You should never take for granted a documentary that fills in the basics with flair and feeling. Especially when the basics consist of great big gobs of some of the most revolutionary and exhilarating popular art ever created in this country. Roger Ross Williams’ documentary “The Apollo,” which kicked off the Tribeca Film Festival on a note of soulful celebration, fills in the 85-year history of the 1,506-seat show palace on 125th St. in Harlem that changed black culture and changed American culture. The movie brings off that feat in a bracing and moving way: by flowing back and forth between past and present, performance and political activism, so that by the end we know in our bones how false it would be separate them.
Countless astonishing spectacles of black expression were experienced, for the first time, on the Apollo stage. But in “The Apollo,” an event that stands out...
Countless astonishing spectacles of black expression were experienced, for the first time, on the Apollo stage. But in “The Apollo,” an event that stands out...
- 4/25/2019
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
When AfterElton asked me if I'd be interested in doing a story on full-frontal male nudity in the movies, I said, “Interested? I've been researching it since I was 12!” What prompted the idea is of course the film Shame, which stars Michael Fassbender as a man addicted to sex. When the film debuted at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year it set off a shockwave because of its sexual explicitness, including a much-discussed full-frontal reveal by Fassbender. Add to that the recent flurry of attention that stills of Jonathan Groff's nude scene in Twelve Thirty hitting the Internet generated, and it seems like these days cinema penises are a trending topic.
Everyone from film critics to Freudian analysts to gender theorists has written about male nudity in film. And sorting through the pronouncements on the male gaze and Lacanian mirrors and power inequities between the sexes in Hollywood...
Everyone from film critics to Freudian analysts to gender theorists has written about male nudity in film. And sorting through the pronouncements on the male gaze and Lacanian mirrors and power inequities between the sexes in Hollywood...
- 12/5/2011
- by fakename
- The Backlot
Tony Award-winning dancer Frankie Manning has died, aged 94.
A swing-era dance pioneer, Manning became a master of the Lindy Hop. He began his career in the 1930s in Harlem, New York's premier ballroom, the Savoy and was soon hired as a contract dancer at the famed Cotton Club. And his swift success took him on tours of Europe, New Zealand and Australia.
He also danced in Hollywood films including 1938's Radio City Revels and the film version of Broadway's Hellzapoppin' in 1941 and appeared in 1939 musical The Hot Mikado.
Manning took a hiatus from dance to serve with the U.S. Army in World War II, and was celebrated upon his return.
In 1989, he co-choreographed a Lindy routine for Alvin Ailey’s Opus McShann - the same year he shared the Tony for best choreography with Cholly Atkins, Henry LeTang and Fayard Nicholas for their contributions to the Broadway revue Black and Blue.
And in 1992, he returned to Hollywood, appearing in Spike Lee's Malcolm X - and was commissioned by the director to train Denzel Washington for a Lindy scene in the movie.
In addition to the Tony, Manning was also awarded the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2000.
Manning's death was announced by his companion, Judy Pritchett. No cause of death had been disclosed as WENN went to press.
He is survived by two sons, Charles Young, Frank Manning Jr., a daughter, Marion Price, a half-brother, seven grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
A swing-era dance pioneer, Manning became a master of the Lindy Hop. He began his career in the 1930s in Harlem, New York's premier ballroom, the Savoy and was soon hired as a contract dancer at the famed Cotton Club. And his swift success took him on tours of Europe, New Zealand and Australia.
He also danced in Hollywood films including 1938's Radio City Revels and the film version of Broadway's Hellzapoppin' in 1941 and appeared in 1939 musical The Hot Mikado.
Manning took a hiatus from dance to serve with the U.S. Army in World War II, and was celebrated upon his return.
In 1989, he co-choreographed a Lindy routine for Alvin Ailey’s Opus McShann - the same year he shared the Tony for best choreography with Cholly Atkins, Henry LeTang and Fayard Nicholas for their contributions to the Broadway revue Black and Blue.
And in 1992, he returned to Hollywood, appearing in Spike Lee's Malcolm X - and was commissioned by the director to train Denzel Washington for a Lindy scene in the movie.
In addition to the Tony, Manning was also awarded the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2000.
Manning's death was announced by his companion, Judy Pritchett. No cause of death had been disclosed as WENN went to press.
He is survived by two sons, Charles Young, Frank Manning Jr., a daughter, Marion Price, a half-brother, seven grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
- 4/28/2009
- WENN
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