News

BET+ has unwrapped its Christmas movie schedule for 2024!

This year, eight new original movies will debut on the streaming service featuring stars such as Romeo Miller, Jasmine Guy, Valarie Pettiford, Jennifer Freeman, and more. The celebration begins on Nov. 7 and continues through Dec. 25, with new movies releasing weekly on Thursdays.

‘A Christmas Miracle’ ‘A Christmas Miracle’ | BET+

With the Christmas Jubilee at the local community at risk of losing its funding, a family comes together to make sure everyone has a merry Christmas.

A Christmas Miracle premieres Nov. 7 and stars Noree Victoria, Blue Kimble, Victoria Rowell, Nadia Simms, Aaron D. Spears, Marc Jones, Javon Johnson, Cayen Martin, Tiffany M. Show, Kenneth Okolie, Addie “The Bam” Benson, Michelle Lamb, Lennox Simms, Cayen Martin, Christopher A. Nolen.

‘Style Me for Christmas’

Raven Goodwin, Pretty Vee, and Mario star in Style Me for Christmas. It follows a boutique owner who is facing eviction at Christmas.

99.9% of working actors are forever in search of that fabled "big break" which will never, ever come. For many, the quest starts in school and regional theater, where they outshine everyone; they're so good, directors are sometimes forced to cast them well outside of their age range because their brilliance in a minor role will throw the entire show off balance. Then they head off to college, where they typically find they're not the Olivier or Streep. After that, it's New York City or Hollywood, and either a trip back to graduate school so they can potentially make a living as a teacher or a resigned segue into another career.

In 1981, this was the struggle if you were white. If you were an aspiring African-American actor, you were playing a completely different game. Most stars of color were musicians or comedians — and male. If you were a character actor, the roles tended towards servants,...

We love rock & roll, and so do most moviegoers, which is why cinema is filled with heroes who get together with their friends to pound out some numbers. Whether they do it for fame and fortune or to just hang out with buddies, pop bands are inherently cinematic, tying together moving images and sound to create something spectacular. That’s particularly true of fictional groups, who often draw from real-world inspirations and transform them into moving protagonists or hated villains.

This list covers ten of the best fictional bands in cinema history. The key word here is “bands,” as we ignore solo acts, even from really good films. So Mac Sledge from Tender Mercies won’t show up, nor will Noni Jean from Beyond the Lights. Also, we’re looking at fictional groups here, so the Ramones from Rock & Roll High School don’t show up, nor do Talking Heads,...

The ’80s was a decade of movies that you can hear at a roar even on mute. A screenshot of Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay aboard the train in “Risky Business” has a sound to it. The same goes for a still image of Kaneda riding towards Neo-Tokyo in “Akira,” or Jack Nicholson’s car snaking its way up the mountains towards the Overlook Hotel during the opening titles of “The Shining.”

It was a decade of synths and sad jazz; a decade of legends reaching the height of their powers (e.g. John Williams and Ennio Morricone), and of newcomers from other disciplines becoming cinematic virtuosos in their own right (e.g. Ryuichi Sakamoto and Philip Glass). The movies had never sounded that way before, but the best film scores of the ’80s — our picks are listed below — continue to echo in our minds as if they’ve always been there.

Click here to read the full article.

Mary Alice, the Tony- and Emmy-winning actress who starred in the original Broadway production of Fences, portrayed the mother of three singing daughters in Sparkle and appeared as The Oracle in The Matrix Revolutions, has died. She was 85.

Alice died Wednesday in her Manhattan apartment, an NYPD spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.

In 1990 films, Alice played Nurse Margaret opposite Robin Williams and Robert De Niro in Awakenings, directed by Penny Marshall; the family matriarch dealing with a disruptive guest (Danny Glover) in Charles Burnett’s To Sleep With Anger; and a woman whose son was struck by a car in the South Bronx in Brian De Palma’s The Bonfire of the Vanities.

The onetime Chicago schoolteacher received back-to-back Emmy nominations in 1992 and ’93 — winning in the second year — for her supporting turn as Marguerite Peck, whose child is murdered, on the Atlanta-set NBC legal drama I’ll Fly Away,...

Mary Alice, an Emmy-winning actor for I’ll Fly Away and a Tony winner for her performance in 1987’s Broadway production of August Wilson’s Fences, died yesterday in New York City.

Her age has been variously reported as 80, 84 and 86. Her death was confirmed to Deadline by the New York Police Department. No additional details were immediately available.

Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2022: Photo Gallery

“A shoulder we all stood on,” tweeted actor Colman Domingo today.

