A Refreshing, Highly Melanated ‘Hamlet’ With a Reasonable Run Time

The first Hamlet movie that comes to mind has always been Kenneth Branagh’s full-text adaptation. I only remember it because I watched his word-for-word version of the William Shakespeare tragedy in high school English. It was four hours. It took us four days to get...

DIASPORA Calendar: April 6 – April 12, 2026

FILM Daughters of the Dust at Vidiots– 7:30 PM, April 7: Join Vidiots for Julie Dash’s rapturous masterpiece, Daughters of the Dust.  As the 20th century dawns, a multi-generational Gullah family from the Sea Islands off of the South Carolina coast struggle to...

DIASPORA Calendar: March 30 – April 5, 2026

FILM Wattstax – 7:30 PM, April 2: One of the most electrifying music documentaries ever, the eternally funky Wattstax is part concert-film and part powerful document of the historic Watts neighborhood of 50 years ago. Known as “The Black Woodstock” Wattstax was held...

LEGEND: Judy Wong

I am currently reading "Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album" by Book by Ken Caillat and Steve Stiefel, a recollection of the drama, drugs, make-ups, break-ups, partying, and band in-fighting that made one of the most iconic and...

“Panic at the Disco” Part I: ‘Here Lies Love’ and How Art About Political Trauma Can Harm and Heal a Community

“Panic at the Disco” is a new essay series that unpacks the impact of the Center Theatre Group’s new production of Here Lies Love. The critical journey will explore the complexities of artistic depictions of traumatic events and cultural figures in history and how...

MUSIC: Mazarati

When it comes to Prince protégé bands there's The Time, Vanity 6 (also Apollonia 6), The Family, and then there's the great purple one's often overlooked funk rock new wave project known as Mazarati. With The Revolution's bassist Brownmark as the producer of their...