Candice Frederick

The last time we saw Mars Blackmon on She’s Gotta Have It, he and his gigantic gold name chain were serenaded out of his former lover Nola Darling’s apartment to the beat of Prince’s “Raspberry Beret.” But in the second season of the Netflix series, out today, Mars has bigger things to focus on than a wounded heart. The struggling musician is bouncing from couch to couch after his sister, LuLu (Santana Caress Benitez), throws him out of her apartment because he can no longer help her pay for ...

It’s been nearly two years since Hurricane Maria ripped through Puerto Rico; devastating thousands of homes, stripping families of electricity for months, and killing nearly 3,000 people. While much time has passed, and the catastrophe has regressed from mainstream headlines, the new documentary short “After Maria” shows that there is still much work to be done, as it highlights Puerto Rican survivors who struggle to restore their lives.
There was once a time when both Puerto Rico and Flint, ...

Linda Kallerüs/Netflix
What would happen if “Back to the Future” starred black people? That’s what the filmmaker Stefon Bristol imagines in “See You Yesterday” (there’s even a winking cameo by Michael J. Fox), now on Netflix, which centers on C. J. (Eden Duncan-Smith), a high school science prodigy who builds a time-traveling backpack.
But instead of going back to the past to save her parents’ marriage, as Marty McFly did, she rewinds the previous 24 hours in hopes of preventing the murder of...

In the first season of "She’s Gotta Have It," DeWanda Wise contends with the patriarchal lens as the fiercely confident and independent Nola Darling.
As an artist, she stands up against rampant street harassment in her groundbreaking piece, “My Name Isn’t.” She also reclaims control over her body and voice when she sits down each of her male jump-offs (Lyriq Bent, Cleo Anthony and Anthony Ramos). Nola lets them know that despite the fact that she has sex with them, they do not own her and don...

There is a smart movie nestled somewhere in director Chris Addison’s romp, “The Hustle,” but you have to weed through a whole lot of foolery to get to it. The new film is ripe for big laughs with Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson as, respectively, the snobby British bombshell with sticky fingers and the rough-around-the-edges though equally cunning con artist, but neither actress is given rich enough material to bring the film’s most interesting ideas to the finish line.
Hollywood has had a grow...

Sosie Bacon as Patricia Krenwinkel, Hannah Murray as Leslie Van Houten and Marianne Rendón as Susan Atkins in Mary Harron’s Charlie Says. IFC Films
Sosie Bacon as Patricia Krenwinkel, Hannah Murray as Leslie Van Houten and Marianne Rendón as Susan Atkins in Mary Harron’s Charlie Says. IFC Films
It’s been 50 years since the horrifying Manson Family murders, which resulted in nine deaths throughout California in the summer of 1969 (actress Sharon Tate was the most famous victim). While much has...

On a recent episode of The Bold Type, Aisha Dee’s Kat Edison says something that a lot of people can relate to: “I need something to channel my rage and depression.” Frustrated about losing one of only two lesbian bars in New York City to gentrification (in large part thanks to an apathetic councilman), Kat decides to help out with a new candidate’s campaign. The Scarlet Magazine social media director’s sentiment could easily be a slogan for today’s politically conscious youth who are both di...

If you ever get to meet Tsai Chin, remember to speak clearly and project. The classically trained Chinese-born British actress, who’s had a stellar six-decade career on stage and screen, commands the same level of eloquence the industry demanded of her. It’s a fair expectation, considering that she’s been an acting instructor since the early 1960s and trains her students to speak in an operatic voice. That’s part of the reason why her most iconic film roles — including the unwavering Lindo Jo...

When you think about a Rolling Stones documentary, you might expect sordid details about Mick Jagger’s or Keith Richards’ drug use and rampant sexual escapades, or even the backstory behind the band’s greatest hits such as “Paint It Black” or “Gimme Shelter.” Never would you consider a film that negates all those interesting tidbits to highlight the least flamboyant and popular member of the group, Bill Wyman, the taciturn bass guitarist who documented his nearly 30-year career with the quint...

Every person needs a member of their squad who cuts through the bullshit, who gives you the cold, hard truth like a swift kick to the funny bone. Enter June Diane Raphael: an actress who’s mastered the art of getting straight to the point. Her roster of veracity-obsessed characters includes the wonderfully terse business owner Brianna Hanson on Grace and Frankie, the queen bee of the schoolyard Devin on Big Mouth, and — most recently — Maggie Millikin, the key adviser to a female presidential...

“I used to think that everyone sang in Spanish and spoke in English,” Linda Ronstadt narrates in the beginning of the new biographical documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice. It’s one of many rare intimate moments of the Grammy Award-winning singer captured in the doc, which details her childhood growing up along the border of Mexico in Arizona, her meteoric rise to music superstardom, and her heartbreaking battle with Parkinson’s disease.
With a five-decade career under her belt, ...

Home invasion thrillers have given us plenty of maniacal villains hellbent on terrorizing helpless residents of cavernous houses. Whether they’re driven by dementia or greed (or both), these villains pillage, plunder, and leave the scene a bloodbath.
Rarely are they provoked by a former homeowner’s mundane desire to still occupy the residence, as it is for Dennis Quaid’s vein-popping Charlie Peck in director Deon Taylor’s “The Intruder.”
In director Jung Huh’s 2013 film, “Hide and Seek,” the ...

It was nearly three decades ago when writer/director John Singleton’s freshman film “Boyz N the Hood” gave us a compassionate and deeply human story about growing up black and ambitious with a life that is sadly expendable — long before Black Lives Matter rewrote that narrative. He earned not one but two Academy Award nominations for helming the movie and penning the script. Though he didn’t win, “Boyz N the Hood” is still talked about as one of the best and most tragically honest films about...

It has been quite a while since a mass audience has assembled to tweet about complex mothers and wives who keep their stilettos and wigs on and are on a show without “Real Housewives” in its title. Seeing Good Girls—NBC’s hit drama about suburban women ensnared in a crime syndicate—trending each week is a surefire sign that the show is resonating with large audiences. There’s no doubt that its storylines are outrageous, but the show has managed to balance far-fetched scenarios with rich chara...

We are still in the beginning phases of a reckoning with toxic masculinity that may take years to dismantle, and yet there is a persistent desire to move past it and to attempt to understand the problematic male genius on screen. We’re seeing it now on the small screen in the new FX series “Fosse/Verdon,” and now on the big screen with “The White Crow.” And it is a chore to get through both.
The Ralph Fiennes-directed movie aims to illuminate the life of Rudolf Nureyev (Oleg Ivenko), who left...