A prolific character actor on screen and stage, and a pioneer in the representation of Black actors on the Off Broadway and Broadway scenes, Alice is perhaps most widely known to TV audiences for her two-season run as a main character on NBC’s Cosby Show spin-off A Different World, in which she played dorm director Leticia “Lettie” Bostic. In 2003, she featured prominently in The Matrix Revolutions, portraying The Oracle, who imparts words of wisdom to Keanu Reeves’ Neo.

They say you Can’t Go Home Again, but Francis Coppola has pulled a real magic trick — his 1984 gangland musical ended up heavily compromised by outright racism producers that didn’t like the half of the story that favored a black show-biz drama. All the gangster action has been retained in this impressive Encore recut, but with twenty new minutes of performances and backstage intrigues. Gregory and Maurice Hines’ tap dances are extended, and musical numbers have been restored, with the terrific Lonette McKee getting special emphasis. The show was always good, and now it’s much better.

The Cotton Club Encore

Blu-ray + DVD + Digital

Lionsgate

1984-2019 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 139 min. (originally 119) / Street Date December 10, 2019 / 14.99

Starring: Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Gregory Hines, Lonette McKee, Bob Hoskins, Maurice Hines, James Remar, Nicolas Cage, Allen Garfield, Fred Gwynne, Gwen Verdon, Julian Beck, John P. Ryan.

Cinematography: Stephen Goldblatt

Production Designer: Richard Sylbert

Film Editors: Robert Q. Lovett,...

In support of The Cotton Club Encore: 35th Anniversary Edition has arrived to Blu-ray Combo Pack (plus DVD & Digital), DVD and Digital 4K Ultra HD from Lionsgate,

Here’s a new special features introduction from Francis Ford Coppola:

Francis Ford Coppola’s Academy Award®-nominated epic gets its definitive cut when The Cotton Club Encore: 35th Anniversary Edition arrives on Blu-ray Combo Pack (plus DVD & Digital), DVD and Digital 4K Ultra HD December 10 from Lionsgate. Boasting an all-star cast, The Cotton Club Encore: 35th Anniversary Edition stars Golden Globe® winner Richard Gere (2003, Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Chicago), Tony Award® winner Gregory Hines (1992, Best Actor in a Musical, Jelly’s Last Jam), Academy Award® nominee Diane Lane (2002, Best Actress, Unfaithful), NAACP Image Award® nominee Lonette McKee (1999, Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama Series, “As the World Turns”), Golden Globe® nominee Bob Hoskins...

Francis Ford Coppola wished his old frenemy Robert Evans could have made the trip to a screening of The Cotton Club Encore, the new version of the 1984 film that Coppola spent half a million dollars of his own money to re-edit, expand and re-release.

Coppola directed and Evans produced the original film about the famed Harlem nightclub operated by New York gangster Owney Madden, where black entertainers from Duke Ellington to Cab Calloway performed to white-only audiences.

Despite a star-studded cast, the production as he described it was a messy stew of editorial conflict, shady financing, lawsuits and too many scenes on the cutting room floor.

Thirty-five years later, Coppola has reinserted 35 minutes of footage he said distributors weren’t comfortable with at the time.

“They said. ‘It’s too long, there’s too much tap dancing, too many black people,...

Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Cotton Club” was thought of as an expensive flop after it was released in 1984. Coppola has said that producers forced him to cut footage of Gregory Hines, who was meant to be a male co-lead with Richard Gere, to focus more on the love story between Gere and Diane Lane, and the result felt lifeless and cold.

But Coppola has restored the Hines footage for this new version, which has been dubbed “The Cotton Club Encore,” and it might also be called “The Cotton Club Transformed,” because this cut makes a film that felt like a failure into one of Coppola’s very best pictures. This movie is a feast with all the trimmings, and then some.

Coppola has a history of revisiting his films and putting out different cuts of them, as in his “Apocalypse Now Redux” and his longer version of “The Outsiders,...

As Francis Ford Coppola continues to prep for his long-gestating sci-fi epic Megalopolis, the director has been looking back his career. After restoring Tucker: The Man and His Dream, he reworked and restored Apocalypse Now, and now he’s returning to his 1930s-set musical-meets-crime drama with The Cotton Club Encore. Following the inner workings of a Harlem jazz club, the film wasn’t a hit upon its 1984 release, but now Coppola has spent about a half a million of his own dime to restore the image and sound, as well as re-edit the project to include the originally-envisioned ending, new dance numbers, and more.

“I always felt that the movie got cut down; there was 25 or 30 minutes taken out and a lot of the black story got cut out. I found the Betamax of the original cut. I don’t think in the release version of The Cotton Club you...

In today’s film news roundup, Patty Jenkins is honored, “Waves” will close the Hamptons Film Festival, Ellen Burstyn and Emma Thompson are cast, and “The Cotton Club” has been expanded.

