Best Man.
Just thought I'd give you a things to make you go hmm moment to ponder until then.  

Unfortunately we'll have to wait until April 15, 2016 to find out the answer to that and other questions

Spike Lee Confirms 'School Daze' Sequel On The Way!

School Daze has always been one of my favorite Spike Lee movies and I still pull out my DVD to watch it from time to time even though the movie was first released 25 years ago back in 1988.

It was still an encapsulation of many of the issues college students of the 80's were talking about from South African divestment to fraternity hazing.

And with a cast that featured Laurence Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, Tisha Campbell Martin, Samuel L. Jackson and Jasmine Guy who was then lighting up the small screen on A Different World, that Spike Lee joint had us packing the multiplexes and made $14 million. 

With the $71 million success of The Best Man Holiday, the sequel to the 1999 The Best Man movie his cousin Malcolm Lee wrote, produced and directed, now that we (hopefully) have Hollywood's fiscal attention, I wasn't surprised that renewed attention has now been focused on classic African-American movies hat should have been made into sequels a long time ago. 

Spike Lee recently confirmed in a Black&Sexy TV interview that he has completed a script for a sequel to School Daze that takes us back to the Mission College campus 25 years later. 

“I had the script for ‘School Daze,” said Lee in a recent interview.  “But, what people have to understand is that it’s a contemporary version. So it’s the same school, Mission College, 25 years later,” explained Lee. “Hopefully I can get Laurence Fishburne to play Dap. He’ll be the president now of the school. And we would deal with issues around Historically Black Colleges today.”

He says he would not only tackle some of the issues Black college students deal with in 21st century college life, he would also tackle the subjects of pledging and homophobia

I hope you can get Fishburne to reprise his Dap Dunlap role and even better, get this sequel filmed.   
  

25th Anniversary of 'School Daze'

25 years ago on this date in 1988 Spike Lee's widely anticipated second feature movie release after his sleeper hit She's Gotta Have It hit the multiplexes.

It's one of my favorite movies, and School Daze starred a few people who have since gone on after filming this movie to be breakout movie and television stars such as Laurence Fishbourne, Giancarlo Esposito, Tisha Campbell-Martin, Jasmine Guy, Bill Nunn and Samuel L Jackson.

It featured a homecoming dance scene in which Phyllis Hyman sang, and a rousing halftime speech by the Mission College football coach played by Ossie Davis.

School Daze was set on a fictional HBCU college campus and tackled many of the issues of Black middle class life.   It took on colorism in our community.  It tackled hazing in the pledging process and the tensions on campus between Greek and non-Greek folks that in this movie exploded into an unscripted fight.in the step show scene.

The movie also explored the conflict between Black people getting their college educations and the townspeople who didn't have that opportunity for various reasons and are resentful of it.

That was illustrated in the scene with Fishbourne's and Jackson's characters outside the KFC.

It touched on the politics of hair between the folks who like to wear it natural vs. the peeps who perm and straighten it.  And yeah, had some interesting musical numbers in it for good measure.

Hard to believe that 25 years has blown by since it was first released.   Definitely going to have to pull out my School Daze DVD and watch it again.
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