Welcome to WeeklyWilson.com, where author/film critic Connie (Corcoran) Wilson avoids totally losing her marbles in semi-retirement by writing about film (see the Chicago Film Festival reviews and SXSW), politics and books----her own books and those of other people. You'll also find her diverging frequently to share humorous (or not-so-humorous) anecdotes and concerns. Try it! You'll like it!

Tag: Sterling K. Brown

Chadwick Boseman of “Black Panther” Dead at 43

Chadwick Boseman at the premiere of “Marshall” in October, 2017. (Photo by Connie Wilson)

The news that Chadwick Boseman was dead at 43, which came to us on Friday, August 28th, was very sad news, indeed. Boseman had been battling colon cancer for 4 years. He was married to Taylor Simone Ledward.

This young actor from Anderson, South Carolina, was a great one.  He was the son of Carolyn and LeRoy Boseman, African American immigrants from Sierra Leone and Nigeria. His portrayal of Jackie Robinson in the film “42” with Harrison Ford cemented him as a leading man in 2013, but Chadwick had been acting as far back as 2003, when he portrayed a character named Reggie Montgomery on “All My Children.”

Ironically, when he expressed reservations about the racial stereotypes inherent in the Reggie Montgomery character, he was replaced by his co-star in “Black Panther,” Michael B. Jordan.

All the way back to his high school days, Chadwick had been interested in directing and only began acting so he could learn how to interact with his cast. In his junior year of high school, in fact, he wrote a play entitled “Crossroads” following the death of a classmate.

After graduating from T.L. Hanna High School in 1995, Chadwick went on to attend Howard University in Washington, D.C., where one of his instructors was Phylicia Rashad. Chadwick and some fellow students had been accepted to attend the Oxford Mid-Summer Program at the British Drama Academy in London. Rashad approached Denzel Washington to help fund the students’ trip there.

Boseman also attended the New York City Digital Film Directing Academy in New York City and did some teaching in the city while living in Brooklyn, but eventually moved to Los Angeles in 2008.

By 2013, he was acting in the movies that he would define with his talent, as with his portrayal of King T’Challa in “Black Panther.”

Sterling K. Brown (October, 2017, Chicago International Film Festival.) [Photo by Connie Wilson]

I met Chadwick Boseman in Chicago in 2017 when he and other actors, such as Sterling K. Brown, appeared in support of “Marshall,” a film in which Boseman played the title role. He was kind and articulate in answering our questions and the cast was like a “Who’s Who” of current Black stars. He was luminous and had a real presence.

Boseman was a gracious and cordial “movie star,” as were the others present in October, 2017 at the Chicago International Film Festival that year. His very presence was impressive, especially since we now know that all the while he was making films like “Marshall,” the “Avengers” series, and “Black Panther” he was fighting this disease. Privately, Boseman was already battling the colon cancer that would ultimately take his life. He had been diagnosed with Stage III colon cancer, which increased to Stage IV cancer. He had surgeries and had endured radiation and surgeries all during the years when he was portraying characters like the King of Wakanda, T’Challa, in “Black Panther,” the “Avengers” series of movies, Thurgood Marshall in “Marshall” and a character in “Da 5 Bloods,” the 2020 Spike Lee film.

This disease claimed my own father many years ago, metastasizing from the colon to his liver and other organs, eventually even invading his brain. It is my fervent hope that this tragic loss will cause others to have frequent colonoscopies to find and cure the colon cancer that, if caught in time, is survivable.

If not caught in time, it can claim the life of even such a specimen as Chadwick Boseman. General recommendations are to have such tests beginning at age 50, but obviously that is not always soon enough if there is a family history.

Once that family history exists, the general recommendation is to have colonscopies every three years, rather than the normal every five years. Katie Couric’s husband died young from colon cancer, and she would echo my hope that this unnecessary death of such a talented young man might spur all of us to be vigilant.

Chadwick Boseman (Photo by Connie Wilson).

Chadwick Boseman’s words to a graduating class: “Purpose is why you are here on the planet at this particular time in history. The struggles along the way are only meant to shape you for your purpose.”

