“You know it’s not crazy to kill people, they do it everyday,” coldly explains Isaiah Washington’s shocking transformation as one-half of DC sniper John Muhammad in Alexandre Moors excellently directed Blue Caprice. The psychopathic rhetoric doesn’t become as important to the teacher than the student. Listening is...
Almost seven years after democratically electing its first president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, both sides of the decades long Liberia civil war still bare emotional and physical scars. The hardest hit by the horrendous violence were women and girls as young as infants through sexual assault....
By now, much has been said about South African director Jahmil X.T. Qubeka and his controversial film Of Good Report. Whether labeled as child porn by the Rainbow Nation’s government or almost being banned at last year’s Durban International Film Festival, this contemporary take on film noir...
Open Mike Eagle has been a fixture of underground Los Angeles for quite some time. A member of locally iconic and long-running collective Project Blowed, the Chicago native is the area’s champion of cerebral “art rap” that’s equally engrossing and flat out hilarious. That knack...
Brick Squad (and its Brick Squad Monopoly subsidiary) have surely seen better days. It’s been tough for the Atlanta-based home to popular artists Gucci Mane and Waka Flocka. The once seemingly invincible empire began to crack last year following internal feuds and cringe-worthy tweets from...
There’s an air of loneliness in Sebastián Lelio’s warmly directed Chilean drama Gloria. Nonetheless, more than enough lighthearted moments perfectly compliment a pretty somber tone. Primarily focused around the almost isolated life of its 58-year-old divorcee, Paulina García shines as the film’s extremely relatable titular character. García...
Making a noise in Southern California’s hip-hop scene since his breakout 2010 mixtape Pistols and Palmtrees, Inglewood native Skeme (real name Lonnie Kimble) has grown to be the area’s biggest MC since Mack 10. Former associate of slain Konvict Muzik rapper Dolla, Skeme has easily solidified his status of a fixture. That means collaborating with everyone from Dom Kennedy and Iggy Azalea to Kendrick Lamar and E-40. Following years of releasing critically lionized mixtapes, 2012 saw him successfully drop his debut album Alive & Living. Never one to halt momentum, he closed out 2013 with follow-up album and personal ode to his hometown entitled Ingleworld. More of a streamlined project than his previous works, the album features lead singles “Different” and “Ain’t Perfect” featuring Wale.
Black Coffee may fill the needs of those craving a fairly innocent romantic comedy with a majority African American cast. The rest are better off avoiding it at all cost. Even the film’s marketed audience may be turned off by its wooden acting, atrocious editing, uninspired...
Though hip-hop has gained an international following since its inception decades ago, MCs attempting crossover from outside the music genre’s birthplace have been relatively rare. One continent that’s had the best track record over time is obviously Europe. From the Golden Era rhyming of Slick...
Stylistically, found footage cinematography has almost become as synonymous with contemporary horror as zombies and torture porn. One of the genre’s biggest beneficiaries post-Blair Witch Projectwas 2009’s Paranormal Activity. Eventually becoming one of the most profitable films ever, it spawned three sequels normally released around Halloween. Subsequent...
