FanFare

An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality. [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb on Jun 15, 2020 - 4 comments

Series Finale: Gently hosts a birthday party for Miss Luma and most of the gang gathers. A surprise visitor from the past turns up.
posted by mediareport on Mar 25, 2020 - 5 comments

Gently and Evan shop for counselors and recap their relationship thus far.
posted by mediareport on Mar 19, 2020 - 5 comments

Conflict between Evan's focus on work and a newly-buttoned-down Gently boils over at a dinner.
posted by mediareport on Mar 19, 2020 - 1 comment

Differing expectations and backgrounds clash, resolve and clash again as Gently, Evan and their families plan a big day. The two dads meet for the first time and find they have much in common, and Evan's mother tries her best. Bonus: extended interview with Ava DuVernay in which she discusses the love story's origins in her documentary 13th, the actors choosing not to use an intimacy coordinator for the sex scenes, and why she "really wanted to embrace a darker-skinned sister" for the romantic female lead role.
posted by mediareport on Mar 4, 2020 - 1 comment

Evan has a stressful breakfast with Gently's uncles. Miss Luma is in on a scheme. Evan takes Gently for a hike and fancy dinner, only to find the two of them have different conceptions of time. Evan ignores the advice of a friend. Ava DuVernay's one-day-per-episode look at love between two black professionals in Los Angeles continues. Bonus video: DuVernay talks about how she achieved gender parity in the first season by making sure over 50% of the show's entire crew (not just writers and directors) are women.
posted by mediareport on Feb 27, 2020 - 2 comments

Three months into their renewed relationship, Evan brings Gently to meet his parents at their 40th anniversary party. Gently’s own mother suddenly shows up in town as well, after years of absence.
posted by mediareport on Feb 19, 2020 - 1 comment

One year after their first encounter, Gently and Evan meet again at an art gallery and spend the day together, with Evan running into the Friend Test from Gently’s BFF. Bonus bowling alley and emergency room visits.
posted by mediareport on Feb 19, 2020 - 1 comment

Ava DuVernay's new series tracks the relationship between Gently (Xosha Roquemore) and Evan (Alano Miller), two young African-Americans in south Los Angeles. Each of the 8 episodes takes place during one day, across what the series will cover as five years. In the premiere the two meet at the library and spend the day getting to know each other via cheesecake and a refrigerator. Cicely Tyson has a supporting role as a sharp, sly aging film star. Airing, like DuVernay's Queen Sugar, on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
posted by mediareport on Feb 19, 2020 - 3 comments

"When They See Us is a 2019 American drama web television miniseries created, co-written, and directed by Ava DuVernay for Netflix, that premiered on May 31, 2019. The series was inspired by the Central Park jogger case from 1989 in which a 28-year-old female jogger named Trisha Meili was attacked and raped in Central Park in New York City, leaving her in a coma for 12 days. Five juvenile males and the protagonists of the series– four African-American and one Latino (Antron, Kevin, Yusef, Raymond, and Korey)– were convicted of the crimes by juries in two separate trials in 1990. The convictions were subsequently vacated in 2002 (a legal position in which the parties are treated as though no trial has taken place)." [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura on Jun 6, 2019 - 7 comments

After the disappearance of her scientist father, three peculiar beings send Meg, her brother, and her friend to space in order to find him.
posted by DirtyOldTown on Mar 8, 2018 - 44 comments

Is anyone else here watching this beautifully filmed, perfectly acted, funny, sad and intelligent soap from Ava "my Wrinkle In Time movie is coming out this March" DuVernay? The 15th and penultimate episode of the 2nd season about the cane-farming Bordelon siblings (a season just as captivating, heart-wrenching and...ok....soapy as the first) finds the clan in the midst of multiple personal and business crises all coming to a head at once. All episodes this season have again been directed by women. [more inside]
posted by mediareport on Nov 9, 2017 - 2 comments

This week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, NPR Monkey See's Linda Holmes, Stephen Thompson and Glen Weldon are joined by NPR Code Switch's Gene Demby to discuss the Civil Rights Era film Selma. They'll discuss the direction by Ava DuVernay, the Oprah of it all, and how well it brings Martin Luther King, Jr. to life. Then they'll discuss other historical dramas and the advantages and limitations of dramatic license. All that plus What's Making Us Happy this week.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome on Jan 22, 2015 - 1 comment

Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally desegregated the South, discrimination was still rampant in certain areas, making it very difficult for blacks to register to vote. In 1965, an Alabama city became the battleground in the fight for suffrage. Despite violent opposition, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) and his followers pressed forward on an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, and their efforts culminated in President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb on Jan 9, 2015 - 17 comments