Jenkins Honored

The International Cinematographers Guild will honor “Wonder Woman” director Patty Jenkins with its inaugural Distinguished Filmmaker Award.

The award will be presented at the 2019 Emerging Cinematographer Awards on Oct. 6 at the Saban Media Center in North Hollywood.

“The Distinguished Filmmaker Award was created to honor filmmakers who best understand the crucial role cinematographers play in capturing their vision, and who exemplify the best in that working collaboration,” said Lewis Rothenberg, national president. “Ms. Jenkins is truly a ground-breaking auteur widely known for appreciating the detailed contributions of her craft departments, and particularly her camera team. She is an incredible inspirational and educational role model for our emerging cinematographers.”

Hamptons Closing Film

The Hamptons International Film Festival has...

A new cut of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1984 crime drama “The Cotton Club” is set to hit theaters this fall following a bow at the 2019 New York Film Festival. “The Cotton Club” stars Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Gregory Hines, Bob Hoskins, Laurence Fishburne and Nicolas Cage and is set in 1930s Harlem at the legendary jazz venue from which it takes its name. For the initial release, Coppola bent to outside concerns that he edit the film to focus solely on Gere’s character Dixie Dwyer. The Director’s Cut will presumably hew closer to the filmmaker’s original intent, which was to focus just as much on the character played by Gregory Hines, a dancer named Delbert “Sandman” Williams.

The official synopsis for the re-release reads: “In this lavish, 1930s-era drama, Harlem’s legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.

"We're here!" Who's ready for another round at The Cotton Club? Lionsgate has debuted a new trailer for The Cotton Club Encore, which is the official title for a "new iteration" of Francis Ford Coppola's 1984 film The Cotton Club. With his team at American Zoetrope, Coppola set out to create an updated version that would more closely resemble the original intentions of the film. This new version, shown only at the 2017 Telluride Film Festival, features additional scenes such as an extended Gregory Hines & Maurice Hines tap performance, Lonette McKee's brilliant rendition of "Stormy Weather," the originally envisioned ending, and more. Set in the 1930s, the film centers around the The Cotton Club, a famous night club in Harlem. Starring Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, & Lonette McKee, with Bob Hoskins, James Remar, Nicolas Cage, Allen Garfield, Laurence Fishburne, & Gwen Verdon. This new cut will play at the New...

Lionsgate will release Francis Ford Coppola’s recut of his 1984 film The Cotton Club in select theaters on Oct. 11, with a screening at the New York Film Festival prior on Oct. 5. The pic will arrive on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital on Dec. 10 with exclusive new bonus material.

The pic which stars Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Gregory Hines, Bob Hoskins, Laurence Fishburne and Nicolas Cage is set against 1930s Harlem and the legendary Cotton Club which was a crossroads for entertainers and gangsters. When the film was released, it was seen as a crime drama centering around Gere’s Dixie Dwyer character, but Coppola meant for it to be a story of two main characters, one white and one black, navigating life in and around the Cotton Club with their families. The film was deemed too long during post production in 1984, with stakeholders forcing Coppola to minimize Hines’ character and lose many musical numbers.

A Special Event sneak preview and Q&a with Joaquin Phoenix and Joker director Todd Phillips Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Film at Lincoln Center has announced Special Events for the 57th New York Film Festival, including a Screenwriting Master Class with Olivier Assayas, presented by Warby Parker, Martin Scorsese (The Irishman) and Pedro Almodóvar (Pain And Glory with Antonio Banderas) in On Cinema talks with Kent Jones, and Directors Dialogues from Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) and Mati Diop (Atlantics: A Ghost Love Story).

Snowpiercer and Parasite director Bong Joon-ho will do a Directors Dialogue Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Joker with Joaquin Phoenix and director Todd Phillips in a Q&a, a free screening and panel discussion on Roee Messinger's American Trial: The Eric Garner Story, and Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club Encore "for which the director recovered lost negatives to bring the film back to its original length and luster,...

Francis Coppola’s get-out-of-debt directorial assignments may not be his most personal movies, but this one is satisfying just the same, with its marvelous, mellow ensemble cast. It’s a movie to admire, as it’s not easy to attract an audience to a show about the Army’s burial detail.

Gardens of Stone

Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1987 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 111 min. / Street Date January 21, 2019 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £17.33

Starring: James Caan, Anjelica Huston, James Earl Jones, D.B. Sweeney, Dean Stockwell, Mary Stuart Masterson, Dick Anthony Williams, Lonette McKee, Sam Bottoms, Elias Koteas, Laurence Fishburne, Casey Siemaszko, Peter Masterson, Carlin Glynn, Bill Graham.

