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Posts published in “Commemorations”

"12 Years A Slave" Nabs 9 Oscar Nominations, Including Best Picture

By goodblacknews on January 16, 2014

12 Years A Slave
This morning, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for its 86th annual Awards, and recent Golden Globes Best Picture winner 12 Years A Slave was honored nine times, including nods for Best Supporting Actress (Lupita Nyong’o), Best Supporting Actor (Michael Fassbender), Best Adapted Screenplay (John Ridley), Best Actor (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Best Director (Steve McQueen) and Best Picture (Brad Pitt is one of the producers).
Other notable nominations include Barkhad Abdi for Best Supporting Actor in Captain Phillips, Pharrell Williams for Original Song (“Happy” from Despicable Me 2) and U2 for Original Song (“Ordinary Love” from Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom).
American Hustle and Gravity tied for most nominations with ten nominations each, and will likely provide the stiffest competition for 12 Years during the March 2nd awards ceremony.
The full list of nominations follows below:
BEST PICTURE
“12 Years a Slave”
“American Hustle”
“Captain Phillips”
“Dallas Buyers Club”
“Gravity”
“Her”
“Nebraska”
“Philomena”
“The Wolf of Wall Street”

Herbie Hancock Named Harvard’s 2014 Norton Professor of Poetry

By goodblacknews on January 15, 2014
Jazz Luminary Herbie Hancock (Photograph by Guillaume Laurent/Wikipedia)
World-renowned jazz musician and composer Herbie Hancock has been named Harvard University’s 2014 Norton Professor of Poetry.  Hancock will give six lectures this spring on topics that include “The Wisdom of Miles Davis,” “Breaking the Rules,” “Cultural Diplomacy and the Voice Of Freedom,” and “Innovation and New Technologies.”
“It is a great privilege to welcome Herbie Hancock as the Norton Professor,” said Homi Bhabha, Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities and Director of the Mahindra Humanities Center, which is hosting the lectures. “His unsurpassed contribution to the history of music has revolutionized our understanding of the ways in which the arts transform our civic consciousness and our spiritual aspirations. It would be no exaggeration to say that he has defined cultural innovation in each decade of the last half-century.”
Born on April 12, 1940, in Chicago, Hancock grew up in a family that wasn’t particularly musical, according to Biography.com. At the age of seven he began studying European classical music, which continues to influence both his playing and composing. At the same time, he was influenced by jazz pianists like George Shearing, Oscar Peterson, and Erroll Garner. As a young teenager, he was playing Mozart with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As a member of the Miles Davis Quintet (which he joined in 1963), Hancock performed on dozens of albums and established a reputation as an outstanding composer who explored genres outside traditional jazz, ranging from fusion to R&B to hip-hop.
Hancock has also provided scores for a number of TV and film projects, including Bill Cosby’s Fat Albert cartoon series and an accompanying album, as well as for the movies Death Wish (1974), A Soldier’s Story (1984), and Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986). He won an Academy Award for the score to ‘Round Midnight (1986); his other honors include 14 Grammy Awards, including Album Of The Year for River: The Joni Letters.

Rapper Juicy J Awards $50K Scholarship To Biology Student Zaire Holmes (VIDEO)

By goodblacknews on January 13, 2014

Juicy J
Last summer rapper Juicy J announced that he was giving away $50,000 in scholarship money. The initial Tweet stated, “I’m giving out a 50K scholarship to the best chick that can twerk” and it illicit a firestorm of response–and applications.  After going through submissions Juicy has selected a winner, but insists that no twerking was required to win.  “50K is a lot of money and I don’t want to waste it on some chick twerkin’ her ass,” he says. “Next time I send a Tweet out about a scholarship take it serious and read the words!”
The winner is 19-year-old Zaire Holmes, a mother and student at the State College of Florida who did read the rules and submitted a video explaining why she deserved the money.  “I’m a biology major so the scholarship would be able to cover all of my lab expenses,” she said hopefully. “A lot of people thought you had to twerk, but you actually had to read the rules!”
Watch Juicy J present Holmes with the check:
http://youtu.be/9fc-vqqjZzs
article by Jerry L. Barrow via theurbandaily.com

"12 Years A Slave" and "Lee Daniels' The Butler" Lead NAACP Image Award Nominations

