The notoriously private Oscar-winning actress has acknowledged her lesbian partner in public for the first time

By Veronica Schmidt

After guarding her private life fiercely for 15 years, Hollywood actress Jodie Foster has publicly acknowledged her lesbian partner.

The Oscar-winning actress thanked "my beautiful Cydney" after winning an award at the Women in Entertainment Power 100 breakfast in Los Angeles.

She went on to praise Cydney Bernard, saying the film producer "sticks with me through all the rotten and the bliss".

Despite more than a decade of speculation, questions over the paternity of her two sons and critics calling for her be “out and proud”, Foster has refused to discuss her sexuality.

The 44-year-old maintained her silence when, earlier this year, gay American magazine Out put a picture of her on its cover above the words “The glass closet – why the stars won’t come out and play.” Inside, it was argued “the stars aren’t willing to make the jump to being officially labelled queer and all that it represents in the business.”

By John Horn and Chris Lee

IN Richard Matheson's novel "I Am Legend," the apparent last man on Earth is described as "born of English-German stock" with bright blue eyes. When the latest movie version of the 1954 sci-fi thriller opens Friday, Matheson's hero will be played by the notably not English-German Will Smith.

It wasn't always destined to be that way. Over the course of "I Am Legend's" 13 years of development, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise and Michael Douglas were all at one point slated to star. But Smith may be the most bankable of the bunch.

"He's the youngest, biggest star in the world," says Todd Black, who produced Smith's "The Pursuit of Happyness." "Globally he's more popular than Leo or Brad Pitt."

"I AM LEGEND" Trailer

 

 

By Gary Goldstein

There's a smart, hip, perhaps even necessary film to be made about a sophisticated African American coming out to his small-town Georgia family, but "Dirty Laundry" isn't it. Overwritten and under-directed by Maurice Jamal, the movie contains several honest moments but remains too awash in clichés and stereotypes to take seriously.

As Sheldon, a snooty writer who returns to his Southern roots after living large in New York for the past decade, Rockmond Dunbar (TV's "Soul Food," "Prison Break") never finds a way past his unsympathetic role and into our good graces. The normally engaging Loretta Devine as his mother, Evelyn, an ornery, tippling laundress coming to terms with her gay son as well as her hard-knock life, is also undermined by the unfocused script. Despite her obvious commitment, the actress is as uneven as her material.

By Matt Zoller Seitz

“Dirty Laundry,” the second feature by the writer and director Maurice Jamal, is a back-to-your-roots film about a gay African-American named Sheldon (Rockmond Dunbar) who meets a young son (Aaron Grady Shaw) he didn’t know he had, and revisits his extended family in an intolerant Southern town he once fled in the name of self-respect.

Mr. Jamal’s direction ranges from clumsy to competent, and the film’s overwhelming desire to be loved blunts any edge it might have had. Fortunately, even as Mr. Jamal’s characters hit notes reminiscent of a half-baked television pilot, they disclose eccentricities that his cast spins into comic gold.

By Kam Williams

Sheldon (Rockmond Dunbar), a successful staff writer for a magazine in Manhattan, hasn’t been home to Georgia in over a decade, and not just because of the demands of his busy career. Seems that he’s been living a lie and hasn’t figured out how to break the news to family and friends back in his tight-knit black community that he’s a homosexual.

To protect his secret, he’s created an alter ego, and goes by the name of Patrick in New York City, where he’s secretly shacking up with a flamboyant white guy named Ryan (Joey Costello). But their gay bliss is suddenly shattered when a little angel named Gabriel (Aaron Grady Shaw) unexpectedly arrives on their doorstep.

Turns out that Gabriel is Sheldon’s ten year-old son, the result of a liaison from when he was still on the down-low. Now, the emotionally-needy kid has been sent to find his father by his paternal grandmother, Evelyn (Loretta Devine). Ill-equipped either to explain Gabriel’s appearance or to handle the responsibility of raising a child, Sheldon heads to Georgia, his young offspring in tow.

As movie trends move beyond narrow notions of race, African-American writers and directors are presenting more diverse stories about the black experience.

By Joe Burris

Morris Chestnut never met any actors from the 1970s films about street-wise cops, flashy hustlers, pimps and prostitutes that defined African-American culture on the big screen then - a genre that came to be known as "blaxploitation." But he and other young African-American actors were still dealing with that imagery years later, when films about black teen life in the 'hood were a hit in Hollywood in the 1990s.

