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Bernice Johnson Reagon, a musical voice for civil rights, is dead at 81
NEW YORK, NY.- Bernice Johnson Reagon, whose stirring gospel voice helped provide the soundtrack of the civil rights movement, then went on to become a cultural historian, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution and the founder of the women’s a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, died Tuesday in Washington. She was 81. Her death, in a hospital, was confirmed by her daughter, Toshi Reagon, who did not give a cause. Bernice Reagon, the daughter of a Baptist preacher in Albany, Georgia, grew up in a church without a piano, and the first music she absorbed, rooted in spirituals and hymns, was performed by human voices to the accompaniment of clapping and foot stomping. She was an original member in 1962 of the Freedom Singers, a vocal quartet that provided anthems of defiance for civil rights protesters preparing to confront the police or as they were hauled ... More

At 'Slave Play' in London, a 'Black Out' night emerges from controversy
LONDON.- Elaine Grant was pleased with the scene unfolding outside the Noël Coward Theater in London on Wednesday night. Unlike most nights at the theater in the West End, there was a sea of majority Black faces laughing and jovially chatting in a line that snaked around the block before a performance of Jeremy O. Harris’ “Slave Play.” Grant, who works in the arts, had organized a group of more than 100 people, mostly Black women, to see the show. “A lot of the people that I work with don’t necessarily go to the theater a lot,” she said, and so it was important for them to be in a space where they could feel safe experiencing a range of emotion. This was a “Black Out” performance, an idea Harris first announced for his play’s Broadway 2019 run, in which he invites Black audience members to attend a specific performance, to experience and discuss art ... More

Focusing in on one star, fancams find a love of the movies
NEW YORK, NY.- When I first saw “Anatomy of a Fall” at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, I expected that the courtroom drama would be critically acclaimed. I could even imagine an Oscar win. What I did not foresee was the fancams. These vertical video edits of clips focus on a celebrity or character, usually set to pop music. If you want to nitpick, you can also call them fan edits, especially if they involve multiple people onscreen. The fancam phenomenon grew out of the world of K-pop, where enthusiasts often make videos focusing solely on one member of a large band. These days, my feeds are full of film and TV fancams, which I have come to love and seek out. But perhaps the most notable one was from last year and focused on Swann Arlaud in his role as the defense attorney Vincent Renzi in “Anatomy of a Fall.” Set to Rina Sawayama’s song ... More

Celebrating film nostalgia with ooze and ahhs at Blobfest
NEW YORK, NY.- In 1958, the sci-fi horror film “The Blob,” about a murderous, insatiable and ever-ballooning hunk of alien matter, opened in theaters across the United States. At the time, critics’ appetites for the movie were not as piqued as the on-screen monster’s. In a review for The New York Times, Howard Thompson wrote that “The Blob” was “woodenly presented,” and the “dialogue flattens as fast as the blob rounds.” Not even Steve McQueen in his first leading role could save the plot in Thompson’s eyes. But 66 years later, audiences are still hungry for more. The film became a cult classic, fitting snugly among other camp favorites such as “Creature From the Black Lagoon” (1954) and “The Fly” (1958). And in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, where much of “The Blob” ... More

Fans of the Dead come alive in Las Vegas
NEW YORK, NY.- Midway through their residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas during a record-breaking heat wave, Dead & Company played its jam band specials over the Fourth of July weekend for an eclectic crowd. The band’s audience — some die-hard fans, others just curious — came from all over the country (and the world) to pledge their own form of allegiance. “You see people who are Sphere tourists who just want to get inside and see what it’s all about. They don’t necessarily have experience listening to the Dead’s music,” said Ashley, 35, a DJ and an event host from Las Vegas. “It’s totally acceptable because Deadheads are the coolest, most down-to-earth crowds.” (Still, like some other fans, she declined to provide her full name.) Ashley had come to hang out at Shakedown Street — the traveling bazaar where vendors sell rose ... More

The stomach-dropping, heart-tugging appeal of climbing documentaries
NEW YORK, NY.- Documentaries in which people climb very tall things have a remarkable track record. “Man on Wire,” James Marsh’s 2008 recounting of Philippe Petit’s high-wire walk between the twin towers in 1974, is one of the most acclaimed and successful documentaries of all time. Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi have made two celebrated films about the sport: “Meru” in 2015 and “Free Solo” in 2018. Just do a quick search for “climbing documentaries” and you’ll find dozens — it’s clearly a genre people love. That’s undoubtedly due in part to the fact that most of us (myself included) will never, ever attempt to scale a 3,000-foot cliff without ropes. These movies show us what we can’t otherwise see. Plus, in contrast to the manufactured safety of a fiction film, a documentary is heart-pounding. Your head knows they probably ... More