Cinematography: Jordan Cronenweth

Film Editor: Barry Malkin

Original Music: Carmine Coppola

Written by Ronald Bass from the novel by Nicholas Proffitt

Produced by Francis Ford Coppola, Michael I. Levy

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Let’s make a feel-good movie about the Dead of War! I don...

Aretha Franklin, who died on August 16th at age 76, recorded more than 40 full-length albums in her six-decade career. It’s a deep catalog, crowded with indisputable classics and hidden gems. Rolling Stone’s music staff is paying its R.E.S.P.E.C.T.s to the Queen with tributes to our favorite Aretha LPs. Next up: Mosi Reeves on the creative sparks that flew when Aretha met Curtis Mayfield.

When Aretha Franklin’s revelatory Southern soul collaborations with producer Jerry Wexler cooled in the early ’70s, she spent...

Francis Ford Coppola never meant to make “The Cotton Club” — yet he was dragged back, like Al Pacino in “The Godfather 3,” into making another big-budget movie. Now, 33 years later, he’s spent another $500,000 (of his own money) to restore the film and create “The Cotton Club Encore,” a longer cut that premieres today at the Telluride Film Festival.

Producer Robert Evans had hoped to direct “The Cotton Club,” a valentine to the legendary Harlem nightclub where Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Lena Horne, and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson made their names. He raised $8 million in foreign pre-sales at Cannes, but he couldn’t solve the script. According to the gory details in his autobiography “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” the whole production was a chaotic, coked-up nightmare. He turned to Coppola for help, paying him to write several drafts and finally direct, which became a battle in its own right.

At the end,...

Francis Ford Coppola never meant to make “The Cotton Club” — yet he was dragged back, like Al Pacino in “The Godfather 3,” into making another big-budget movie. Now, 33 years later, he’s spent another $500,000 (of his own money) to restore the film and create “The Cotton Club Encore,” a longer cut that premieres today at the Telluride Film Festival.

Producer Robert Evans had hoped to direct “The Cotton Club,” a valentine to the legendary Harlem nightclub where Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Lena Horne, and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson made their names. He raised $8 million in foreign pre-sales at Cannes, but he couldn’t solve the script. According to the gory details in his autobiography “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” the whole production was a chaotic, coked-up nightmare. He turned to Coppola for help, paying him to write several drafts and finally direct, which became a battle in its own right.

At the end,...

Presenting the Supporting Actress Class of '84. The Academy looked way back in time for this vintage collecting characters from the 1920s through the 1940s: a British senior on an excursion to see "the real" India, a Depression era beautician, the ex-girl of a ballplayer, and a former singer working in a factory during World War II. The sole contemporary character was a chain-smoking furious mother from Greenwich Village...

Glenn Close and Geraldine Page were the regulars... about to lose again!

1984 

Supporting Actress Smackdown  

The Nominees: The 1984 Supporting Actress list skewed more mature than usual. Lindsay Crouse, surely buoyed by the love for Best Picture player Places in the Heart, and the promising new star Christine Lahti who was the least familiar face to moviegoers at the time, were the youngest, both in their mid 30s. Glenn Close, on her third consecutive nomination in the category, and Geraldine Page with...

Today I’d like to highlight not just an actress, but a performer who’s recording/performing/acting career spans four decades, who’s name for some reason doesn’t get mentioned among her more famous peers. Lonette McKee entered this world on July 22, 1954… Continue Reading →...

Editor's Note: This week, Women Make Movies, a leading distributor of movies made by and about women, announced a special re-release of the digitally remastered "Illusions," Julie Dash’s acclaimed portrait of race and identity in 1940s Hollywood. The film centers on Mignon Duprée (Lonette McKee), a Black woman studio executive who appears to be white and Ester Jeeter (Rosanne Katon), a Black woman who dubs the singing voice for a white Hollywood star. The drama follows Mignon's dilemma, Ester's struggle and the use of cinema in wartime Hollywood: three illusions in conflict with reality. Called "one of the most brilliant achievements in style...

Women Make Movies, a leading distributor of movies made by and about women, has announced a special re-release of the digitally remastered "Illusions," Julie Dash’s acclaimed portrait of race and identity in 1940s Hollywood. The film centers on Mignon Duprée (Lonette McKee), a Black woman studio executive who appears to be white and Ester Jeeter (Rosanne Katon), a Black woman who dubs the singing voice for a white Hollywood star. The drama follows Mignon's dilemma, Ester's struggle and the use of cinema in wartime Hollywood: three illusions in conflict with reality. Called "one of the most brilliant achievements in style and concept in recent...

