He was our first Black movie star, in a certain, classical sense of that term. Other Black actors had appeared in popular Hollywood movies, had even gone so far as to win an Academy Award for their work before Sidney Poitier made it big (just one person — Hattie McDaniel — and just one time, in 1939, but still). And other Black image-makers had labored in other corners of the industry, working behind and in front of the camera some time before Poitier made his way to the United States from the Bahamas...
- 9/23/2022
- by K. Austin Collins
- Rollingstone.com
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Reginald Hudlin’s documentary about Sidney Poitier should be considered the beginning, not the end, of appraising the prolific actor’s career. Sidney, which premiered at TIFF and streams on Apple TV+ starting Sept. 23, crafts the kind of hagiographic portrait audiences have come to accept — even desire — of famous figures.
This serviceable primer chronologically recounts Poitier’s legacy, from his birth in 1927 to his death in January 2022. Early on, we learn that life was not guaranteed for the actor. He was born two months premature and many people, including his mother’s midwife, predicted an imminent death. The morning after Poitier’s birth, his father procured a shoebox in which to bury the infant. But Poitier’s mother possessed an enduring faith: She visited a soothsayer who told her not to worry about her son’s survival. Not only would Poitier live, but...
Reginald Hudlin’s documentary about Sidney Poitier should be considered the beginning, not the end, of appraising the prolific actor’s career. Sidney, which premiered at TIFF and streams on Apple TV+ starting Sept. 23, crafts the kind of hagiographic portrait audiences have come to accept — even desire — of famous figures.
This serviceable primer chronologically recounts Poitier’s legacy, from his birth in 1927 to his death in January 2022. Early on, we learn that life was not guaranteed for the actor. He was born two months premature and many people, including his mother’s midwife, predicted an imminent death. The morning after Poitier’s birth, his father procured a shoebox in which to bury the infant. But Poitier’s mother possessed an enduring faith: She visited a soothsayer who told her not to worry about her son’s survival. Not only would Poitier live, but...
- 9/23/2022
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
With Sidney Poitier’s own voice providing the narrative backbone to Reginald Hudlin’s documentary Sidney, we get to rediscover just what a wonderful storyteller he was. He speaks about his childhood in the Bahamas, his adolescence in Nassau, and the overnight culture clash of coming to Miami without realizing just what it meant to be a Black man in America—all with such emotion and drama that we can’t help hanging on his every word. A harrowing experience at the end of a police officer’s gun. The kindly Jewish waiter who helped him read better. The radio announcer he studied every night to lose his accent. And the outright rejection by a respected theater director when he greenly walked into an audition unprepared. They’re insights into an icon’s origins.
They’re also the early signs of how and why Poitier’s life and career would...
They’re also the early signs of how and why Poitier’s life and career would...
- 9/20/2022
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
Sidney Poitier, whose dignity and self-assertion ushered in a new era in the depiction of African-Americans in Hollywood films as the civil rights movement was remaking America, has died, a spokesperson for the Bahamian Prime Minister confirmed to Variety. He was 94. Poitier was the oldest living winner of the best actor Oscar — just one distinction in a career full of distinctions.
“Our whole Bahamas grieves and extends our deepest condolences to his family. But even as we mourn, we celebrate the life of a great Bahamian, a cultural icon, an actor and film director, an entrepreneur, civil and human rights activist and, latterly, a diplomat,” said Phillip Davis, Prime Minister of the Bahamas in a statement. “We admire the man not just because of his colossal achievements, but also because of who he was. His strength of character, his willingness to stand up and be counted, and the way he...
“Our whole Bahamas grieves and extends our deepest condolences to his family. But even as we mourn, we celebrate the life of a great Bahamian, a cultural icon, an actor and film director, an entrepreneur, civil and human rights activist and, latterly, a diplomat,” said Phillip Davis, Prime Minister of the Bahamas in a statement. “We admire the man not just because of his colossal achievements, but also because of who he was. His strength of character, his willingness to stand up and be counted, and the way he...
- 1/7/2022
- by Rick Schultz
- Variety Film + TV
In the Heat of the Night
Blu ray
Criterion
1967 / 1.85:1 / 110 Min. / Street Date – January 29, 2019
Starring Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates
Cinematography by Haskell Wexler
Directed by Norman Jewison
The racial animus that roiled recent elections in Mississippi was a reminder of segregation’s cockroach-like resiliency in that state – it wasn’t until 2013 that its Secretary of State officially ratified the 13th amendment.
It’s safe to assume that volatile climate was even more combustible in 1966 when Sidney Poitier refused to venture south of the Mason-Dixon Line for the Mississippi-set In the Heat of the Night – less precarious locations were found but the actor still kept a gun under his pillow during production.
A hardboiled policier with Ray Charles on the soundtrack and the headlong urgency of politically-charged Euro thrillers like Z and Queimada, Norman Jewison’s countrified crime story stars Poitier as Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia detective waylaid at...
Blu ray
Criterion
1967 / 1.85:1 / 110 Min. / Street Date – January 29, 2019
Starring Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates
Cinematography by Haskell Wexler
Directed by Norman Jewison
The racial animus that roiled recent elections in Mississippi was a reminder of segregation’s cockroach-like resiliency in that state – it wasn’t until 2013 that its Secretary of State officially ratified the 13th amendment.
It’s safe to assume that volatile climate was even more combustible in 1966 when Sidney Poitier refused to venture south of the Mason-Dixon Line for the Mississippi-set In the Heat of the Night – less precarious locations were found but the actor still kept a gun under his pillow during production.
A hardboiled policier with Ray Charles on the soundtrack and the headlong urgency of politically-charged Euro thrillers like Z and Queimada, Norman Jewison’s countrified crime story stars Poitier as Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia detective waylaid at...
- 1/29/2019
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
“A Slap Heard Around The World”
By Raymond Benson
The year 1967 was a milestone for actor Sidney Poitier. First, To Sir, with Love garnered sizable box-office for this British picture, and then Hollywood produced In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, two back-to-back revolutionary movies that solidified Poitier’s position not only as Tinsel Town’s only black leading man at the time, but also as an icon of the civil rights movement and the representative—certainly not by choice—of his race in films to the rest of America. Throughout his career, Poitier maintained an intelligence and dignity that was tangible, and this is what made him such a charismatic star.
Both In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner were Oscar nominees for Best Picture. A winner of five awards, Heat took home the gold. Rod Steiger,...
By Raymond Benson
The year 1967 was a milestone for actor Sidney Poitier. First, To Sir, with Love garnered sizable box-office for this British picture, and then Hollywood produced In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, two back-to-back revolutionary movies that solidified Poitier’s position not only as Tinsel Town’s only black leading man at the time, but also as an icon of the civil rights movement and the representative—certainly not by choice—of his race in films to the rest of America. Throughout his career, Poitier maintained an intelligence and dignity that was tangible, and this is what made him such a charismatic star.
Both In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner were Oscar nominees for Best Picture. A winner of five awards, Heat took home the gold. Rod Steiger,...
- 1/19/2019
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
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