10 varied films by and about African-Americans (and one directed by a Brit) are coming out between August…actually, make that July and December, a N.Y. Times story is reporting. And many of them are angled at quality-seekers who wouldn’t watch a Tyler Perry flick with a knife at their backs. Michael Cieply has posted a laundry-list story [URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/ 06/02/movies/coming-soon-a-breakout-for-black-filmmakers.html?hp] that calls this slate a significant turn in the road, but he doesn’t indicate which are the pick of the litter and which are the black sheep.
From Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station.
It’s the kind of laundry-list story I can’t stand, Lawrence…the kind that just lies there. But I have to acknowledge, of course, this being a Cieply story, that it’s accurate and well-sourced and that things do seem to be blooming and upticking for black filmmakers. A rennaisance of sorts. The mining of richer, broader material.