They frequented auditions for gangster roles, suppressing mixed emotions about playing such parts and sometimes getting rejected with words that resonate to this day.

"Sorry, not black enough."

By A. O. Scott

Ousmane Sembène, by consensus the father of African cinema, was nearly 40 when he started making films. (He was 84 when he died over the weekend at his home in Dakar). By 1960, the year that Senegal, his native country, won its independence from France, he was already a novelist of some reputation in Francophone African circles.

He had also played a significant role in political and aesthetic debates that had gathered force as the postwar movement toward African decolonization accelerated. He took a radical, pro-independence line against what he took to be the assimilationist tendencies of proponents of Négritude, the more established literary movement associated with writers like Aimé Césaire and Léopold Senghor.

Senghor, a poet and scholar (and the first African elected to the Académie Française), went on to become Senegal’s first president. (He died in 2001.) Mr. Sembène, in his role as Africa’s leading filmmaker, would remain a thorn in Senghor’s side, as uncompromising a critic of Africa’s post-liberation regimes as he had been of French colonial domination.

In a 2004 interview with “L’Humanité,” the daily newspaper of the French Communist Party (which Mr. Sembène joined as a dockworker in Marseilles in the 1940s), he noted that “in more than 40 years since Senegal’s liberation we have killed more Africans than died from the start of the slave trade.”

In films like “Ceddo” and “Xala” he pointed an angry, often satirical finger at the failures and excesses of modern African governments, Senghor’s in particular, and his unsparing criticism made him a controversial figure.

By Rickeya Smith

A movie full of action and suspense. A movie full of violence and entertainment. A very well put together sequence of action and emotion. This is what comes to mind when one thinks of a movie about a son that is sent out on a mission to avenge his father’s death. However, this is not the case in the movie “Daratt,” a movie taking place in Northern Africa. Yes, this movie is about a son that is sent out on a mission to avenge his father’s death. However, the well put together and sought out action scenes and a movie filled with entertainment is not what this movie personifies. However, the emotion is very much there.

By Chazzten Pettiford

Sia, The Dream of the Python is a movie, portraying the classic folk story about sacrifice for the greater good. Burkina Faso filmmaker Dani Kouyate puts a unique twist on the play by Mauritanian writer Moussa Diagana.

The story takes place in the fictional city of Koumbi in the Kingdom of Wagadu, with the emperor the Kaya Maghan ( Kardigue Laico Traore ) at rule. In the movie, Sia Yatabere ( Fatoumata Diawara ) is chosen as the beautiful, noble, virgin girl who must be sacrificed to the Python-God in return for the prosperity of the country. A messenger tells Sia's parents that in return they will receive Sia's weight in gold. Sia overhears and flees to Kerfa ( Hamadoun Kassogue ) the local "madman" of the town. Kerfa is a unique, witty, and prophet-like character.

He is known for openly speaking out against the Kaya, and his rule. The emperor sends the head of the armies, Wakhane ( Sotigui Kouyate ) to track down Sia (who is engaged to Wakhane's nephew, Mamadi) and her family and friends. Even though the people of Wagadu do not believe in murdering young women to the Python-God, they are afraid to speak and riot because of the Kaya's soldiers.

ARLINGTON, Va., Dec. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- PBS, the leader in television programming about American history, kicks off 2008 with a
wide-ranging lineup of programs that explore our nation's past. PBS delves
into the stories of Americans' ancestors with two high-profile series:
AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2, featuring Henry Louis Gates Jr., who returns to PBS to lead a group of famous African Americans on a journey to discover their ancestry,

and THE JEWISH AMERICANS, which traces the history of a tiny minority as it made its way into the American mainstream. With these programs and an in-depth examination of America's PIONEERS OF TELEVISION, PBS helps viewers to understand the individuals and moments that define American history.

Here's some great news for you gay sports fans: Logo has announced a new reality show that follows the San Francisco Rock Dogs, a Gay Games gold-medal-winning basketball team.

The show (Rockdogs is the working title) will follow the 12 gay ballers as they share a roof and work toward getting the team back into shape for a big competition. Considering the show is about gay athletes and also that the team is primarily composed of African-American players, Rockdogs looks to be a much-needed shot in the arm for diversity in gay television.

