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Vondie Curtis Hall
Vondie Curtis-Hall is an American actor, screenwriter, film director, and television director. As an actor, he is known for his role as Dr. Dennis Hancock on the CBS medical drama '' Chicago Hope'' created by David E. Kelley and as Ben Urich in the Netflix TV series ''Marvel's Daredevil''. He wrote, directed and starred in the cult film ''Gridlock'd''. Early life Curtis-Hall was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Angeline, a nurse, and Curtis Hall, a construction company owner. Designer Kevan Hall is the brother of Vondie. They also have a sister, Sherrie. All of them attended Presentation Our Lady of Victory grade school in Detroit where they were taught by the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the only all black order of nuns in the United States. Career Initially a stage actor, Curtis-Hall was a member of the original cast of the Broadway musical ''Dreamgirls''. He originated the role of Marty, James "Thunder" Early's original manager. Curtis-Hall has appeared in numerous fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 census, making it the 27th-most populous city in the United States. The metropolitan area, known as Metro Detroit, is home to 4.3 million people, making it the second-largest in the Midwest after the Chicago metropolitan area, and the 14th-largest in the United States. Regarded as a major cultural center, Detroit is known for its contributions to music, art, architecture and design, in addition to its historical automotive background. ''Time'' named Detroit as one of the fifty World's Greatest Places of 2022 to explore. Detroit is a major port on the Detroit River, one of the four major straits that connect the Great Lakes system to the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The City of Detroit anchors the second-largest regional economy in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dreamgirls
''Dreamgirls'' is a Broadway musical, with music by Henry Krieger and lyrics and book by Tom Eyen. Based on the show business aspirations and successes of R&B acts such as The Supremes, The Shirelles, James Brown, Jackie Wilson, and others,Grossberg, Michael " 'Dreamgirls' continues to spark questions about its Motown inspiration" ''The Columbus Dispatch'', March 6, 2015 the musical follows the story of a young female singing trio from Chicago, Illinois called "The Dreams", who become music superstars. Staged with a mostly African-American cast and originally starring Jennifer Holliday, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Loretta Devine, Ben Harney, Cleavant Derricks, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Obba Babatundé, the musical opened on December 20, 1981, at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway. The musical was then nominated for 13 Tony Awards, including the Tony Award for Best Musical, and won six. It was later adapted into a motion picture from DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures in 2006. The film sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Shield
''The Shield'' is an American crime drama television series starring Michael Chiklis that premiered on March 12, 2002, on FX in the United States, and concluded on November 25, 2008, after seven seasons. Known for its portrayal of corrupt police officers, it was originally advertised as ''Rampart'' in reference to the true-life Rampart Division police scandal, on which the show's Strike Team was loosely based. The series was created by Shawn Ryan and the Barn Productions for Fox Television Studios and Sony Pictures Television. Several notable actors took extended roles on the show, including Glenn Close, who was the female lead during the fourth season; Michael Peña, in season 4; Anthony Anderson, in seasons 4, 5, and 6; Forest Whitaker, who guest-starred in seasons 5 and 6; Laura Harring, in season 5; Franka Potente, in season 6; and Laurie Holden, in season 7. ''The Shield'' is a prime example of TV noir in that it focuses on moral ambiguity, a salient feature to the noir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waist Deep
''Waist Deep'' is a 2006 American action drama film directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall and starring Tyrese Gibson and Meagan Good. Plot Ex-con Otis Samuel Sr. or "O2" on account of his ability to vanish from a crime scene like oxygen, has done his time and is determined to stay out of trouble and never leave his young son, Otis, Jr. When O2 shows up late to pick Junior up from school, he swears that he will always come back for Junior. That promise is put to the test just moments later when O2's vintage 1966 Chevrolet Impala SS Lowrider convertible is stolen from him at gunpoint in the middle of a crowded Southland intersection with Junior in the back seat, kidnapping him in the process. O2 chases the car and gets into a nasty gun battle with the carjackers, but to no avail. O2 catches up with Coco, a woman who sells stolen suits for P Money. O2 knows she is the one who marked him for the carjacking, and he forces her to help him retrieve Junior. The two steal a car (a 1996 Impala ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Stan Tookie Williams Story
''Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story'' is a 2004 American made-for-television biographical crime drama film starring Jamie Foxx, Lynn Whitfield, Lee Thompson Young and CCH Pounder. The film was directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall and the screenplay was written by J.T. Allen. The film premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and was later broadcast on the FX network on April 11, 2004. The film deals with the life of Stanley Tookie Williams, the co-founding member of the Crips street gang. Along with showing his life in the streets and his time in prison, it shows the work Williams did while incarcerated to help decrease gang violence in the world. The film was shot in 2003 while Williams was still imprisoned. On December 13, 2005, Williams was executed by lethal injection in California. Cast Production Development During Williams' incarceration, he began co-writing a series of books with Barbara Becnel for young children about the dangers of gang violence. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glitter (film)