Editor's Note: The La Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema film series tour continues its travels, making its final stop in Atlanta (Ga), running October 25 through November 24, 2013. The Atl installment of the series is sponsored by Emory University’s Department of Film and Media Studies, liquid blackness, for Georgia State University’s Department of Communication, and the Atlanta Film Festival, in association with UCLA Film & Television Archive. In Julie Dash’s film Illusions, Mignon Dupree, played by Lonette Mckee says, “People make films about themselves.” Though she is referring to the exclusionary...

DVD, VOD and Digital Release Date: April 2, 2013

Price: DVD $19.97

Studio: Indomina/Vivendi

Common (r.) gives his nephew some life lessons in Luv.

Common (The Odd Life of Timothy Green), Danny Glover (Death at a Funeral) and Meagan Good (Think Like a Man) star in the 2012 coming-of-age drama Luv.

In the film, Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.) lives with his grandmother (Lonette McKee, The Cotton Club) and longs for his family to be reunited. His charismatic Uncle Vincent (Common) has just returned home after eight years in prison, determined to straighten out his life. One morning, instead of dropping Woody off at school, Vincent decides to give the boy a tutorial on how a man gets things done. Woody jumps at the chance to join his father figure for the day. Their time together changes from optimistic to desperate as Vincent’s plan to open a restaurant is crushed and his past...

In 1989, Donna Deitch directed the made for TV movie "The Women of Brewster Place" starring and produced by Oprah Winfrey, which was based on Gloria Naylor’s 1982 novel of the same name.

The film featured an all-star cast and included two lesbian characters played by Lonette McKee (Lorraine) and Paula Kelly (Theresa). The couple flees their middle-class suburban neighborhood due to their sexuality and makes Brewster Place their new home. However, they soon find they're facing the same issues that they faced while living in their previous residence.

Though McKee and Kelly’s characters were not lead roles, their story was groundbreaking at the time. Over 20 years later, African American lesbian director Dee Rees released her film "Pariah," which tells the coming-out and coming-of-age story of a young black lesbian and garnered Rees many accolades.

In between that 20-year span a handful of black lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender (Lgbt...

Writer/director Sheldon Candis’ first feature is a gutsy Baltimore drama centered on 11-year-old Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.), a fatherless youth who gets a lesson in the hard-knock life from his hustler Uncle Vincent (Common). At the outset, Woody is living with his grandmother (Lonette McKee), longing to reunite with his estranged mother (Tracey Heggins), and is enamored with his Uncle Vincent, who’s just been released from an eight-year stretch in prison. Woody happily accepts a ride to school from Vincent one morning, only to be taken for an even wilder ride when his uncle decides Woody should instead spend the day on the streets with him. Vincent is trying to go straight...

Chicago – Assigned the role of World’s Worst Father Figure, Common delivers a performance so compelling that it nearly makes Sheldon Candis’ blood-soaked odyssey worth the trip. Nearly, however, is the key word. For all of it merits, this picture derails into a ditch of heavy-handed implausibility at the precise moment when it should be soaring.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

One of the recurring images in “Luv,” which is memorably etched in its poster art, is the back of a child’s head as it looks off into a blurred universe that it can’t fully comprehend. Much of the tangled, murky plot is viewed from the perspective of this 11-year-old boy, Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.), who shares the audience’s confusion at the mounting danger that threatens to engulf him entirely. Candis’ vision of Baltimore is intensely claustrophobic, with houses uneasily wedged against one another, confining the desperate protagonists like rats in a maze.

Sheldon Candis’ Luv debuted at Sundance last year, featuring a career-defining performance from Common as the adult lead in this tense dramatic thriller.

The film spent last year on the festival circuit, coming to the UK for Sundance London – you can read our review here – which is where I saw it, and thought it was brilliant.

It’s finally about to arrive in theatres in the Us, screening exclusively at AMC Theatres from next Friday. And with its release so close, the theatre chain have debuted a new, not-suitable-for-work featurette, giving us a look at the themes of betrayal and distrust that run through Luv.

“With his mother in rehab and his father out of the picture, young Woody Watson (Michael Rainey Jr.) lives with his grandmother (Lonette McKee) in suburban Baltimore and longs for his family to be reunited. His charismatic Uncle Vincent (Common) has recently returned home after eight years in prison,...

Editor's Note: The retro is being rebooted for runs in Philly, Toronto and New York through February. Over the next few weeks, we'll be revisiting our reviews/write-ups/interviews on the series (from Brandon Wilson and Nijla Mumin) when it begun in Los Angeles a year ago... here's another. In Julie Dash’s film Illusions, Mignon Dupree, played by Lonette Mckee says, “People make films about themselves.” Though she is referring to the exclusionary practices of the Hollywood studio system, her statement also applies to the films screened this weekend as part of UCLA’s La Rebellion Film Series. There was a unique “self” in each film; a...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Nov. 30, 2012

Price: DVD $30.99, Blu-ray $35.99

Studio: Sony

When Jordin Met Whitney: Ms. Sparks (l.) and Ms. Houston star in Sparkle.