Why do pop's biggest stars adore Michael Uzowuru?
LOS ANGELES, CALIF.- Shortly into a Monday morning piano lesson, Michael Uzowuru came alive. Seated at a black grand piano in a long, sunlit room, he warmed up with finger exercises and scales before his instructor, Riko Weimer, asked him to improvise a composition using diminished chords as a foundation. Closing his eyes, he kneaded his way into a languid, contemplative melody, his head bent gently over the keys. “I generally have a lesson plan,” Weimer said when Uzowuru stopped, “but then he digests it in one try.” Uzowuru, 32, sipped from a porcelain cup of espresso, rolled the sleeves of his bright pink sweater to his elbows and resumed playing. Four mornings a week, he drives 20 minutes from the Los Angeles home he shares with his girlfriend and son to Weimer’s Atwater Village studio. When he isn’t intensely ... More

Sharks don't sink. And neither does she.
NEW YORK, NY.- Jasmin Graham was on a mission. The marine biologist wanted to change not only the public’s often misleading perception of sharks — in many cases, drawn from their harrowing portrayal in the novel “Jaws” and calcified in pop culture over the last 50 years — but also that of the people who study them. Once a marine biology doctoral student at Florida State University, Graham understood firsthand what it was like to try to make it in the field — and to be one of few Black women doing it. The challenges she faced in academia led to her fateful decision to leave the program in 2020 and pursue a career as a rogue scientist. Graham, now 29, has since found success her own way, researching vanishing populations of sawfish, the harmful effects of red tides on sharks and even the local ecological knowledge found among ... More

Happy Traum, mainstay of the folk music world, dies at 86
NEW YORK, NY.- Happy Traum, a celebrated folk singer, guitarist and banjo player who was a mainstay of New York City’s Greenwich Village coffeehouse scene of the early 1960s, recorded with Bob Dylan and had an influential career as a music instructor, died Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 86. His wife, Jane, said he died of pancreatic cancer in a physical rehabilitation facility after undergoing surgery for the disease. He lived in Woodstock, New York. Known for his easy vocal approach and his prowess as a finger-style guitarist and five-string banjo player, the Bronx-bred Traum was an enduring presence in the folk world for more than six decades. “Revered by most in the musical know, he is easily one of the most significant acoustic-roots musicians and guita ... More

Manny Jacinto turns to the dark side in 'The Acolyte'
NEW YORK, NY.- As it turns out, Manny Jacinto brought some relevant experience to “The Acolyte”: He understands how to change characters. Jacinto is best known for “The Good Place,” the hit NBC sitcom on which he played an unspeaking Buddhist monk before being unmasked as Jason Mendoza, a lovable, Jacksonville Jaguars-obsessed dummy who is anything but mute. “I had no idea what I was stepping into,” Jacinto said in an interview. “It was my first job in the States. I didn’t even have a green card yet.” He has since worked alongside some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Nicole Kidman, in the television series “Nine Perfect Strangers” — a series in which he showed a more stoic side, playing a character who essentially served as Kidman’s acolyte. He then appeared with Tom Cruise ... More

Will a movie faking the Moon landing propel a debunked conspiracy theory?
NEW YORK, NY.- The new Scarlett Johansson-Channing Tatum vehicle, “Fly Me to the Moon,” uses a long-debunked conspiracy theory as the jumping-off point for a space-race romantic comedy. At the end of the 1960s, a wary NASA recognizes the need for better public relations during the Vietnam War. The resulting campaign leads to a faked version of the Apollo 11 mission being shot on a sound stage even as the real mission is unfolding. Shenanigans, and romance, ensue. “Fly Me to the Moon” isn’t the first movie based on the mistaken belief that the moon landing was a hoax, a conspiracy theory that first arose in the 1970s. “Capricorn One” (1978), about a faked mission to Mars, taps into Watergate-era institutional distrust, and more recently, “Moonwalkers” (2015) pairs a CIA agent with a rock band manager to fake the Apollo 11 landing. ... More