11/13/17 (REPOST) HOLLYWOOD MONDAY: The Hire: Star- A BMW short film starring Madonna

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The Hire, an eight short films BMW film series, directed by Guy Ritchie and produced for the Internet in 2001 and 2002. The series starred Clive Owen as the Driver, and featured icons including Madonna, James Brown, Marilyn Manson, Gary Oldman Don Cheadle and Forest Whitaker. The series highlighted the performance aspects of various BMW automobiles.

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3/13/15 Shall We Dance Friday: Excerpts From The Ballerinas (1987) – Starring Carla Fracci

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In The Ballerinas, a sumptuously produced two-part ballet drama, Fracci places her rare artistry in the service of dance history as she recreates roles first premiered by such luminous ballerinas as Marie Taglioni, Emma Livry, Carlotta Grisi, Fanny Elssler, Giuseppina Bozzacchi, Carlotta Brianza, Matilde Kschessinska, Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina and Olga Spessitzeva. Continue reading

3/9/15 O&A Hollywood Monday: The Dig: You and I and You

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The Dig: You and I and You is Terence Nance magical realist film for the NYC group. The film subsequently won a prime spot at Sundance and a co-producer in Jay Z, but the self-deprecating Nance refuses to get wrapped up in hype or categorization. After The Dig contributed to the soundtrack of Oversimplification, the director repaid the favor with an impulsive, balletic film for the band’s 2013 EP You & I. Continue reading

3/4/15 Wildin Out Wednesday: The Little Rascals (Readin and Writin)

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Our Gang (also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach’s Rascals) is a series of comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way.  In addition, Our Gang notably put boys, girls, whites and blacks together as equals. That had never been done before in cinema, and the series broke new ground.  Continue reading

3/2/15 O&A Hollywood Monday: Deus Ex| Human Revolution (Short Film)

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The short film’s clean look and amazingly directed action sequences keep viewers very well engaged, and there’s never a dull moment. It’s a very brisk-moving 12 minute video that takes a snippet of some of the most iconic imagery from Eidos’ latest home console title and translates it into something equally iconic as far as live-action visuals go.  Continue reading

2/23/15 O&A Hollywood Monday: Cab Calloway’s Hi De Ho (1934)

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Cab Calloway’s Hi-De-Ho (also known as Hi-De-Ho) is a 1934 musical short film. The film stars Cab Calloway, Fredi Washington, Ethel Moses  and the Cab Calloway Orchestra. This jazz musical short written by Milton Hockey and Fred Rath has a comedy plot about marital infidelity.  Continue reading

2/20/15 O&A Shall We Dance Friday: Dances From The Cotton Club

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Out and About NYC Magazine is proud to present three dance and music clips from the legendary Cotton Club. Opened in 1923, the Cotton Club on 142nd St & Lenox Ave in the heart of Harlem, New York. The Cotton Club was operated by white New York gangster Owney Madden who used the club as an outlet to sell his alcohol to the prohibition crowd. 

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The Cotton Club at first excluded all but white patrons although the entertainers and most of staff were African-American.  Dancers at the Cotton Club were held to strict standards; they had to be at least 5’6” tall, light-skinned with only a slight tan, and under twenty-one years of age.

The Apollo Dancer sat the Cotton Club Revue in 1938.

Shows at the Cotton Club were musical reviews that featured dancers, singers, comedians, and variety acts, as well as a house band. Duke Ellington led that band from 1927 to 1930, and sporadically throughout the next eight years. The Cotton Club and Ellington’s Orchestra gained national notoriety through weekly broadcasts on radio station WHN some of which were recorded and released on albums. In this clip Duke Ellington and his orchestra perform  Rockin in Rhythm & Bugle Call Rag with dancers Bessie Dudley and Florence Hill from 1933.

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Cotton Club Dancers Bessie Dudley and Florence Hill

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The entertainers who played at the Cotton Club were some of the most widely known blues and jazz performers of their time including Cab Calloway. This is one of Cab’s broadcasts from The Cotton Club in the 30’s after Duke Ellington took to touring on the road. They later became co- house bands at the club.

Cab ( Cotton Club) Calloway 1934 Zaz Zuh Zaz

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Elegant black show girls ditch Opera for Jazz as they get seduced by a hot jazz tune in Red Hot. You’ve never seen this kind of action from the 1930s main stream Hollywood before, it was cut by the Hays Code. Red Hot stars Dorothy Salter and Maurice Rocco.

Red Hot 1930s Cotton Club Show

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The Silver Belles of Harlem are dancers who performed at the Cotton Club during its heyday era. Group members include Marion Coles, Elaine Ellis, Cleo Ellis, Fay Ray, and Bertye Lou Wood were featured in the 2006 documentary directed by Heather Lyn MacDonald, entitled Been Rich All My Life.

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(Repost) 11/16/20 O&A HOLLYWOOD MONDAY: Cotton Comes To Harlem- Iris, Officer Jerema and the Paper Bag

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Cotton Comes to Harlem was the beginning of short period in American film that featured black actors in leading roles and the themes dealt with issues from the African-American microcosm. With a screenplay by Arnold Perl and Ossie Davis, and directed by Davis this action drama represents the black prospective. Much of the film’s humor is urban black comedy, which was groundbreaking in 1970.

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2/14/15 O&A Happy Valentine’s Day: This Time – A Short Film

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This Time is a short film written by Reagan Gomez-Preston and directed by Matthew A. Cherry. It stars Reagan Gomez, Michael Moss, Terri J. Vaugn, Barry Floyd and Sinorice Moss. This Time deals with the realities that many people have to face when a loved one returns home from war and everything has changed.  Continue reading

2/9/15 O&A With WaleStylez: rag & bone Men’s Fall/Winter 2015 Film feat. Baryshnikov and Lil Buck

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In celebration of the FW15 menswear collection, rag & bone debuts a short film as a study of movement featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Lil Buck. Continue reading