Films from Wikipedia.org:

2008The Express: The Ernie Davis StoryFloyd LittleGary Fleder[64]
2012The Kill HoleLt. Samuel DrakeMischa Webley[65]
201342Jackie RobinsonBrian Helgeland[64]
2014Draft DayVontae MackIvan Reitman[66]
2014Get on UpJames BrownTate Taylor[64]
2016Gods of EgyptThothAlex Proyas[67]
2016Captain America: Civil WarT’Challa / Black PantherAnthony & Joe Russo[68]
2016Message from the KingJacob KingFabrice Du WelzAlso executive producer[69]
2017MarshallThurgood MarshallReginald HudlinAlso co-producer[70]
2018Black PantherT’Challa / Black PantherRyan Coogler[71]
2018Avengers: Infinity WarAnthony & Joe Russo[72]
2019Avengers: Endgame[73]
201921 BridgesAndre DavisBrian KirkAlso producer[74]
2020Da 5 BloodsNorman Earl “Stormin’ Norm” HollowaySpike Lee[75]
TBAMa Rainey’s Black BottomLeveeGeorge C. WolfePost-production; posthumous release[76]

 

Television
YearTitleRoleNotesRef.
2003All My ChildrenReggie PorterRecurring role[24]
2003Third WatchDavid WaferEpisode: “In Lieu of Johnson”[77]
2004Law & OrderFoster KeyesEpisode: “Can I Get a Witness?”[77]
2006CSI: NYRondoEpisode: “Heroes”[78]
2008ERDerek TaylorEpisode: “Oh, Brother”[77]
2008Cold CaseDexter CollinsEpisode: “Street Money”[77]
2008–2009Lincoln HeightsNathaniel “Nate” Ray9 episodes[79]
2009Lie to MeCabe McNeilEpisode: “Truth or Consequences”[80]
2010Persons UnknownSergeant McNair13 episodes[78]
2010The GladesMichael RichmondEpisode: “Honey”[81][82]
2011CastleChuck RussellEpisode: “Poof, You’re Dead”[78]
2011FringeMark Little / Cameron JamesEpisode: “Subject 9[83]
2011Detroit 1-8-7Tommy WestinEpisode: “Beaten/Cover Letter”[84]
2011JustifiedRalph BeemanEpisode: “For Blood or Money”[78]
2018Saturday Night LiveHimselfEpisode: “Chadwick Boseman/Cardi B[85]
2021What If…?T’Challa / Black Panther / Star-LordFinal role
Guest voice role; posthumous release
[86]

Awards and nominations

YearAwardCategoryNominated workResultRef.
2017Saturn AwardsBest Supporting ActorCaptain America: Civil WarNominated[87]
2018MTV Movie & TV AwardsBest Performance in a MovieBlack PantherWon[88]
Best HeroWon
Best Fight (Black Panther vs M’Baku)Nominated
Best On-Screen Team (with Lupita Nyong’oLetitia Wright and Danai Gurira)Nominated
2018Saturn AwardsBest ActorNominated[89]
2019Screen Actors Guild AwardsOutstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion PictureWon[90]
2019NAACP Image AwardsOutstanding Actor in a Motion PictureWon[91]
Entertainer of the YearNominated
2020Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture21 BridgesNominated[92]

“Marshall” Opens the 53rd Annual Chicago International Film Festival on October 12th


The opening film of the 53rd Chicago International Film Festival was “Marshall,” directed by Reginald Hutton. The film is a depiction of a case that NAACP lawyer and first black Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall took in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The 1941 case involved a charge of rape made by a prominent white socialite Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson). Mrs. Strubing accused a black chauffeur, Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown, “This Is Us”), of raping her and throwing her in a nearby river while she was bound and gagged.

THE GOOD

Learning more about the background of famed attorney Thurgood Marshall in a fictional format was informative and entertaining. For instance, the supremely confident Marshall, when he arrives in Connecticut, tells the local attorney with whom he will have to work (Josh Gad of “The Book of Mormon” as Jewish attorney Sam Friedman) that he wanted to attend law school at the University of Maryland, which was very close to his home, but he was forced, instead, to attend the predominantly black Howard University, which was not close by at all. Marshall adds that he learned law well enough to later sue the University of Maryland. We also learn that Marshall argued cases before the Supreme Court 32 times and only lost 3. He won the Brown versus the Board of Education bill that opened schools to all races in 1954 and became the first black Supreme Court Justice in 1967.