The show will premiere next summer.

By Leigh Shadko

The Santiago Library hosted the opening of the Gay and Lesbian Film, Documentary and Short Film Series on Thursday evening. The series was organized by Chile’s Movement for Homosexual Integration and Freedom (Movilh) with the collaboration of the Santiago Library and Chile’s Office of Libraries, Archives and Museums (Dibam) (ST, Nov. 26).

The series is the first of its kind to be presented in Santiago with the support of public institutions, Movilh activist Juan Hernández told The Santiago Times. He added that it is also the first to receive funding from Spanish organizations: The event was sponsored by the Spanish groups Fundación Triángulo, Diputación de Badajoz, Comunidad de Madrid, Cooperación Extremeña and LesGaiCineMad, Fundación Triángulo’s international film festival in Madrid.

Days of Our Lives actor Marcus Patrick, who was fired from the daytime NBC drama recently, brought the good stuff and shaked it for the gays at West Hollywood club Micky's.

Soap star Marcus Patrick was recently fired from his role as Jett Carver on the popular daytime drama Days of Our Lives and rumors has it the decision to ax the star came after he posed nude for the September issue of softcore magazine Playgirl. He also joined All My Children as Jamal Cudahy in June 2006, but asked to be released just three months later.

Producers on Days insist the decision was made to fire the character long before Marcus' nude photos hit the newsstand, but some insiders claim NBC executives were less than happy with Patrick showing his stuff in the magazine.

Something tells us the exec's wouldn't have been to happy to see Patrick in these photos either...

More pictures in full story

By David Bilchitz

Why can’t we be together and be with G-d at the same time?” So implore Maha and Maryam, a devout Islamic lesbian couple, in the groundbreaking documentary, A Jihad for Love. From India to Iran, Turkey to South Africa, the documentary explores the intersection between religion and sexuality in the lives of lesbian and gay Muslims.

Three years ago I organised a tour of the film, Trembling Before G-d, which dealt with the tension between Orthodox Judaism and homosexuality. Director Sandi Dubowski (who produced A Jihad for Love) and the first openly gay orthodox rabbi, Steven Greenberg, spoke to packed audiences after the film. A taboo subject in much of the orthodox community, the film remarkably transformed the cinema into a consciousness-raising forum for piercing the silence surrounding homosexuality and sharing the accumulated pain inflicted on lesbian and gay individuals (and their families) by that community. Preferring to avoid rather than confront, however, the rabbinic leadership in South Africa sought to prevent Rabbi Greenberg from addressing students at Jewish day schools and from launching his book at a Jewish community centre.

Islamic communities too have a “deep problem with acknowledging homosexuality”, as Payam, a gay Iranian seeking asylum in Canada, puts it. In part the problem relates to traditional interpretations of certain texts in the Qur’an and Hadith, which are used to condemn homosexuality. Like Trembling Before G-d, A Jihad for Love does not seek to provide comprehensive theological responses to these textual difficulties: rather, it shows in visceral terms the dire human impact that antithetical religious attitudes towards homosexuality have on the lived experience of individuals. Any person with an iota of compassion cannot help being moved by the plight of the individuals depicted. Both films thus pose a stark and heartfelt challenge to traditionalists: could an all-good G-d really condemn lesbian and gay people to lives of suffering and loneliness?

Photo by Jim Ruymen

Honorary Mayor of Hollywood, Johnny Grant, center with black hat, honors The Munchkins from "The Wizard of Oz" as they receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles on November 20, 2007. The Munchkins from left: Mickey Carroll, the Town Crier; Clarence Swensen, a Munchkin soldier, Jerry Maren, part of the Lollipop Guild; Karl Slover, the Main Trumpeter; Ruth Duccini, a Munchkin villager; Margaret Pelligrini, the 'sleepyhead' Munchkin and Meinhardt Raabe, the coroner. Back row from left: Ted Bulthaup, star sponsor and owner of a Trip to the Movies Theatre in Chicago, Hollywood Chamber Chairman Jeff Briggs, Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti, Johnny Grant, Tom LaBonge, Los Angeles Councilman, and Leron Gubler, Chamber President & CEO.

