Reese Witherspoon—actress, production company head, and drinker of whiskey in a teacup—has been doing quite a lot as of late, particularly in support of the Times Up movement, both in Hollywood and outside of it. On Tuesday, Witherspoon announced the official launch of another business initiative: her video-on-demand…
Last year, Ava DuVernay announced she was working on a Netflix series about the Central Park Five, the five Harlem teenagers who were accused and unfairly convicted of raping a white woman in 1989 and then had their convictions thrown out 13 years later. The initial cast for the four-part project has been confirmed,…
Like all Sade songs, “Flower of the Universe,” the first new music from Sade in seven years, is a beautiful lullaby for the sad and wistful teenager who dreams of tesseracts and Oprah with sparkly eyebrows.
There are mythical animals more frequently spotted than revered smooth R&B/jazz act Sade. That, along with the act’s wealth of slyly catchy tunes and the inimitable pipes of its lead singer Sade Adu, is a huge reason why the band is so legendary. They haven’t released new music since a handful of tracks on the 2011…
Oprah was profiled in this month’s issue of WSJ Magazine, and beyond the writer’s overwhelmingly enthusiastic tone (just look at the cover), the piece includes several quotes from her friends and Wrinkle In Time creative partners Reese Witherspoon and Ava Duvernay. Even pollster Frank Luntz, her new colleague at 60…
It’s hard to maintain such a feverish pitch of excitement for A Wrinkle In Time for so long, but here is another boost in the form of a perfect magazine cover for Essence.
The CGI gods are working overtime in the new trailer for A Wrinkle in Time, but amid the swelling orchestral music and panicked glances from a lost Chris Pine, it’s impossible not to notice how fuckin’ cool the outfits are. Come, take my hand as I guide you through a fifth dimension some screen grabs of Oprah and co.,…
The future might seem bleak, but at least it holds lots of projects by director Ava DuVernay. That body of work will now include a television show based on the story of a woman saved from a ruined Earth by aliens. Timely!
The year was 1983. Fannie Haughton—a name unfamiliar to most—was living in Oakland, California, under a poisonous Reagan regime, in the middle of a drug war. Much of her life as a student activist had involved working with her mentor, Angela Davis. Haughton taught and organized locally, a communal duty that included…
The movie idea starring Rihanna and Lupita Nyong’o—a pitch that appears to have originated on Tumblr and migrated to Twitter, where it transformed into a fully formed film—is now miraculously being made into a real movie. Hello, I’m your captain and this is 2017.
Ava DuVernay, Oprah Winfrey and Van Jones talked about the prison system and, tangentially, Donald Trump, in a discussion hosted by Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos at his large home in Los Angeles.
One of the most powerful images in Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th involves a juxtaposition of Donald Trump’s campaign speech about “the good old days” in America with jarring footage from the Civil Rights era. In a recent interview, DuVernay talked about the significance of this type of imagery and how Americans will…
Though we were all planning to go see A Wrinkle In Time from the moment it was announced that Ava DuVernay would be directing, she keeps stacking the deck with more and more people you’ll want to pay to see on a big screen.
Pre-production on Disney’s A Wrinkle In Time has already begun, and Ava DuVernay has been tweeting out wonderful updates on its progress, including the addition of Gugu Mbatha-Raw to the cast.
What it means to be a woman is on many American women’s minds right now, since our current presidential election is playing out like a gender studies course simulation. Even Chelsea Handler is not immune, and she used an episode of her show Chelsea to explore some of the issues women think about.
In telling the highly complex story of how a loophole in the 13th Amendment is weaponized to keep black Americans enslaved, the quiet, riveting power in 13th lies with director Ava DuVernay’s impulses towards simplicity and concision. Through archival footage and interviews with academics, activists and other experts,…
The Netflix streaming documentary 13th will have its opening night at the 54th New York Film Festival, then begin a limited theatrical run on October 7. Considering what gets covered in these two minutes, the film is not to be missed.
Wow, are we excited about this movie or what.
Queen Sugar, adapted from Natalie Baszile’s novel by Ava DuVernay and executive produced by Oprah Winfrey, debuted last night on OWN. A second episode airs tonight, as part of a two-part premiere, and I’m so impatient I can barely stand it.
In The Hollywood Reporter’s latest cover story, queens and close buds Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay discussed their upcoming work collaborations and I bet you’ll never guess what else they talked about. Guess.