By goodblacknews on January 11, 2014

Lee Daniels' The Butler
The nominees for the 45th NAACP Image Awards were announced on Jan. 9, and 12 Years A Slave and Lee Daniels’ The Butler lead the pack with seven nominations each, including nods in the coveted Best Actor, Best Director and Best Picture categories.  Other multiple nominees include the Kerry Washington-starrer Scandal and Kevin Hart‘s BET comedy Real Husbands of Hollywood, each coming in with five nods in the television drama and comedy categories.
In addition to being nominated for her role as Olivia Pope on Scandal, Washington also received a nomination in the Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture category for her role in the film Tyler Perry Presents Peeples.  Angela Bassett went one better and landed three acting nominations, for her film performance in Black Nativity, and her outstanding television work in Betty and Coretta and American Horror Story: Coven.  Terrence Howard was the most-nominated male actor, grabbing dual nods for his performances in Lee Daniels’ The Butler and The Best Man Holiday.
In music, Robin Thicke garnered four nominations for Blurred Lines, including Outstanding Male Artist and Outstanding Album, while Janelle Monae was the most-nominated female artist, gaining honors in the Outstanding Female Artist, Outstanding Album and Outstanding Music Video categories.
The Image Awards are presented annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the group’s members select the winners. The 45th annual NAACP Image Awards is set to air on Feb. 22 on the TV One channel at 9 p.m. CT.
Check out the full list of nominations below:
TELEVISION
Outstanding Comedy Series
“House of Lies”
“Modern Family”
“Real Husbands of Hollywood”
“The Game”
“The Soul Man”
Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series
Andre Braugher – “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”
Cedric The Entertainer – “The Soul Man”
Don Cheadle – “House of Lies”
DuleHill – “Psych”
Kevin Hart – “Real Husbands of Hollywood”
Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series
Aisha Tyler – “Archer”
Mindy Kaling – “The Mindy Project”
Niecy Nash – “The Soul Man”
Tasha Smith – “Tyler Perry’s For Better or Worse”
Wendy Raquel Robinson – “The Game”
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series
Boris Kodjoe – “Real Husbands of Hollywood”
Jerry “J B Smoove” Brooks – “Real Husbands of Hollywood”
Morris Chestnut – “Nurse Jackie”
Nick Cannon – “Real Husbands of Hollywood”
Tracy Morgan – “30 Rock”
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
Anna Deavere Smith – “Nurse Jackie”
Brandy Norwood – “The Game”
Nia Long – “House of Lies”
Rashida Jones – “Parks and Recreation”
Sofia Vergara – “Modern Family”
Outstanding Drama Series
“Boardwalk Empire”
“Grey’s Anatomy”
“Scandal”
“The Good Wife”
“Treme”
Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series
James Pickens, Jr. – “Grey’s Anatomy”
LL Cool J – “NCIS: Los Angeles”
Michael Ealy – “Almost Human”
Shemar Moore – “Criminal Minds”
Wendell Pierce – “Treme”
Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series
Chandra Wilson – “Grey’s Anatomy”
Kerry Washington – “Scandal”
Khandi Alexander – “Treme”
Nicole Beharie – “Sleepy Hollow”
Regina King – “SouthLAnd”
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Columbus Short – “Scandal”
Guillermo Diaz – “Scandal”
Jeffrey Wright – “Boardwalk Empire”
Joe Morton – “Scandal”
Michael Kenneth Williams – “Boardwalk Empire”
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
Archie Panjabi – “The Good Wife”
Debbie Allen – “Grey’s Anatomy”
Diahann Carroll – “White Collar”
Taraji P. Henson – “Person of Interest”
Vanessa L. Williams – “666 Park Avenue”

Frank Thomas Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame

By goodblacknews on January 10, 2014

Chicago White Sox slugger Frank Thomas smiles as he responds to a question during a news conference about his selection into the MLB Baseball Hall Of Fame Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2014, at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago. Thomas joins Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine as first ballot inductees Wednesday, and will be inducted in Cooperstown on July 27 along with managers Bobby Cox, Joe Torre and Tony La Russa, elected last month by the expansion-era committee. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago White Sox slugger Frank Thomas smiles as he responds to a question during a news conference about his selection into the MLB Baseball Hall Of Fame Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2014, at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago. Thomas joins Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine as first ballot inductees Wednesday, and will be inducted in Cooperstown on July 27 along with managers Bobby Cox, Joe Torre and Tony La Russa, elected last month by the expansion-era committee. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

NEW YORK (AP) — A new generation of starting pitchers and a self-proclaimed Mr. Clean of the Steroids Era will be ushered into baseball’s Hall of Fame this summer.  Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas were elected on their first ballot appearances Wednesday, when Craig Biggio fell just two votes short.  Maddux and Glavine will join their former Atlanta Braves manager, Bobby Cox, at the July 27 induction along with Joe Torre and Tony La Russa, also elected last month by the expansion-era committee.
But Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and other stars whose accomplishments were muddied by accusations of steroids use lost even more ground, dropping below 40 percent in an election where 75 percent is needed. And on his first day as a member of baseball’s elite, Thomas said the living members among the 306 Hall of Famers don’t want those with sullied reputations.
“Over the last year, doing a couple of charity events with Hall of Famers that are in, they’ve got a strong stance against anyone who’s taken steroids. They do not want them in. They don’t care when they started or when they did it, they do not want them in,” he said. “I’ve got to take the right stance, too. No, they shouldn’t get in. There shouldn’t be cheating allowed to get into the Hall of Fame.”
Making their second appearances on the ballot, Clemens dropped from 37.6 percent to 35.4 in voting by senior members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, Bonds from 36.2 to 34.7 and Sosa from 12.5 to 7.2.  Bonds, baseball’s career home run leader, is the only seven-time MVP in major league history. Clemens is the lone seven-time Cy Young Award winner.  “As for what they did, I don’t think any of us will ever really know,” Thomas said. “But I can just tell you, what I did was real and that’s why I’ve got this smile on my face right now because the writers, they definitely got it right.”

R.I.P. Poet and Activist Amiri Baraka

By goodblacknews on January 9, 2014
Portrait of American writer Amiri Baraka, USA, 17th March 2013. (Photo by Mick Gold/Redferns)
Portrait of American writer Amiri Baraka, USA, 17th March 2013. (Photo by Mick Gold/Redferns)

Amiri Baraka, the militant man of letters and tireless agitator whose blues-based, fist-shaking poems, plays and criticism made him a provocative and groundbreaking force in American culture, has died. He was 79.  His booking agent, Celeste Bateman, told The Associated Press that Baraka, who had been hospitalized since last month, died Thursday at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center.
Perhaps no writer of the 1960s and ’70s was more radical or polarizing than Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones), and no one did more to extend the political debates of the civil rights era to the world of the arts. He inspired at least one generation of poets, playwrights and musicians, and his immersion in spoken word traditions and raw street language anticipated rap, hip-hop and slam poetry. The FBI feared him to the point of flattery, identifying Baraka as “the person who will probably emerge as the leader of the Pan-African movement in the United States.”
Baraka transformed from the rare black to join the Beat caravan of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac to leader of the Black Arts Movement, an ally of the Black Power movement that rejected the liberal optimism of the early ’60s and intensified a divide over how and whether the black artist should take on social issues. Scorning art for art’s sake and the pursuit of black-white unity, Barak was part of a philosophy that called for the teaching of black art and history and producing works that bluntly called for revolution.
“We want ‘poems that kill,’” Baraka wrote in his landmark “Black Art,” a manifesto published in 1965, the year he helped found the Black Arts Movement. “Assassin poems. Poems that shoot guns/Poems that wrestle cops into alleys/and take their weapons leaving them dead/with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland.”

"12 Years A Slave" Director Steve McQueen Nominated for Director's Guild Award

By goodblacknews on January 7, 2014

steve mcqueenAccording to the Los Angeles Times, Steve McQueen, the 44-year-old British director, garnered his first Director’s Guild of American Award nomination for 12 Years a Slave, an unflinching look at slavery in the U.S.  McQueen is only the second black director to have received a DGA nomination in this category.  Lee Daniels was the first to earn a DGA nomination for feature film for 2009’s Precious. McQueen received best director honors from the New York Film Critics Circle and is nominated for Golden Globe and Independent Spirit awards.

Other nominees include Martin Scorsese, who earned his ninth DGA nomination for The Wolf of Wall Street, his controversial dark comedy starring Leonardo DiCaprio about a hedonistic stockbroker.  Scorsese, 71, received his first DGA feature nomination for 1976’s Taxi Driver, and won the honor for his 2006 crime film The Departed, which also starred DiCaprio.
Alfonso Cuaron, like McQueen, is also a first-time nominee, for his lost-in-space blockbuster Gravity. Cuaron, 52, was named best director by the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. for the thriller and is nominated for a Golden Globe Award.  British filmmaker Paul Greengrass, 58, was nominated for Captain Phillips, a fact-based thriller about a container ship hijacked by Somali pirates. Greengrass is also nominated for a Golden Globe for his direction of the film.  Rounding out the DGA feature nominees is David O. Russell for his Abscam-influenced con-comedy American Hustle. Russell, 55, was nominated in this category for 2010’s The Fighter.  He is also nominated for a Golden Globe.
The winner will be announced at the 66th awards dinner on Jan. 25 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson

 

South Carolina Native Sergio Hudson wins Rihanna's "Styled To Rock" Design Competition

By goodblacknews on January 3, 2014

Sergio

After ten weeks of cutting, sewing and styling, South Carolina native Sergio Hudson came out on top as the winner of Rihanna’s Styled To Rock design competition.  The pop star, along with judges/mentors Mel Ottenberg, Erin Wasson, and Pharrell Williams, chose the father of three over runner up Laura Petrielli-Pulice from Chicago, for his envelope-pushing aesthetic and strong structuring skills. Hudson walks away with a $100,000 cash prize, a fashion feature in Glamour magazine and a spot on Rihanna’s official design team.

Airing on Bravo, the music-meets-fashion competition series followed 12 up-and-coming coming designers, hand-picked by the pop-star, to create unique fashion pieces for some of the biggest names in entertainment. With celebrity guests such as Miley Cyrus and Kelly Osbourne, the designers experienced demanding real-life challenges, made to push their creative boundaries. Each week, with only a limited time frame, they were asked to create an innovative outfit and complete look based on the celebrities’ detailed brief.  In the final challenge, the final two designers had to create two editorial looks specifically for Rihanna. Sergio’s denim ball gown and high-cut denim shorts were the stand out pieces.

President Barack Obama Named Most Admired Man Of 2013

By goodblacknews on January 2, 2014

barack obama most admired man

Despite having earned dismal approval ratings for his presidency at the end of last year, President Barack Obama (pictured) was still named the nation’s most admired man of 2013, according to a recent Gallup Poll. The Commander-in-Chief has won the honor for the 57th time, over a six-year period, since Gallup began asking Americans the question for the past 6 years, reports Gallup Politics.  The Gallup organization polled people ages 18 and older via telephone from December 5th to December 8th across the United States to respond to a question about the person they admired the most on the planet. Sixteen percent of Americans named Obama as the individual they most look up to, and he was followed by former President George W. Bush and Pope Francis, who both shared the No. 2 spot as far as admired males with 4 percent each.

The former United States Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, and First Lady Hillary Clinton took poll honors as the most-admired female on the globe with a 15 percent rating. Clinton was followed by talk show maven Oprah Winfrey, who garnered 6 percent of the vote.  Coming in behind Winfrey and sharing their highly coveted spotlight is First Lady Michelle Obama and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin with each receiving 5 percent of the poll votes.
article by Ruth Manuel-Logan via newsone.com

R.I.P. Oscar-Nominated "Imitation of Life" Actress Juanita Moore

By goodblacknews on January 1, 2014

Juanita Moore
Juanita Moore, who broke barriers for African-American actors and was Oscar-nominated for 1959′s remake of Imitation of Life, died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. Her step-grandson, actor Kirk Kahn, said she was 99.  Moore received a supporting actress nomination for the Douglas Sirk-directed Imitation of Life, playing Annie Johnson, the housekeeper whose daughter passes for white, in the racially-themed film that was based on the Fannie Hurst novel. She was the fifth African-American to ever be nominated for an Academy Award.

Kahn said she was still running lines with him recently, and had planned to participate in a reading at the Saban Theater in a few weeks. “She didn’t candy-coat it for you,” he said. “She said, ‘If you’re no good, the play’s no good.’”  “She gave back to the community in so many ways,” he said. “Wherever we went she stopped and told black boys and girls they could do anything with their lives.”
Moore, who was a founding member of the Cambridge Players along with thespians such as Esther Rolle, was honored at the Black Theater Festival in North Carolina, her grandson said.  Born in Los Angeles, Moore was a chorus girl at the Cotton Club who started out as a film extra, then worked as an actor at the Ebony Showcase Theater.  She made her film debut in 1949′s Pinky, and often played a maid in 1950s films such as The Girl Can’t Help It.  In the 1960s and ’70s, she played a nun in The Singing Nun and appeared in films including Uptight and The Mack.
Though she didn’t work often through the 1980s, she began appearing onscreen again in later years on TV shows such as E.R. and Judging Amy and in films such as Disney’s The Kid.  In addition to her grandson, she is survived by two nephews.  To learn more about her life and career, click here.
article by Pat Saperstein via Variety.com; additions by Lori Lakin Hutcherson