Broadway Revival Of Melvin Van Peebles’ ‘Ain’t Supposed To Die A Natural Death’ Will Go On As Planned, But Now With A Special Dedication

The Broadway revival of David Mamet’s American Buffalo starring Laurence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell and Darren Criss – postponed from 2020 due to the Covid shutdown – will open at Circle in the Square Theatre on Wednesday, April 14, 2022, two years to the day after its original target.

The Old West is getting a whole new spin.

Every Tuesday, discriminating viewers are confronted with a flurry of choices: new releases on disc and on-demand, vintage and original movies on any number of streaming platforms, catalog titles making a splash on Blu-ray or 4K. This biweekly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching.

The Skin of Our Teeth, Thornton Wilder’s 1943 Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy-drama, will return to Broadway next spring in a Lincoln Center Theater production directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz.

It is too easy to throw superlatives around when talking about filmmakers. Many directors with a decent enough filmography, who have been around long enough to be forgotten about can attain such a status.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticMelvin Van Peebles, who died Sept. 21 at 89, was not the inventor of Black cinema, but it’s no exaggeration to say that he smashed open the door to Black cinema as we know it.

As you probably already know, it was announced yesterday that the influential filmmaker, Melvin Van Peebles, passed away. And as with the passing of any sort of filmmaking royalty, folks from the industry went to social media to share kind words.

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Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and comedy Watermelon Man, in which a white, racist man wakes up one morning to find that he’s a Black man.Hollywood admirers of the filmmaker have taken to social media to pay their respects.“He made the most of every second, of EVERY single damn frame and admittedly, while the last time I spent any time with him was MANY years ago, it was a night in which he absolutely danced his face off.

New York, according to a statement. The pioneering director, actor, composer, writer and novelist has been described as the ‘godfather of black cinema’.

director behind Watermelon Man and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, has died. He was 89.

Filmmaker and author Melvin Van Peebles has died at the age of 89.The rebel director known for his groundbreaking "blaxploitation" films, passed on Sept. 21 surrounded by his family, the Criterion Collection announced.

pic.twitter.com/HpciXXVoYoHere’s the full text of our announcement on the passing of Melvin Van Peebles: pic.twitter.com/n0svUACrKPAs the statement noted, Van Peebles was the pioneering filmmaker behind '70s films like  and He's considered by many to be the godfather of modern Black cinema, and impacted a generation of filmmakers, including Spike Lee. Van Peebles, who was also a novelist, songwriter and musician, was born in Chicago in 1932.

Melvin Van Peebles was an actor and filmmaker best known for his influential 1971 film, “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.”Van Peebles wrote, directed, co-produced, and starred in “Sweetback,” as well as composing its score despite being unable to read music. The result was a classic of indie cinema, created on a shoestring budget.

Refresh for updates… Hollywood paid fast and heartfelt tribute to director Melvin Van Peebles today, with news of his death eliciting words of praise for the filmmaker from such industry figures as actor David Alan Grier and directors Barry Jenkins, Ava DuVernay, and Spike Lee, along with notable musicians and music execs.

Criterion Collection announced.“Dad knew that Black images matter,” his son Mario Van Peebles said in a statement released by Criterion. “If a picture is worth a thousand words, what was a movie worth? We want to be the success we see, thus we need to see ourselves being free.

Spike Lee credited Van Peebles as a “big supporter” of Lee’s own film career (and shared a signed poster of the older auteur’s breakout hit “Sweet Sweetback’s Badassssss Song”). “I Am So Saddened By The Loss Of My Brother Melvin Van Pebbles Who Brought Independent Black Cinema To The Forefront,” Lee wrote.