spike lee – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

SPOTLIGHT March, 2023: Kai Bowe, Programming Director, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network

March 1, 2023March 5, 2023 Leslie Combemale Africa Channel, ferguson rises, Kai Bowe, oprah winfrey, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, program director, reality tv, show runner, spike lee, spotlight, unscripted programming

Kai Bowe strives to create content and shepherd a variety of projects that entertain or comfort, as well as those that make change or impact the world for the better. She is someone who personally stands in her own power and walks the walk of striving to be better for herself, family, friends, and community. So many of the most influential Black creatives, including Spike Lee and Oprah Winfrey, have incorporated “Each one Teach one”, and Kai continues to embrace that philosophy in all her projects. We at AWFJ so appreciate women who bring such positivity, talent, and inspiration to the world of film and TV!

SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT January 2022: Jacqueline Stewart, Film Scholar, Archivist, and Curator

January 1, 2022January 5, 2022 Marilyn Ferdinand (Archived Contributor) “genius” grant, African American film cultures, Black Cinema House, Jacqueline Stewart, MacArthur Foundation, Migrating to the Movies, Miriam Hansen, She’s Gotta Have It, Spencer Williams, spike lee, spotlight, tcm, Turner Classic Movies, University of Chicago

As a deeply committed film scholar whose work is resurrecting forgotten figures—particularly African American artists—in cinematic history, Jacqueline Stewart is changing face of American culture. Her contributions as an educator, curator, archivist, author, and popular presenter will ensure that diversity both of narrators and narratives will enrich our culture for years to come.

Reviews

DA 5 BLOODS – Review by Susan Granger

June 10, 2020June 14, 2020 Susan Granger 0 Comments chadwick boseman, Clarke Peters, da 5 bloods, delroy lindo, Isiah Whitlock Jr, spike lee

Exploring racial inequity through the lens of the Vietnam War, Da 5 Bloods is the story of four African-American veterans who gather at a bar called Apocalypse Now in Ho Chi Minh City. They’re embarking on a dual mission: to recover the body of their revered squad leader, and find a cache of gold bars they’d buried after he was killed.

Interviews

Delroy Lindo Talks DA 5 BLOODS – Jessica Zack interviews

June 10, 2020June 17, 2020 Jessica Zack 0 Comments da 5 bloods, delroy lindo, netflix, spike lee

Delroy Lindo, who has appeared in numerous films and television series since his breakout performances in a trio of Spike Lee films in the 1990s, is garrulous and energized, eager to discuss the timeliness of his latest role, Paul, a troubled Vietnam veteran in Lee’s new movie Da 5 Bloods, released on Netflix.

SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT April 2020: Ruth Carter, Costume Designer, Style Setter, Mentor

April 1, 2020April 1, 2020 Leslie Combemale 0 Comments black panther, coming 2 america, costume design, oscars, ruth carter, spike lee

Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth Carter has carved a monumental career for herself in an industry that rarely had people of color working in her profession. Women of color, rarer still. Carter has been breaking barriers and building her reputation in the film industry for over 30 years. She’s reached the height of her aspirational dreams, turning what she’s most passionate about into her life’s work. She’s changed society through the films she’s chosen and cleared the way for acceptance of women of color in collaborative artistic positions of power in Hollywood.

Reviews

BLACKkKLANSMAN – Review by Martha P. Nochimson

December 21, 2018 Martha P. Nochimson (Archived Contributor) 0 Comments Adam Driver, blackkklansman, eye on media, John David Washington, laura harrier, spike lee

In Blackkklansman, a movie with a title that makes it sound like it’s a Mel Brooks high concept farce from the 1970’s, Spike Lee Has dipped back into historical events that began in 1978 to hold the mirror up to the dangerous racial chaos of America in 2018. And it’s no farce. At the same time, both Lee’s film and the book of the same name on which it is based, a memoir by a black undercover police detective, Ron Stallworth, working in Colorado Springs, do create cognitive dissonance. A black man in the Klan? How?

Reviews

BLACKKKLANSMAN — Review by Brandy McDonnell

August 15, 2018September 6, 2018 Brandy McDonnell 0 Comments Adam Driver, blackkklansman, John David Washington, ron stallworth, spike lee

Based on an outrageous true story, Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman” veers wildly between hilarious and harrowing, thrilling and appalling, smart and stylish. Most importantly, the two-time Oscar nominee’s latest “joint,” as Lee calls his films, is undeniably relevant, even though most of the events it chronicles happened 40 years ago.

Reviews

BLACKKKLANSMAN — Review by Susan Granger

August 8, 2018September 6, 2018 Susan Granger 0 Comments Adam Driver, blackkklansman, John David Washington, ron stallwart, spike lee

Opening with a Civil War scene from Gone With the Wind (1939) and closing with footage from the Charlottesville riots (2017), Spike Lee’s “crazy, outrageous, incredible true story” about Ron Stallworth is both historical and relevant. In the early 1970s when Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) became the first African-American detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department, he wanted to go undercover. His chance comes when he’s assigned to surreptitiously record a speech by former Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael (Corey Hawkins), a.k.a. African nationalist Kwame Ture.

Reviews