The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Baron Davis' The Black Santa Company
As a white-passing person of color, I was taught to believe in a “color-blind” society. Everyone has their triumphs and defeats, but everyone is more or less the same and owing to some nebulous stuff in the 60s or whatever everyone is now equal because sitcoms with PoC and queer people are on TV, the end, amen. Of my own accord, I was also very, very interested in the NBA where the "color-blind" ideology thrives.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Oscars 2017: Are You Shining Just for Me?By Alex Carrigan @carriganak QuailBellMagazine.com *Editor's Note: This article is part of a review series by Alex Carrigan from February 14-24. To learn about the series, visit this post. Well, this was an interesting experiment. Compared to last year, where everything felt a lot more structured and perfectly timed, this year’s Oscar challenge was a lot harder to pin down. It wasn’t because I had to change my schedule or fell behind on some days, but unlike last year, it didn’t let me feel comfortable. Last year, I started with good movies, then had mediocre films, then ended with some of the better films of the bunch. It felt like a plot arc, in a way, so it left me feeling somewhat comfortable about repeating the challenge for the next year.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Fences: Break it All DownBy Alex Carrigan @carriganak QuailBellMagazine.com *Editor's Note: This article is part of a review series by Alex Carrigan from February 14-24. To learn about the series, visit this post. I was really upset when I had to reschedule Fences due to some trouble seeing it in theaters with a group. Not only did it mean I had to awkwardly rework the Oscar series and start the series off with a film I was already familiar with, it meant I had to wait the longest to see it. It also did not help I had to watch Viola Davis give a powerhouse performance in this week’s How to Get Away with Murder to make me even more upset that I had to wait longer to see this movie. But here I am, on the last day of the Oscar series, and if anything, I think that rescheduling ended up being a blessing in disguise.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
How Lynchian is Christian Entertainment?Some Christian movies and shows are undoubtedly produced with good intentions, to help people cope with life, and some are produced simply to make money. Yet either way, they are often made in fear, because some Christians are afraid of art. Like Plato, some Christians recognize that art has a huge impact on the public psyche, and they know that poets lie.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
‘I think about tomorrow’: A Syrian refugee family begins a new life in VirginiaRICHMOND, Va. – At the center of a suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of Richmond’s city limits, a collection of small white houses sit quietly. Outside, the taut winter air is split open by a group of grade-school children streaking past each other in relentless pursuit of a soccer ball, shouting breathlessly in their native tongues.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Arrival: Explaining it ClearlyBy Alex Carrigan @carriganak QuailBellMagazine.com *Editor's Note: This article is part of a review series by Alex Carrigan from February 14-24. To learn about the series, visit this post. Science-fiction is a genre that doesn’t get the love it deserves. There are a few notable exceptions to this rule, but for the most part, genre films like science-fiction films tend to be ignored by the Academy for major awards. To break this, the film has to be a very “intelligent” film or have a lot of real-world relevance. This is how films like District 9 or Gravity or The Martian can be up for Best Picture. Today’s film shows another kind of science-fiction film that can get the nomination, and for the most part, it seems to be following this trend.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Big Brother is Still Watching YouI didn't read George Orwell's masterpiece “1984” until 1992, when my ex-husband found a dog-eared hardcover copy at a yard sale. In those days, the seminal novel could be had for a dollar, and the word “Orwellian” was used mostly by college literature students and folks who liked to bore people with rambling discussions of conspiracy theory.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Curls Run the World: An Interview with Wonder CurlThe Natural Hair Revolution is here to stay. From wavy to kinky—2a to 4c—people are embracing their curl patterns with infectious enthusiasm and watching the world transform around them. Major retailers are expanding their single-shelf of gels into aisles of products to meet consumer demand and creative “curlies” are paving the way with their genius innovation. From drugstore to high-end, there are more products on the market for every curl pattern than most of us curly-haired folk could have dreamed of. Quail Bell Magazine sat down for some curl talk with Scarlett Rocourt, the founder of Wonder Curl--a brand that not only provides great products for curly hair, but educates “curlies” on how to care for their curls—on the brand (of course!), hair journeys, and being your authentic self. You've been natural since 1998. What was it about the woman profiled in the Essence article you read that inspired you? How has going natural changed your life? It wasn’t the woman in the article that inspired me, but the story itself. Up until I read that article, I didn’t even know that not relaxing my hair and going back to my natural hair texture was even an option to me. I was taught that long, straight hair was aspirational and beautiful. I remember telling a guy friend that I was going to stop relaxing my hair and his response was ‘but your hair is so pretty.’ As if it couldn’t be pretty in its natural state. I became my authentic self after I went natural. Accepting my hair the way it grew out of my head allowed me to explore what beauty meant to me and I gained a confidence that I didn’t know I had. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Moonlight: A Tale of Three Blue BoysBy Alex Carrigan @carriganak QuailBellMagazine.com *Editor's Note: This article is part of a review series by Alex Carrigan from February 14-24. To learn about the series, visit this post. As I mentioned yesterday, I went to the AWP conference in DC recently. The first panel I went to was called “The Politics of Queering Characters.” The panel featured five LGBT+ authors discussing how they approach writing queer characters and building stories around them. One author, Jervon Perkins, talked about how he, as a black, queer writer, was glad to see more and more stories that pushed queer men of color into the public eye. He cited Moonlight as an example of this and having seen the film, I can see why the film would mean so much to Perkins and so many others.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Reclaiming BlacknessBy Lashelle Johnson QuailBellMagazine.com The sixteenth day of February greeted me at my door with frigid winds and overcast skies mirroring the lifeless stone walls of the building to which I was on my way. I had a meeting at eight thirty, sharp. That was the last thing on my mind, however, and it manifested in a slow trudge to my car. Adorned in black. A kaddish scraping dissonance across my fatigued neural pathways.