By Debbie Origho
Washington, DC

Informative, interesting, and humorous are three adjectives that can be used to describe this documentary. Taking place in the concrete jungle of New York, this documentary highlights the lives of several West African families and how their idea of the American dreams translated into a need of American dollars in order to survive.

In the beginning, everyone seemed to believe in what they thought was an indisputable fact about America, "life is better and money grows on trees". Yet, when they arrived on the so called golden streets of America, many were hit with the reality of minimum wage and even homelessness. Then to add to their misconceptions, most of them also agreed to the same creed of not giving up or going back home because their families are counting on them to fulfill that construed American dream.

Hollywood taking note as middle-class tales succeed

By Terry Armour

Preston Whitmore didn't exactly set out to make a statement. He didn't think he was filling some void in Hollywood. When he penned the screenplay for "This Christmas," his semi-autobiographical film about the trials and tribulations of a middle-class African-American family celebrating the holidays, he was simply writing about what he knew best.

"When I sat down to write this, I was merely writing stories based on my family experience," the director said. "When I sat down to write, I just wrote about the stories that happened to me."

These stories about family, while universal, rarely make it onto the big screen. More often, films that deal with the African-American experience focus on the hip-hop community, "gangsters" and violence. But the latest spate of movies depicting middle- to upper-middle-class life, including "This Christmas," which opens nationwide Wednesday, is proving there is an audience for this type of fare.

By Rosario Santiago

Sacramento native, Jesse Lewis may have gotten the boot on America's Most Smartest Model but all the criticism and flak he's received particularly from host and judge, Mary Alice Stephenson, hasn't eroded his belief in his self-worth. By the fourth episode, Jesse was out after constantly hearing Stephenson give him grief for his fuller figure.

Lewis appears unperturbed and undeterred by his elimination and Stephenson's criticisms, as evidenced by his statements in VH1's blog interview with him, which was posted last week.

“I knew that my body wasn't in the best of shape,” Lewis told VH1. “When I saw the other guys, I knew there was going to be an issue. But at the same time, a lot of the guys weren't 6′ tall. A lot of the girls' bodies were also unacceptable. I didn't think my stomach would be different than anyone else's flaws. I figured we've been judged accordingly, but we weren't.”

By Christopher Kelly

"Serpico" meets "Scarface" in "American Gangster," Ridley Scott's handsomely made but overlong and overly familiar epic of drug dealing and police corruption in 1970s Harlem. Running two hours and 40 minutes, and featuring those twin titans of contemporary Hollywood, Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, this is a curious misfire: a movie that never quite tells the epic story it purports to be telling.

We watch and wait to learn about the intricacies of the most successful African-American-operated drug ring in modern history. Instead, we're treated to a wearisome parade of gangster- and cop-movie cliches, not to mention the most piddling and pointless police procedural since David Fincher's "Zodiac." Besides, what kind of movie casts Washington and Crowe as antagonists and then gives them exactly one scene together — and not an especially interesting scene at that?

Washington plays Frank Lucas, who, in the late 1960s, traveled to Asia, where he saw an opportunity and seized it. After purchasing heroin from its direct source in Vietnam, he bribed military officials to transport the drugs to the U.S. Back in Harlem, Frank cultivated and maintained a vast clientele: His heroin was purer than any other on the market, and he sold it cheaper than any of his competitors.

By Erin Cullin

In 1972, Francis Ford Coppola made film history when he released a film that, for the first time, pulled back the curtain on organized crime in America. There had been "gangster" movies, but none which had examined organized crime in such depth.

That film, of course, was the Godfather, and from it sprang such classics as Scarface, Goodfellas, Casino, The Untouchables, New Jack City, Donnie Brasco, Once Upon a Time in America and Miller's Crossing, to name a few. In 2007, a new title is being added to that list. Appropriately enough, that title is American Gangster.

Directed by Oscar-nominated director Ridley Scott, American Gangster offers a glimpse into the fascinating rise and fall of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), a one-time underling to an African-American crime boss, who ascends the ranks to become the head of the most influential drug distribution operation in Harlem during the late 1960's and early 1970's. Lucas manages to fly under the radar until he attracts the attention of Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), a paradoxical police officer who is an outcast among his peers because he chooses to conduct himself with integrity rather than to succumb to the temptations of corruption. When their paths cross, they find themselves having to choose one road and to travel it together.