If the idea behind a sequel to a summer blockbuster is to up the ante in terms of bombast and intensity, then The Amazing Spider-Man 2 certainly fits the bill. This installment is bigger and better and louder and longer, featuring more villains, next generation special f/x, more captivating action sequences, and even a fully-blossomed […]
Author Archives: Kam Williams
Special to the AFRO
Posted inARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Gaga over Gugu!
Born in Oxford, England on June 30, 1983, Gugu Mbatha-Raw trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Her first professional role was as Celia in an open air production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Gugu subsequently landed roles at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre where she performed the title roles of Cleopatra […]
Posted inARTS & ENTERTAINMENT, Movie Reviews
18th C. Biopic Revisits Life of Ex-Slave Raised as Aristocrat
Born in the West Indies in 1761, Dido Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) was the product of the taboo union of Mary Belle, an African slave, and John Lindsay (Matthew Goode), a British ship captain. Upon Mary’s death, the concerned father brought his 8 year-old daughter to England to see whether his well-heeled aunt and uncle might […]
Posted inARTS & ENTERTAINMENT, Movie Reviews
Kam’s Kapsules
Big Budget Films The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (PG-13 for action and sci-fi violence) Second installment in re-booted Marvel Comics franchise finds your friendly neighborhood superhero (Andrew Garfield) wooing Gwen (Emma Stone) while protecting New York from a few, formidable new foes (Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan and Paul Giamatti). With Sally Field, Chris Cooper, Denis Leary, […]
Posted inBooks
Pageants, Parlors & Pretty Women: Race and Beauty in the 20th Century South
“ tells us how Jim Crow and civil rights were expressed in southern women’s bodies. Using female beauty as a lens, the book brings into focus an untold social and cultural history of southern women and of the South generally… I argue that female beauty in the American South was, more so than in the […]
Posted inARTS & ENTERTAINMENT, Movie Reviews
Taraji P. Henson Stars as Trailblazer in Inspirational Biopic
Catana Starks was serving as the female swim coach at Tennessee State University (TSU), when she learned that the school’s Athletic Director, Kendrick Paulsen, Jr. (Henry Simmons), was planning to form a golf team. Since golf had always been her first love, she approached him about becoming the new squad’s head coach. Her first hurdle, […]
Posted inARTS & ENTERTAINMENT, Movie Reviews
You Gotta See Taraji!
Taraji P. Henson earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress opposite Brad Pitt in David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. She is a 2011 Emmy-nominee for Best Actress in a Movie or Miniseries for Lifetime’s Taken From Me. Taraji also starred as Detective Joss Carter in the highly-rated CBS crime drama […]
Posted inARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
African and American Travel to Tanzania in Transformational Documentary
After finishing high school, Venance Ndibalema made the most of an opportunity to leave Tanzania to study physics and philosophy at the University of Miami. Now, he’s ready to visit his homeland for the first time in years, a trip likely to prove traumatic, given the changes both he and the country have undergone during […]
Posted inARTS & ENTERTAINMENT, Movie Reviews
Ghost Spooks Newlyweds in Irreverent Horror Spoof
A Haunted House, an irreverent spoof of Paranormal Activity, co-starred Marlon Wayans and Essence Atkins as Malcolm and Kisha, a couple whose home was invaded by demonic forces. Along the way, she became possessed by the devil and turned on her man, despite the best efforts of an exasperated exorcist (Cedric the Entertainer). All of […]
Posted inARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Wayans Weighs-In on HH2!
Born in New York City on July 23, 1972, Marlon Wayans graduated from the High School of Performing Arts before matriculating at Howard University’s Film School. He started out in Hollywood on TV as a cast member of the Emmy Award-winning variety series, In Living Color. Next, Marlon created and starred in the hit sitcom […]
Posted inARTS & ENTERTAINMENT, Books
Book Review: The Myth of Race, The Reality of Racism
The Genome Project has scientifically proven that there’s only one race, the human race. But despite definitive proof that race is purely a fabrication of man’s imagination, racism continues to persist. That confounding conundrum is the subject of “The Myth of Race, The Reality of Racism,” a collection of enlightening essays by Mahmoud El-Kati. El-Kati, […]
Posted inBooks
Stokely: A Life by Peniel E. Joseph
“It was Thursday, June 16, 1966… Less than a year before, President Lyndon Johnson had signed the Voting Rights Act… Stokely Carmichael was now in Mississippi to ensure that the federal laws… would apply to black sharecroppers living in plantation communities… released from his latest stay in jail… Stokely’s voice broke through the humid Mississippi […]