I was in mourning. For me, Black History Month had ended–or so I had convinced myself. Mixed kids don’t get the pleasure of a 28 day celebration. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Hacksaw Ridge: The Critic is K.I.A.By Alex Carrigan @carriganak QuailBellMagazine.com *Editor's Note: This article is part of a review series by Alex Carrigan from February 14-24. To learn about the series, visit this post. A few weeks ago, I went to the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference in Washington D.C. It was three days of literary panels, author signings, and meetings with publishers and presses. One of the panels I went to was called "The Art of War: The Power and Role of the Writer in Times of Crisis, " featuring writers David Shields, Lidia Yuknavitch, and Viet Thanh Nguyen. Nguyen (who I later met and who shared my love for films like Grave of the Fireflies and Barefoot Gen) said he preferred his war movies to make war "boring." He decried films like Zero Dark Thirty and American Sniper (which even I have gone at length about being one of my least favorite movies in the last several years) for glamorizing war and failing to really underscore the atrocities and terror of war in favor of extreme action and patriotic fervor. His opinions were in line with mine, so naturally, I had concerns going into today's film.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Hidden Figures: Electric LadiesBy Alex Carrigan @carriganak QuailBellMagazine.com *Editor's Note: This article is part of a review series by Alex Carrigan from February 14-24. To learn about the series, visit this post. Yesterday had me feeling pretty glum. Manchester by the Sea left me feeling drained and hollow due to its slow plot and obnoxious dialogue. Today's movie was one I've had hyped over the last few weeks, from people close to me telling me they wanted me to see it, to the awards circuit giving it a lot of praise, to media groups criticizing it being snubbed in certain areas. I finally got to see Hidden Figures, and now I can finally address the film I'm sure was the one I was most looking forward to.
In short, I really needed this movie. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Manchester by the Sea: Dump it in the Harbor.By Alex Carrigan @carriganak QuailBellMagazine.com *Editor's Note: This article is part of a review series by Alex Carrigan from February 14-24. To learn about the series, visit this post. In most Asian countries, the number four is equated with death and misfortune. This is because the word for "four" is similar to the word for "death." This usually means the number four is seen as a bad omen, such as skipping an official fourth floor on tall buildings. Last year, on the fourth day, I watched my first real disappointing movie of the Oscar series. This year, I found the first film I did not like at all of the new group of nominees. And what's really damning is that I should actually like these movies, but I just can't.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Lion: Aaja, aaja.By Alex Carrigan @carriganak QuailBellMagazine.com *Editor's Note: This article is part of a review series by Alex Carrigan from February 14-24. To learn about the series, visit this post. Here we are on Day 3, and I find my first bump in the series. I'm not talking about a rescheduling bump like the other day, but a bump in reaction. La La Land and Hell or High Water got reactions out of me for most of their running times. Whether it was a charming musical number or a tense bank robbery scene, I felt a lot during the running times. With Lion, I found myself grasping to react to something throughout the film, which I found strange considering the story should have gotten me the whole way through.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Unpacking the Anti-Women's March CopypastaWords by Gretchen Gales @GGalesQuailBell Image by Robin Brox QuailBellMagazine.com *Editor's Note: Originally appeared on the author's Medium blog. One of the biggest and historic marches on Washington for women’s rights, the Women’s March on Washington drew millions of people from around the globe in support of uniting everyone who believes women’s rights are human rights. I wasn’t able to go to the March, but wrote Congress and the new president in solidarity with the March.
While many people supported the Women’s March on Washington, I’ve seen a copy and pasted meme floating around rejecting the Women’s March. I wanted to address statements made in it as a thoughtful discussion of who and what this march represented, line by line: The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Hell or High Water: Two Riders Were ApproachingBy Alex Carrigan @carriganak QuailBellMagazine.com Note: This article is part of a review series by Alex Carrigan from February 14-24. To learn about the series, visit this post. How fascinating. Yesterday, I mentioned that La La Land was an escapist film to cope with the times. Hell or High Water feels like way more of an escapist film for the 2016/7 crowd. And for that, I found that I really enjoyed this movie. A lot more than I expected for a film I knew almost nothing about going into it. But man, was this quite an appropriate film to watch second in the series.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
La La Land: Another Review of SunBy Alex Carrigan @carriganak QuailBellMagazine.com Note: This article is part of a review series by Alex Carrigan from February 14-24. To learn about the series, visit this post. First day in and I break my rules. See, I was supposed to see Fences yesterday with a group, but one person was extremely late, causing us to miss the screening. The film with the closest time that the majority of people in the group hadn’t seen yet was La La Land, so we saw that instead. So it looks like this year, I’m starting with the one film I’ve seen previously before moving to the newer films. I’ll also be making Fences the last film I see, because now I feel like it’s going to mean a lot that I had to wait longer to see this film.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Killing AdaezeBy Mike Ekunno QuailBellMagazine.com The day Adaeze died, I was crushed. Though I killed her, I still craved justice for her death. I had withdrawn to myself in the run up to the homicide. Just the thought of killing her made me flinch and inflicted a massive writer’s block, more like a boulder. That kept her alive and while she lived, the sun shined. ‘Aint no sunshine when she’s gone’, and that’s now.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Alex Carrigan's Oscar Challenge 2017: The RulesThis year, I’ve moved to a new area to start anew, and I’ve resolved to do new things as a writer and a person. While I’m considering new job opportunities, new writing projects, and new hobbies, one of the things I want to do is to repeat something I tried last year. Yeah, it sounds weird, but I have reasons for doing so.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Coping With Infatuation GogglesYou, too, can see through the thick of Infatuation Goggles. Even with Valentine’s Day in the air, there’s still hope.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
1984: Late to the Party Again |
|