American Idol winner Jordin Sparks and the late Whitney Houston (The Bodyguard) star in the musical drama film Sparkle, a remake of the 1976 cult favorite starring Irene Cara (Fame) and Lonette McKee (The Cotton Club).

Sparks stars as Sparkle (appropriately enough!), a young woman whose big dreams of stardom seem almost impossible. She’s been warned against the pitfalls of the music industry by her protective mother (Houston), yet encouraged by the handsome and ambitious Stix (Derek Luke), Sparkle forms a trio with her sisters (Tika Sumpter and Carmen Ejogo). Together, they perform the soul-stirring songs that Sparkle pens. But as their fame grows, so do the risks of jealousy, self-doubt and temptation.

Directed by Salim Akil from a story by Joel Schumacher (Tigerland), the movie also...

Now here's an argument for never skipping school if there ever was one.

Michael Rainey Jr. and Common star in "Luv," an intense-looking coming-of-age crime drama about an 11-year-old boy and the shady uncle he idolizes. A seemingly innocent day of playing hooky turns into something much more sinister when the kid discovers just exactly what his hero does for a living.

Despite the fact that the trailer reveals the second-act turn of events (someone gets shot) and quite a generous amount of third-act follow-up (things just get worse from there), "Luv," which debuted earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, looks like quite a powerful piece of work. Both Rainey Jr. and Common look to deliver top-notch work, and you can't beat a supporting cast that includes Danny Glover, Dennis Haysbert, Michael Kenneth Williams, Meagan Good and Lonette McKee.

Check out the trailer below or in HD at iTunes Movie Trailers.

After finding success in the hip-hop landscape, Common has dabbled in Hollywood with films like Smokin’ Aces, Terminator Salvation, American Gangster and Date Night, but now he’s finally been handed a promising leading role. The actor debuted the drama Luv at Sundance earlier this year and now we’ve get a trailer ahead of its fall release.

Directed by Sheldon Candis, the drama follows a young boy Michael Rainey Jr. and his uncle, played by Common, as they have what looks to be a dangerous afternoon filled with gunplay and car rides. It actually looks like a pretty tense coming-of-age film and along with The Wire‘s Michael Kenneth Williams, 24‘s Dennis Haysbert and Charles S. Dutton, Danny Glover, Meagan Good and Lonette McKee, we’ve got a great cast. Check out the trailer and poster below.

Synopsis:

An 11-year-old boy gets a crash course in what it means...

After just adding the trailer for the film, we now have a gallery of images from Sheldon Candis' Luv drama, starring Common, Michael Rainey Jr., Dennis Haysbert and Danny Glover. Candis scripts and helms this film which follows an 11-year-old boy who gets a crash course in what it means to be a man when he spends a day with the uncle he idolizes in Luv, a poignant and gritty coming-of-age story. With his mother in rehab and his father out of the picture, young Woody Watson (Michael Rainey Jr.) lives with his grandmother (Lonette McKee) in suburban Baltimore and longs for his family to be reunited. His charismatic Uncle Vincent (Common) has recently returned home after eight years in prison...

After just adding the trailer for the film, we now have a gallery of images from Sheldon Candis' Luv drama, starring Common, Michael Rainey Jr., Dennis Haysbert and Danny Glover. Candis scripts and helms this film which follows an 11-year-old boy who gets a crash course in what it means to be a man when he spends a day with the uncle he idolizes in Luv, a poignant and gritty coming-of-age story. With his mother in rehab and his father out of the picture, young Woody Watson (Michael Rainey Jr.) lives with his grandmother (Lonette McKee) in suburban Baltimore and longs for his family to be reunited. His charismatic Uncle Vincent (Common) has recently returned home after eight years in prison...

Watch the trailer for Sheldon Candis Luv which opens on November 9th from Indomina Releasing. Common, Michael Rainey, Jr. and Dennis Haysbert star as well as Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Meagan Good, Lonette McKee, Michael Kenneth Williams. Candis directs and writes the film produced by Datari Turner, Joel Newton, W. Michael Jenson, Derek Dudle and Jason Michael Berman. An 11-year-old boy gets a crash course in what it means to be a man when he spends a day with the uncle he idolizes in Luv, a poignant and gritty coming-of-age story. With his mother in rehab and his father out of the picture, young Woody Watson (Michael Rainey Jr.) lives with his grandmother (Lonette McKee) in suburban Baltimore and longs for his family to be reunited. His charismatic Uncle Vincent (Common) has recently returned home after eight years in prison, determined to straighten...

