Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 869

For Colored Boys, REDEMPTION | 'Leave Me Alone' Ep. 3 of 8 (dir. Stacey Muhammad)

WildSeed Film
Season 1, Episode 3 of 8 For Colored Boys, REDEMPTION. 
A soul-stirring dramatic series about a father's attempt to repair his broken family after being released from prison, starring Rob Morgan and Julito McCullum with Tim Reid and Jacinto Taras Riddick.Created, Written and Directed by Stacey Muhammad for Wildseed Films
Executive Produced by Isaiah Washington
Executive Produced by Marc Lamont Hill
Produced by Michael Boogie Pinckney (Black Noise Media) 
Produced by Lisa Cynical Smith (Bucktown USA) and The NY Frequency.
Starring: Rob Morgan and Julito McCullum with Tim Reid and Jacinto Taras Riddick
Cast: Lauren Hooper, Nashawn Kearse, Jas Anderson, Lamar K. Cheston, Ephriam Fetti Benton, Brittany Chance, Kai Muhammad, Tekomin Wiliams, Brandhyze Stanley, Ryan Stephenson, Krystal Farris. 
Guest appearances by Stephen Hill, Corey Roberts and Prince Po.

Director of Photography: J Anders Urmacher
Edited by: Max Papadop
Casting Director: Tiandra Gayle
Art Direction: Phillip Shung
Music Director: General Steele of Bucktown, USA
Unit Production Manager: Oveta Clinton
Wardrobe Supervisor: Danielle Miller
Hair and Makeup: Jewel Whinfield 

"National Dialogue on Race Day" at Duke University – Thursday, September 12, 2013

'12 Years A Slave': A Film 'Really' About Slavery With No Apologies--review by Stephane Dunn

