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Respect (2021 American Film)
''Respect'' is a 2021 American biographical musical drama film directed by Liesl Tommy (in her feature directorial debut), written by Tracey Scott Wilson and Callie Khouri, based on the life of American singer Aretha Franklin. The film stars Jennifer Hudson as Franklin, with Forest Whitaker, Marlon Wayans, Audra McDonald, Marc Maron, Tituss Burgess, and Mary J. Blige in supporting roles. The film follows the first three decades of Franklin's life, from being born as a musical prodigy in an affluent African-American family, the repercussions of losing her mother at age 10 to her arduous rise to international musical stardom, while enduring an abusive marriage, ultimately concluding with the recording of her influential live album ''Amazing Grace'' (1972). A film on Franklin's life was in development for a long time with Franklin herself involved in the pre-production, however the film languished in development hell for years due to lack of finding a suitable candidate. Follo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liesl Tommy
Liesl Tommy () is a South African-American director. Primarily known for her stage work, Tommy became the first woman of color to be nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play, for directing the Broadway production of Danai Gurira's '' Eclipsed'' (2017). She made her feature film directorial debut with the biopic ''Respect'', based on the life of singer Aretha Franklin, starring Jennifer Hudson and released in August 2021. Early life Tommy was born in Cape Town, South Africa, during apartheid and experienced racial segregation because she was a non-white citizen. The family lived in the Factreton township. Her father was a high-school teacher and politically active against the apartheid regime. In 1985, when the South African government declared a state of emergency, Tommy's family emigrated to the USA where her father had studied Urban Planning at MIT on a Fulbright scholarship in the 1970s. They moved to Boston when Tommy was 15 years old. She attended Newton Nort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Artists Releasing
United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studio was premised on allowing actors to control their own interests, rather than being dependent upon commercial studios. UA was repeatedly bought, sold, and restructured over the ensuing century. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the studio in 1981 for a reported $350 million ($ billion today). On September 22, 2014, MGM acquired a controlling interest in entertainment companies One Three Media and Lightworkers Media, then merged them to revive United Artists' television production unit as United Artists Media Group (UAMG). However, on December 14 of the following year, MGM wholly acquired UAMG and folded it into MGM Television. United Artists was again revived in 2018 as United Artists Digital Studios. Mirror, the joint distribution venture ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. Attempts to contain it there failed, allowing the virus to spread to other areas of Asia and later worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. As of , the pandemic had caused more than cases and confirmed deaths, making it one of the deadliest in history. COVID-19 symptoms range from undetectable to deadly, but most commonly include fever, dry cough, and fatigue. Severe illness is more likely in elderly patients and those with certain underlying medical conditions. COVID-19 transmits when people breathe in air contaminated by droplets ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Color Purple (musical)
''The Color Purple'' is a musical with a book by Marsha Norman and music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray. Based on the 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker and its 1985 film adaptation, the show follows the journey of Celie, an African-American woman in the American South from the early to mid-20th century. The original Broadway production ran from 2005 to 2008, earning eleven Tony Award nominations in 2006. An enthusiastically acclaimed Broadway revival opened in late 2015 and ran through early 2017, winning two 2016 Tony Awards—including Best Revival of a Musical. A film adaptation of the musical is currently in the works for a December 20, 2023 release. Productions Workshop and world premiere (2004–2005) ''The Color Purple'' was originally workshopped by the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, in the summer of 2004 following Scott Sanders' optioning the work from Alice Walker in 1999 and auditioning various creative team ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dreamgirls (film)
''Dreamgirls'' is a 2006 American musical drama film written and directed by Bill Condon and jointly produced and released by DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures. Adapted from the 1981 Broadway musical of the same name, ''Dreamgirls'' is a film à clef, a work of fiction taking strong inspiration from the history of the Motown record label and one of its acts, the Supremes. The story follows the history and evolution of American R&B music during the 1960s and 1970s through the eyes of a Detroit girl group known as "The Dreams" and their manipulative record executive. The film adaptation stars Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles and Eddie Murphy, and also features Jennifer Hudson, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose and Keith Robinson. In addition to the original compositions by composer Henry Krieger and lyricist/librettist Tom Eyen, four new songs, composed by Krieger with various lyricists, were added for the film. The film marks the acting debut of Hudson, a former ''Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Development Hell
