Jheri Curl Cinema: Moonwalker (1988)
Like most human measures of time, Jheri Curl June is intimately tied to the cycles of birth and death. The month opens with the birthdays of two of jheri curl...
Jheri Curl Cinema: The Last Dragon (1985)
This year's Jheri Curl June Ladies' Week closes on a bittersweet note, because we're talking about Vanity: a tragic chapter in the jheri curl chronicle. Born Denise Katrina Matthews in Niagra Falls, Ontario,...
Jheri Curl Cinema: Purple Rain (1984)
Jheri Curl June is, of course, first and foremost about the music. But, as I wrote in this year's introductory post, jheri curl is also a profoundly visual form; it is,...
Happy Birthday to Us: The First Year
Well, folks, I did it. I operated a blog for an entire calendar year--and if you know anything about my work ethic, you'll know that that alone is cause for...
My Type of Hype: A House Party Series Retrospective
Last month marked the 25th anniversary of the release of House Party: the definitive early '90s African American teen comedy, starring pop-rappers Kid 'n Play and directed by Reginald Hudlin. So what better...
Selma, “Black Lives Matter,” and the Challenge to Be a Better White Person
There's a scene early in Selma, Ava DuVernay's dramatization of the political struggles that led to the passing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which neatly encapsulates the film's ideological perspective on...