12 Years A Slave : A Film 'Really' About Slavery With No Apologiesby Stephane Dunn | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
There are folk who don’t [gulp] watch or like movies period [really] – a thing a movie fanatic like myself cannot comprehend. Others love movies but never, ever go out to the theatre to see them. My own Mama is one. Strangers you can’t make behave [or in Mama’s terms, people with no home training], pricey tickets, and seven dollar plus popcorn, etcetera, etcetera just doesn’t make sense in the age of the advanced remote control, 42’ plus plasma TVs, and DVR. However, every now and then a movie should come along that compels even the staunchest movies-at-home-body to drive to a movie theatre, sit with the anonymous throng, and be counted with the box office receipts. This fall, there’s a movie that should demand that exceptional status: 12 Years a Slave. It does so much right with such faithfulness to keeping it real and raw, that you will not be able to look away though you’ll want to.  The film is based on the once famous account, Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northrop, a free black New Yorker, who in 1841 is kidnapped and enslaved for twelve brutal years. It’s worth reading for the first time or again before or after seeing the movie. 12 Years a Slave, directed by Steve McQueen (Shame) and penned by John Ridley, is actually one of the very few narrative films [if the claim for a few can even be made], ever made in American motion picture history that’s actually about slavery. I don’t mean that it's simply set during the historical period of the Civil War and slavery (Cold Mountain) or about the political issue of slavery with nary a nod to black activists, the voices of the enslaved population or a glimpse of at least Frederick Douglass (Spielberg’s recent Lincoln), nor does it pretend to be a historical drama about black slaves’ struggle against slavery, but instead spends more time in a hothouse featuring morally conflicted, well-meaning white folk struggling with slavery or fighting for slaves in an exceptional situation (Amistad). It also ain’t a fantastical drama that offers an ex-slave turned cowboy killing all the white folk then doing a jig on a horse and riding off with a damsel in distress to God knows where (Django).It is, however, a great story interpreted unflinchingly and courageously by Mr. McQueen and the cast as well, which includes Chiwetel Ejiofor as Northrop, Paul Giamatti, Sarah Paulson, Paul Dano, and Alfre Woodward [appearing in the too muted role of a black woman who lives in the Big House with her master-lover, waited on by other slaves]. Brad Pitt, the traveling Canadian carpenter who unsurprisingly plays Bass, the good guy key to the end of Northrop’s enslavement, will inevitably be brought up a lot in media attention on the movie despite his limited time on-screen. It’s rarely ever a bad thing to have one of earth’s biggest Hollywood actors and famous faces in a film, but 12 Years doesn't need big celebrity names or high profile faces. It can stand on the strength of its parts and the sum – a film that will not go down easily and we won’t be forgetting soon. Quentin Tarantino proudly touted Django as a rare film about slavery that was entertaining and not a history lesson or preachy, to paraphrase him. That was his answer to why films about slavery never fare too well [thinking of Beloved perhaps].  Truthfully, slavery isn’t a popular topic in Hollywood or in American culture period. It’s messy, traumatic, invokes deep-seated racial divides, denial, defensiveness and so on. There is a stunning lack of films on the subject that have actually gotten big studio support and nation wide releases let alone helmed by black directors, written by black writers, or starring black actors. In a nation that can endure a great deal of blood and gore at the movies, the psychic and physical brutality of slavery has been the epitome of the cliché - too hot to handle despite it being the most significant, long chapter in American history. It’s not high profile racial tragedies that should inspire sustained, critical public dialogue on the realities of slavery and its continuing complex legacy in the American psyche—films like 12 Years a Slave should do that.12 Years a Slave goes into that psychic and physical brutality with no apologies and apparently no fear that Americans won’t go there with it. We are not treated to romantic reprieves from the raw realities of human beings treated as chattel with no humanity.  One of the film’s great challenges is to convey  the temporal nature of those twelve years that Northrup is a slave and more - the endlessness of slave life – the 365 days-a-year-plus-another-and-another into seeming infinity from generation to generation that black slaves endured. The film moves quickly from his rather exceptional life as a respected free man of color, whose expert carpentry and music support his wife, son, and daughter (Oscar nominated Quvenzhané Wallis) to his shocking kidnapping by two well-honed white confidence men and then to his life as a slave in the deep south, trying unsuccessfully, often, to play the dumb, passive ‘nigger’ he is not and mask his real identity. The effort at suggesting those long, long twelve years and the physical and psychological toll it takes on Northrop doesn’t succeed altogether throughout the depiction of his enslavement but does poignantly when, at the end, Northrop is ultimately reunited with a family that he can hardly recognize, including a now, grown, married daughter with a husband and a baby.  The film succeeds more strongly in suggesting the unyielding, life-time kind of forever that slavery was through the other slaves, and in particular two slave women, Patsy and Eliza, played respectively by the phenomenal, Lupito Nyong’o, and Adepero Oduye.This is where the film is most raw and unrelenting as it dares to go where few [public dialogues and certainly few motion pictures even want to go unless it’s portrayed as illicit love and sexy lust Hollywood style – the rape of black women by their white masters and the selling and separation of black enslaved families. Watching it, made me think of a song I became familiar with before Civil Rights documentaries in middle school or even church through a question I heard both from my mother and grandmother who at turns would say, shaking their heads, or sing and hum: I don’t know how we got over. Oduye’s Eliza won’t stop crying, literally, after her children are sold from her, even after everyone, including Solomon and the other slaves, master and mistress, can’t stand the crying any longer. Allowing the crying to go on and on so it really becomes unbearable, means that the totally disempowered Eliza doesn’t have to merely go silent or disappear within herself or immediately commit suicide but to resolutely allow no one a break from her justifiable suffering, from her endless mother’s tears, is really a stunning move. While the very nature of slavery denies her humanity and maternal identity, she won’t mask to get along, to be safe, or avoid punishment or being sold yet again. But it’s Nyong’o’s Patsy, who outworks all picking cotton, who strips bare any notion that slavery wasn’t what it was – an atrocity of epic proportions. Through the close-ups of Pasty, McQueen lays open the unyielding sexual violence that black slave women were subject too. Patsy’s body is not an object of affection or sexual desire.  Her white slave master becomes more than the expected archetypal evil master, but a personification of all the nameless horror, trauma, and brutality that slavery embodied. Patsy is subjected to continuous horrific beatings and savage rapes over and over; Solomon’s twelve years and the tragic reality of the other slaves’ lifetime enslavement is etched onto Patsy’s brutalized body.Northrop’s real life story doesn’t end when he is indeed rescued from the plantation by a northern attorney friend but extends to court battles with his kidnappers.  At the end of the film, Northrup is saved from spending the rest of his life in slavery, but it’s not a moment of triumph that falls into a sentimental representation of his survival. Instead, it is those left in the fields in the hot southern sun and in the house within literal reach of the mistress’s or massa’s angry boot, and beautiful, strong, vulnerable Patsy, face, body, and spirit destroyed by unrelenting brutal violations that linger. 12 Years a Slave is decidedly not Django and not slavery light. It shouldn’t have to be. I dare you, go out and see it.October 2013 release133 minutes
***