Watch the trailer for Sheldon Candis Luv which opens on November 9th from Indomina Releasing. Common, Michael Rainey, Jr. and Dennis Haysbert star as well as Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Meagan Good, Lonette McKee, Michael Kenneth Williams. Candis directs and writes the film produced by Datari Turner, Joel Newton, W. Michael Jenson, Derek Dudle and Jason Michael Berman. An 11-year-old boy gets a crash course in what it means to be a man when he spends a day with the uncle he idolizes in Luv, a poignant and gritty coming-of-age story. With his mother in rehab and his father out of the picture, young Woody Watson (Michael Rainey Jr.) lives with his grandmother (Lonette McKee) in suburban Baltimore and longs for his family to be reunited. His charismatic Uncle Vincent (Common) has recently returned home after eight years in prison, determined to straighten...

Writer/director Sheldon Candis' dramatic film Luv with Common, Danny Glover, Meagan Good, Dennis Haysbert, Michael Rainey Jr, Lonette McKee and Charles S. Dutton will have a benefit screening in Chicago on Monday, September 10 at the Showcase Icon Theater before its theatrical release. As you will recall, the film centers on a young boy who spends one tough day with his Uncle Vincent (Luv - Learning Uncle Vincent) and in the process discovers some rather unpleasant truths about him. The screening will benefit The Common Ground Foundation, founded by Common, which uses creative arts to expose youth to new opportunities. After the screening there will be a Q&A...

I don’t think anyone going to see Sparkle expects a gritty slice of realism or a life-altering experience. It’s an unabashed soap opera with the curiosity value of singer Jordin Sparks in her big-screen debut and Whitney Houston in her final film appearance. If you know all that going in, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed coming out. My memories of the 1976 movie (with Irene Cara, Lonette McKee, and Philip Michael Thomas) are too dim to make comparisons, but I know that it took place in Harlem in the 1950s, while this remake is set in Detroit during the 1960s. It turns out to be a comfortable fit, and the movie’s colorful period production and costume...

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This year’s L.A. Film Fest has showcased a number of coming of age stories that feature very young characters at their centers. Filmmakers are forging stories as seen from the minds of these children, making use of their innocence and unawareness to present deconstructed interpretations of the world. “Luv” is one such piece, presenting a primer on the tough streets of Baltimore, educating its audience through the experiences of its youthful, naïve protagonist. Introducing this film to the audience, director and co-writer Sheldon Candis verbalized this intention perfectly, calling it a fable for the 11-year-old main character, a story about “how he sees the world versus what’s actually there,” and what happens when he discovers that everyone is human.

Woody (Michael Rainey, Jr.) lives in suburban Baltimore with his grandmother (Lonette McKee) and Uncle Vincent (Common), a recently released ex-con, while his mother is in rehab in North Carolina.

Writer/director Sheldon Candis’ first feature is a gutsy Baltimore drama centered on 11-year-old Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.), a fatherless youth who gets a lesson in the hard-knock life from his hustler Uncle Vincent (Common). At the outset, Woody is living with his grandmother (Lonette McKee), longing to reunite with his estranged mother (Tracey Heggins), and is enamored with his Uncle Vincent, who’s just been released from an eight-year stretch in prison. Woody happily accepts a ride to school from Vincent one morning, only to be taken for an even wilder ride when his uncle decides Woody should instead spend the day on the streets with him. Vincent is trying to go straight...

Her movie Sparkle does not open until Aug. 17, but this week brought the debut of Whitney Houston's final song, "Celebrate," a duet from the movie with her costar, Jordin Sparks. Ryan Seacrest unveiled the pulsating number on his radio show Monday. "Celebrate," which was produced by R. Kelly, will be available on iTunes June 5. A remake of a 1976 movie that originally starred Lonette McKee and Irene Cara, this new Sparkle, which finished filming last Thanksgiving, also stars Derek Luke, Mike Epps and Cee Lo Green, and chronicles the challenges faced by a group of singing sisters once they hit it big.

"Luv," a coming-of-age story that premiered at Sundance, has been acquired by The Indomina Group and Bet networks, the companies said Saturday. Sheldon Candis directed the movie, which he wrote with Justin Wilson. Common, Michael Rainey Jr., Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Meagan Good, Lonette McKee and Michael Kenneth Williams star in the movie about Woody, an 11-year-old orphan who reveres his Uncle Vincent, a former drug dealer who is trying to turn his life around. Woody is torn when the temptations -- and violence -- of his uncle's old world...

