Melvin Van-Peebles: Last News

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All news where Melvin Van-Peebles is mentioned

variety.com
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‘Is That Black Enough for You?!?’ Review: Elvis Mitchell’s Intoxicating Deep Dive into the Black Cinema Revolution of the ’70s
Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In “Is That Black Enough for You?!?,” Elvis Mitchell’s highly pleasurable and eye-opening movie-love documentary about the American Black cinema revolution of the late ’60s and ’70s, Billy Dee Williams, now 85 but still spry, tells a funny story about what it was like to play Louis McKay, the dapper love object and would-be savior of Billie Holiday in “Lady Sings the Blues.” The year was 1972, and African-American audiences had rarely (if ever) been given the chance to gawk at a movie star of color who was not just this sexy but this showcased for his sexiness. Louis was like Clark Gable with a dash of Marvin Gaye; when he was on that promenade stairway, Williams says that he just about fell in love with himself. That’s how unprecedented the whole thing was. The actor recalls how the lighting was fussed over (we see a shot in which Louis appears bathed in an old-movie glow), and how unreal that was to him on the set. At the time, Black actors didn’t get lighting like that. But Black audiences drank it in with a better-late-than-never swoon, even as they knew that this was a representation they’d been denied for more than half a century.
metroweekly.com
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The Criterion Channel: February Highlights
Bright Road (1953), Robert Wise’s Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), and 1974’s comedy Uptown Saturday Night, which the actor and singer directed. That film, in particular, is notable for its cast, which includes Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Flip Wilson, Richard Pryor, Calvin Lockhart, Roscoe Lee Browne, and Bill Cosby.Also on the bill, Robert Altman’s 1996 jazz-noir Kansas City, in which Belafonte plays a gangster named “Seldom Seen.” The film also stars Jennifer Jason Leigh, Miranda Richardson, and Steve Buscemi.The channel is also highlighting the innovative independent works of Melvin Van Peebles, a one-man creative force who often starred in, wrote, directed, and composed his films.Of the four entries, the most notable are Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), in which a Black man outruns white police authorities (the score, by Van Peebles, was performed by Earth, Wind & Fire) and Watermelon Man (1970), a renowned social comedy starring Godfrey Cambridge and Estelle Parsons, in which a white bigot wakes up to find his skin has turned Black.Also on tap: The Harder They Come (1972), featuring reggae artist Jimmy Cliff as a singer who faces down corruption in Jamaica’s music industry.
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