''Glitter'' is a 2001 American romantic musical drama film starring Mariah Carey and rapper Da Brat, written by Kate Lanier, and directed by Vondie Curtis Hall. Carey plays Billie Frank, an aspiring singer who, along with her friends Louise (Da Brat) and Roxanne (Tia Texada), is a club dancer. Timothy Walker (Terrence Howard) offers them a contract as backup singers/dancers to another singer. At the premiere of the song they record, Billie meets Julian "Dice" Black ( Max Beesley), a nightclub DJ, who helps her in her solo career. In the process, Billie and Dice fall in love. Carey began working on a film and soundtrack project titled ''All That Glitters'' in 1997. However, during that period, her label Columbia Records pressured her to release a compilation album in time for the holiday season in November 1998. Consequently, Carey put ''All That Glitters'' on hold. Following this, she aimed to complete the film and album project for the summer of 2001. Shooting began in Toront ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Romeo + Juliet
Romeo Montague () is the male protagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy '' Romeo and Juliet''. The son of Lord Montague and his wife, Lady Montague, he secretly loves and marries Juliet, a member of the rival House of Capulet, through a priest named Friar Laurence. Juliet then becomes Juliet Montague. Forced into exile after slaying Juliet's cousin, Tybalt, in a duel, Romeo commits suicide upon hearing falsely of Juliet's death. The character's origins can be traced as far back as Pyramus, who appears in Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'', but the first modern incarnation of Romeo is Mariotto in the 33rd of Masuccio Salernitano's ''Il Novellino'' (1476). This story was reworked in 1524 by Luigi da Porto as ''Giulietta e Romeo'' (published posthumously in 1531). Da Porto named the character Romeo Montecchi and his storyline is near-identical to Shakespeare's adaptation. Since no 16th-century direct English translation of ''Giulietta e Romeo'' is known, Shakespeare's main source i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turn It Up (film)
''Turn It Up'' is a 2000 action hood film written and directed by Robert Adetuyi and starring Ja Rule, Pras, Faith Evans and Jason Statham. Cast * Pras as Diamond * Ja Rule as David "Gage" Williams * Jason Statham as Mr. B * Tamala Jones as Kia * Vondie Curtis-Hall as Cliff * John Ralston as Mr. White * Chris Messina as Baz * Eugene Clark as Marshall * Faith Evans as Natalie * Chang Tseng as Mr. Chang Production ''Turn It Up'' was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and Denial NiteClub, 360 Adelaide St. W, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Reception On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 8%, based on reviews from 38 critics. The website's consensus reads, "Reviewers say Turn It Up has a derivative feel, running through too many urban movie cliches." On Metacritic, it has a score of 18 out of 100, based on reviews from 16 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade D− on a scale of A to F. Box office ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eve's Bayou
''Eve's Bayou'' is a 1997 American Southern Gothic drama film written and directed by Kasi Lemmons, who made her directorial debut with this film. Samuel L. Jackson served as a producer, and starred in the film with Lisa Nicole Carson, Jurnee Smollett, Lynn Whitfield, Debbi Morgan, Meagan Good and Diahann Carroll. The film premiered at the 1997 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in theaters on November 7, 1997. The film grossed $14 million domestically on a budget of $4 million, making it the most commercially successful independent film of 1997. In 2018, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film was made a part of The Criterion Collection on October 25, 2022. Plot Eve Batiste, a 10-year-old girl, lives in a prosperous Creole-American community in Louisiana with her younger brother Poe and her older sister Cisely in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drop Squad
''Drop Squad'' (sometimes spelled as ''DROP Squad'' or ''D.R.O.P. Squad'') is a 1994 American drama film directed by David C. Johnson and executive produced by Spike Lee via his production company 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks. The plot depicts a team of African Americans who kidnap fellow black people who they feel have betrayed their community and seek to " deprogram" them so that they will change their ways. The acronym DROP stands for "Deprogramming and Restoration of Pride". The film has been described as " rt thriller, part social satire". The film was based in part on ''The Session'', a 45-minute film Johnson produced in 1988 on a $20,000 budget, and ultimately derived from a short story by David C. Taylor titled "The Deprogrammer". Johnson described the differences between the two films as follows: "The short film was basically satire, an absurdist piece .... ''D.R.O.P. Squad'', on the other hand, is realism. The characters have more at stake." Plot The film portrays an adv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crooklyn
''Crooklyn'' is a 1994 American semi-autobiographical film produced and directed by Spike Lee and co-written with his sister Joie and brother Cinqué. Occurring in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, during the summer of 1973, the film primarily focuses on a young girl named Troy Carmichael (played by Zelda Harris), and her family. Throughout the film, Troy learns life lessons through her rowdy brothers Clinton, Wendell, Nate, and Joseph; her loving but strict mother Carolyn (Alfre Woodard), and her naive, struggling father Woody ( Delroy Lindo). A distinctive characteristic of ''Crooklyn'' is its soundtrack, composed completely of music from the 1960s and 70s, except the hit single "Crooklyn" by the Crooklyn Dodgers, a rap crew composed of Buckshot, Masta Ace, and Special Ed. A two-volume release of the soundtrack became available on CD along with the release of the film. Similarly to his past films such as '' School Daze'', ''Do the Right Thing'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coming To America
''Coming to America'' is a 1988 American romantic comedy film directed by John Landis and based on a story originally created by Eddie Murphy, who also stars in the lead role. The film also co-stars Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones, Shari Headley, and John Amos. The film was released in the United States on June 29, 1988. Eddie Murphy plays Akeem Joffer, the crown prince of the fictional African nation of Zamunda, who travels to the United States in the hopes of finding a woman he can marry and love for who she is, not for her status or for having been trained to please him. In 1989, a pilot for a planned spin-off television series was made, although this was never picked up for a series. A sequel, '' Coming 2 America'', was released on March 4, 2021. Plot In the wealthy African nation of Zamunda, crown prince Akeem Joffer grows weary of his pampered lifestyle on his 21st birthday and wishes to do more for himself. When his parents, King Jaffe and Queen Aoleon, present him wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
