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New Jack City

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"Drugs ain't a black thing, or a white thing. It's a death thing. Death don't give a shit about color." - Nick Peretti Forewarning:  Spoiler Alert! Hi, friends! Welcome to the third installment of "Throwback Thursday." I missed you last week, but I had to postpone writing due to first-week-of-school shenanigans. However, in the legendary words of Chance the Rapper, "We back!"  Before we get to the meat of this post, I have a question for you. What do you remember about the late 1980s/early 1990s? If you're my age, probably nothing because I wasn't born until 1995. However, for older generations, this time was marked by drugs, police brutality and extreme poverty in some areas of the U.S. While this period sounds bleak, there was something good that came out of it. That "thing" is  New Jack City . If you read my first two blog posts you'll know that New Jack City is a lot grittier than the previous films I...
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Waiting to Exhale

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"And then I did it. I closed my eyes, and I exhaled." - Savannah Jackson   Forewarning:  Spoiler Alert! Welcome to the second installment of "Throwback Thursday." Let me take you back to 1992. America was in flux. The Los Angeles Riots (Rodney King Riots) had just broken out, the Chicago Bulls were the NBA Finals' Champions, MTV introduced The Real World  reality TV show, Bill Clinton was Time Magazine's  "Man of the Year," and Terry McMillan wrote her third novel,  Waiting to Exhale . You know the story. Four beautiful, intelligent black women residing in Arizona trying to find their ways through love and life. You may be wondering why a fictional romance drama was important during this time of social, racial and political unrest. The answer is simple.  Waiting to Exhale  was able to provide black and brown women alike with a recess from reality, while also relating to their struggles. However, it wasn't until three years later tha...
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I've Got A Love Jones

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"I love you. That's urgent like a muthafucka."  - Darius Lovehall  Forewarning : Spoiler Alert! Ok, so boom. Picture this: It's a brisk February evening in Chicago. We'll say it's Friday, because Fridays are sexy. Right? Right. So it's Friday and you're on your way to The Sanctuary, a cool ass, sensual jazz and poetry joint on the North Side. It's been a long week and you need another drink, so you make your way to the bar. As you're describing to the bartender what you'd like, a man reciting his original poem, Brother to the Night (A Blues for Nina) , stops you dead in your tracks. Have you caught on to what movie I'm describing? For those of you who haven't, it's Love Jones (isn't my title creative?).  To put it frankly, Love Jones is my jam . Never have I felt more justified in being a hopeless romantic than when I watched Love Jones for the first time, which, I'm embarrassed to say, was August 13,...
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