Stephane Dunn, PhD, is a writer who directs the Cinema, Television, & Emerging Media Studies program at Morehouse College. She teaches film, creative writing, and literature. She is the author of the 2008 book, Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas : Black Power Action Films (U of Illinois Press). Her writings have appeared in Ms., The Chronicle of Higher Education, TheRoot.com, AJC, CNN.com, and Best African American Essays, among others. Her recent work includes the Bronze Lens-Georgia Lottery Lights, Camera Georgia winning short film Fight for Hope and book chapters exploring representation in Tyler Perry's films.

Profile of the 'Pauli Murray Project' at Duke University

Franklin Humanities Institute
The Pauli Murray Project envisions a Durham community that actively works toward fairness and justice across divisions such as race, class, sexual & gender identity and spiritual practice that often divide us. We embrace the transformative power of collecting and telling our stories and our truths as a process that heals these divisions and promotes human rights.

Vijay Prashad Weighs in on Potential US Missile Attacks on Syria

FNN News English
Vijay Prashad: Possible missile strike against Syria has been a part of the West's game plan since 1979 to weaken Iran for its independent path, but US military intervention will increase sectarianism in the region and disrupt fragile peace in Lebanon. 

Public Enemy @ 2013 'Made in America' Festival (The Full Set)

Public Enemy 2013 Made In America Festival Set

Dream Defenders: "Our Two Minutes"

Dream Defenders
Director of Dream Defenders Phillip Agnew and leader of United We Dream Sofia Campos were ready to represent our generation at the commemorative events of the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington. But at the last minute, they were cut from the speaking roster because of "time". 

NPR's 'Tell Me More': Did The NAACP Learn Anything From Meeting With The KKK?

'Farm to Table Family': Whipped Ricotta with Fresh Herbs & Garlic Toast

PBS Parents
Whipped ricotta is an easy way to make a beautiful snack or appetizer for the entire family. Inspired by a recent family trip to New York City and a visit to Locanda Verde restaurant, the kids and I gobbled up this dish and wanted another. I wanted to recreate it at home and found that it was not only simple but also gorgeous. Pair it with some garlic toast and it is sooo delicious. Some fresh or roasted cherry tomatoes and fresh basil is goes really well with it too, If you don't have time to whip ricotta, then try burrata cheese, my favorite cheese of all time. No mixing, and just sprinkle some fresh herbs, pepper, salt, and olive oil and it's done!
Ingredients:
1 c. fresh ricotta
a splash of milk or cream
chopped chives and oregano 
fresh black pepper
fleur de sel 
oilve oil
a loaf of country bread 
garlic 

WHIPPED RICOTTA
1. Gently whip 1 c. of ricotta
2. Add a little milk or cream to loosen the cheese
3. Change to whisk attachment for fluffy cloudlike texture
4. Spoon onto serving plate
5. Sprinkle chopped chives, oregano, fresh pepper, and fleur de sel on top of ricotta
6. Add a splash of olive oil on top

GARLIC TOAST
1. Rub olive oil on both sides of the bread
2. Lightly toast both sides in a large frying pan
3. Peel and cut garlic in half
4. Rub garlic across the bread 1x on both sides

GlobalGirl Media Profiles 'Fresh Fridays' & Investigates 'Food Apartheid' in South LA

GlobalGirl Media


GlobalGirl Media investigates the closing of a Ralph's supermarket in a low income neighborhood in Los Angeles, and finds an alternative in Fresh Fridays, a neighborhood-run fresh produce market bringing much-needed fresh fruits and vegetables to residents who speak of "food apartheid" in their area.