Development hell, development purgatory, and development limbo are Media industry, media and Software industry, software industry jargon for a project, concept, or idea that remains in development for an especially long time, often moving between different crews, scripts, game engines, or studios before it progresses to production, if it ever does. Projects in development hell generally have very ambitious goals, which may or may not be underestimated in the design phase, and are delayed in an attempt to meet those goals in a high degree. Production hell refers to when a film has entered production but remains in that state for a long time without progressing to post. The term can also apply generally to any project that has languished unexpectedly in its planning or construction phases, rather than being completed in a realistic amount of time, or otherwise having diverted from its original timely expected date of completion. Overview Film Film industry companies often buy th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amazing Grace (Aretha Franklin Album)
''Amazing Grace'' is a live album by American singer Aretha Franklin. It was recorded in January 1972 at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, with Reverend James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir accompanying Franklin in performance. The recording was originally released as a double album on June 1, 1972, by Atlantic Records. The album was a critical and commercial success, selling over two million copies in the United States alone and earning a double platinum certification. It also won Franklin the 1973 Grammy Award for Best Soul Gospel Performance. As of 2017, it stands as the best-selling disc of Franklin's entire fifty-plus year recording career as well as the highest-selling live gospel music album of all time. ''Amazing Grace'' was remastered and re-released in 1999 as a two-compact disc set with many previously unreleased takes. A film documenting the making of the album premiered in 2018. Critical reception Reviewing for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslaved Africans who are from the United States. While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African-American, the majority of first generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin. African Americans constitute the second largest racial group in the U.S. after White Americans, as well as the third largest ethnic group after Hispanic and Latino Americans. Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved people within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of West/Central African with some European descent; some also have Native American and other ancestry. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not sel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin ( ; March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Referred to as the " Queen of Soul", she has twice been placed ninth in '' Rolling Stone''s "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". With global sales of over 75 million records, Franklin is one of the world's best-selling music artists. As a child, Franklin was noticed for her gospel singing at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, where her father C. L. Franklin was a minister. At the age of 18, she was signed as a recording artist for Columbia Records. While her career did not immediately flourish, Franklin found acclaim and commercial success once she signed with Atlantic Records in 1966. Hit songs such as "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", "Respect", "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman", "Chain of Fools", " Think", and "I Say a Little Prayer", propelled Franklin past her musical peers. Franklin continued to record acclaimed albums such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Directorial Debut
This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many film makers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early works by Orson Welles such as his filming of his stage production of ''Twelfth Night'' in 1933 or his experimental short film ''The Hearts of Age'' in 1934. Often these early works were not intended for commercial release either by intent, such as film school projects or inability to find distribution. Subsequently, many directors learnt their trade in the medium of television as it became popular in the 1940s and 1950s. Notable directors who did their first directorial work in this medium include Robert Altman, Norman Jewison, Sidney Lumet, and Alfonso Cuarón. As commercial television advertising became more cinematic in the 1960s and 1970s, many directors' early work was in this medium, including directors such as Alan Parker and Ridley ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drama (film And Television)
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-genre, macro-genre, or micro-genre, such as soap opera, police crime drama, political drama, legal drama, historical drama, domestic drama, teen drama, and comedy-drama (dramedy). These terms tend to indicate a particular setting or subject-matter, or else they qualify the otherwise serious tone of a drama with elements that encourage a broader range of moods. To these ends, a primary element in a drama is the occurrence of conflict—emotional, social, or otherwise—and its resolution in the course of the storyline. All forms of cinema or television that involve fictional stories are forms of drama in the broader sense if their storytelling is achieved by means of actors who represent ( mimesis) characters. In this broader ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Film
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate "production numbers". The musical film was a natural development of the stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of lavish background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater; performers often treat their song and dance numbers as if a live audience were watching. In a sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it. With the advent of sound in the late 1920s, musicals gained popularity with the public and are exemplified by the films of Busb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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