The cast includes Chadwick Boseman as Marshall, Sterling K. Brown as the accused chauffeur, Josh Gad as co-counsel, Kate Hudson as the rape victim, Dan Stevens of “Downton Abbey” as prosecuting attorney Loren Willis and Academy Award nominee James Cromwell (“Babe”) as Judge Foster. Keesha Sharp has a small role as Thurgood Marshall’s wife, Buster. Jussie Smollett of “Empire” is also cast in a small role as poet Langston Hughes, a classmate of Thurgood Marshall’s. His role seemed unnecessary and superfluous, to me, and made Marshall seem as though he were so single-mindedly fixed on civil rights that he makes a disparaging remark about Hughes not doing anything noteworthy with his life.

The cinematography by Newton Thomas Sigel was good, complete with vintage cars and clothing, and the music (Marcus Miller) added much to the production with a stirring song by Dianne Warren (“Up Where We Belong”) at the end, called “You Can’t Be Nothin’ if You Don’t Stand Up for Something.”

THE BAD

The script, written by Jacob and Michael Koskoff, had its moments, with lines like “Here in America our differences are not supposed to matter,” and (said to Marshall upon his arrival in Connecticut), “You have enough confidence for us all, misplaced as it may be.” Another good line was, “The only way to get through a bigot’s door is to break it down.” There is also the counseling of the accused by Marshall that Joseph Spell not take a plea deal, with the future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court saying, “We aren’t slaves, ‘cause we rose up and fought and fought and fought.”

The woman sitting next to me brought up an interesting point when she repeated a line from the film (one that breaks the case wide open): “Men are men and women are women.”

As we discussed the film that had just ended, she said, “Does that mean that Harvey Weinstein’s actions are okay, because he was just being a man?”

I responded, “Yes, and does the line about bigotry mean that someone should be breaking down the door of the Oval Office right about now?”

We both wondered how accurate the portrayal of this early case was, and, just as we were discussing that, a disclaimer came onscreen mentioning that certain characters were composites, etc., etc., etc.

The Judge, played by James Cromwell, seemed too evil and prejudiced to be true to life. He basically hamstrings the defense at every opportunity and is blatantly unfair. His role was over the top.

VERDICT

I’ve been a big fan of Chadwick Boseman ever since he appeared as James Brown in the 2014 bio-pic “Get On Up.” I thought he should have received an Academy Award nomination for his work in that movie, but the release date was too early in the year and hurt his chances. (“Marshall” opens on Friday, October 13th.)
The co-stars all do adequate jobs, although Kate Hudson was underwhelming in her role.

The entire film made me think of the Oprah Winfrey 2013 film “The Butler” (billed as “Lee Daniel’s The Butler”) that starred Forest Whitaker as the long-serving black butler at the White House. There was an outcry that year about the lack of African American nominees amongst the Oscar nominees. Some actors were even boycotting the event. Since then, changes have occurred to make the Academy Awards more diverse (and less old and white).

When the outcry over “The Butler” arose, while recognizing that Forest Whitaker always does a credible job, I was not among those who felt he had been sadly overlooked by not being recognized with a nomination.
In this film, aside from Chadwick Boseman’s role, I didn’t see any Academy Award-worthy work here, either. The film seemed very old-fashioned. I had the feeling I’d seen many just like it previously. It was not that fresh, original, or unique.

Marina plays Josh Gad’s wife, Stella Friedman.

Josh Gad is good as co-counsel and Boseman continues the excellent work he displayed in “Get On Up” but, for me, this was a slightly above-average film, with a lot of semi-boring courtroom scenes that almost took you back to the days of “Perry Mason” on television. (Extensive courtroom scenes tend to be difficult to bring to vivid life in today’s Cineplex, but this film certainly tries.)

Overall, my reaction to the entire film, while positive, was “been there/seen that.”

Still, the issues raised are timely, especially now, and for that reason “Marshall” is worth seeing.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén