A Mother's Day conversation between Zainab Jah (Farewell Amor) and Jayme Lawson (The Batman)

by Murtada Elfadl

Jayme Lawson and Zainab Jah play daughter and mother in "Farewell Amor"

In celebration of Mother’s Day I recently moderated a conversation over Zoom between actors Zainab Jah and Jayme Lawson. We'll be sharing it with you in three installments. For the first dispatch Jah and Lawson talked about their performances as mother and daughter in the Sundance 2020 film Farewell Amor, written and directed by Ekwa Msangi, and their favourite mother/daughter relationships at the movies.

Jah has previously appeared in TV shows like Homeland and Deep State but is best known for the Broadway play Eclipsed co-starring Lupita Nyong’o. Lawson is a newcomer and a recent graduate of Julliard who appeared last season in The Public Theater's production of For Colored Girls. She recently booked a major role in an upcoming film that you may have heard of, The Batman (2021)... 

Click to read more ...

You Are My Link

• E News First look at Tom Hanks as Mr Rogers in You Are My Friend
• Variety Hugh Jackman getting the celebratory treatment at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, which has become such an Oscar stop to promote contenders, especially in the lead acting categories
• Film Comment Nick Davis, brilliant as ever, looking at some artful highlights from TIFF including Claire Denis High Life, Julianne Moore as Gloria Bell, and Rithy Panh's Graves Without A Name, a follow up to his earlier Oscar nominated doc

after the jump White Boy Rick, A Simple Favor, Alita Battle Angel, Sixteen Candles, Michelle Williams in Venom and Lee Pace as thirst trap...

Click to read more ...

Ruby Dee (1922-2014)

We've lost another showbiz legend.

Ruby Dee photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1962

Ruby Dee, the showbiz legend and awards magnet -- the list is seriously long and includes an Emmy & Grammy -- rose to fame on stage and screen in the 1940s. Her feature debut was That Man of Mine (1946) but her best remembered roles came later with The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), the screen adaptation of the oft-revived play A Raisin in the Sun (1961, which just netted yet more Tony Awards) opposite Sidney Poitier, and the first Off Broadway production of "Boesman and Lena" with James Earl Jones on stage in 1970.

Ruby Dee during her victory lap of events honoring her in the Aughts. This one is from 2008Younger audiences undoubtedly know her best from her screen return in the classic Do The Right Thing (1989, with her longtime husband Ossie Davie who passed away nine years ago), her political activism, and that round of lifetime achievement prizes in the Aughts starting with SAG in 2001.

That victory lap arguably peaked when she gave Denzel Washington the slap he deserved in American Gangster (2007). The resulting Oscar nod was surely a recognition of a sturdy cross-media showbiz career that stretch all the way to 1939 (gasp) with a stage debut at 17. She died in her home at 91 yesterday after a full, vibrant and influential life.