Deadline revealed Wednesday that Indomina acquired North American theatrical distribution rights to Luv, and that a significant TV component was part of the deal 7-figure deal brokered by ICM and Cinetic. Bet is the TV piece. The film is now being screened for international buyers at Efm in Berlin. Here’s the official release: Los Angeles, CA (February 11, 2012) – Luv, the dramatic thriller which premiered at Sundance in the feature competition, has been acquired by The Indomina Group and Bet Networks. The film will receive a significant North America theatrical release from Indomina, tentatively set for Fall 2012, followed by a broadcast premiere on Bet – which has acquired television rights exclusive in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean, as well as certain ancillary rights on other platforms. Luv (n.b. All Caps) is directed by Sheldon Candis and written by Candis and Justin Wilson. The film stars Common, Michael Rainey Jr.,...

Chicago – The Hollywood Celebrities & Memorabilia Show (now The Hollywood Show) provides a showcase for celebrities to meet their admirers, and get a little insider information about favorite movies and TV series. Lonette McKee (”The Women of Brewster Place”), Patricia Kara (”Deal or No Deal”) and Amber Smith (”Lingerie”) were three actresses who participated in a 2011 show.

HollywoodChicago.com was on hand to interview all three women, and photographer Joe Arce covered the event and provided Exclusive Portraits.

Lonette McKee, “The Cotton Club,” “The Women of Brewster Place,” “Malcolm X”

The multi-expressive and multi-talented Lonette McKee is an actress, screenwriter, director, singer and music composer/songwriter. She was born in Detroit, Michigan, and broke out as a child music prodigy at the age of seven. She recorded her first album at 14 years old, and wrote the title track for the film “Quadroon” when she was 15. Stage, screen and TV roles followed,...

Honey 2

Stars: Katerina Graham, Randy Wayne, Seychelle Gabriel, Christopher Martinez, Melissa Moinaro | Written by Blayne Weaver, Alyson Fouse | Directed by Billie Woodruff

How many dance movies are there going to be before its target audience yawns itself into a coma? Honey 2 is the sequel (of sorts, although it has very little to do with its predecessor) to 2003’s Jessica Alba Dance ‘em up Honey.

It stars Katerina Graham as Maria, a dancer recently released from juvie who’s assigned a job as a caretaker for the Honey Daniels training school and taken under the wing of Honey’s mother (Lonette McKee – the only tenuous link to the first movie). Despite trying to stay on the straight and narrow, she’s constantly tempted by her sleazy ex-boyfriend Luis, who was responsible for her incarceration in the first place. He wants her to rejoin his dance crew, current kings of the neighbourhood,...

This is the Pure Movies review of Honey 2, directed by Bille Woodruff and starring Katerina Graham, Seychelle Gabriel, Mario López, Randy Wayne, Audrina Patridge, Melissa Molinaro, Brandon Molale, Lonette McKee and Laurieann Gibson. If only all disputes in life could be solved with a good old dance-off. The unrest in the Middle East would evaporate in the twist of a hip, the coalition government's slick routine would have an enthralled country bobbing their heads in thrilled agreement and Ryan Giggs would be shaking his Lycra-clad booty to the sickest beats the tabloids could throw at him. Of course, dance-offs raise a few too many problems for the less rhythmic among us - not least, how do you know for sure who wins?...

Tim Boland and Sam Retzer have written the score for the dance film sequel Honey 2. The film is directed by Bille Woodruff who also directed the first part. The movie’s cast includes Katerina Graham (The Vampire Diaries), Randy Wayne, Audrina Patridge, Melissa Molinaro and Lonette McKee who is reprising her role from the first part. The original Honey from 2003 starring Jessica Alba featured a score by Mervyn Warren. Boland and Retzer’s best known film scoring credit is the 2007 street dancing hit movie Stomp the Yard. Honey 2 also features numerous songs from artists including Estelle, La Roux and Far East Movement. The movie is coming out this weekend in the UK and will be opening theatrically in other European countries throughout the summer. A release on Blu-Ray and DVD is expected later this summer in the Us.

By rights, Honey 2 should be unwatchable. A straight to DVD* sequel, to a barely known 2003 vehicle for Jessica Alba’s bottom, the film features only one original cast member, was made for next to nothing, and relies entirely on the conceit that an ability to dance is the most important character trait a human being can possess.

And yet, it’s not; which is more than a little remarkable, as the film is actually even less competent than my introduction suggests.

By almost every possible measure the film doesn’t work. Opening up with a dance off between two groups of young, female prisoners, we quickly skip through the release of Maria (Katherine Graham) into the custody Mrs Daniels, played by Lonette McKee, the only link back to the original movie. As Maria settles in to her new, post-juvie life, we get fleeting introductions to people from her past.