Home Is Where The Heart Is: Byrne Takes Up Fiction
For the decade prior to making his fictional feature debut, director Darragh Byrne helmed a number of Irish television documentaries that held implications of those who found themselves in various unfortunate situations, whether outlaws by chance (or choice, in The Underworld) or afflicted immigrant by law (as was partially the case in Mixed Blessings). Making the leap from non-fiction to fabrication with the socially conscious dramedy, Parked, Bryne continues to follow similar themes without rehashing worn material or sentimentally moralizing. Instead, the director takes a pair of downtrodden contradictory characters he could have plucked from one of his previous docs and rubs them together in classic odd couple tradition like a comedic experiment to see what kind of charge will result from the friction.
Long an Irish emigrant working odd jobs in Britain, Fred (played by a lovingly precarious...
For the decade prior to making his fictional feature debut, director Darragh Byrne helmed a number of Irish television documentaries that held implications of those who found themselves in various unfortunate situations, whether outlaws by chance (or choice, in The Underworld) or afflicted immigrant by law (as was partially the case in Mixed Blessings). Making the leap from non-fiction to fabrication with the socially conscious dramedy, Parked, Bryne continues to follow similar themes without rehashing worn material or sentimentally moralizing. Instead, the director takes a pair of downtrodden contradictory characters he could have plucked from one of his previous docs and rubs them together in classic odd couple tradition like a comedic experiment to see what kind of charge will result from the friction.
Long an Irish emigrant working odd jobs in Britain, Fred (played by a lovingly precarious...
- 11/29/2012
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Musician John Legend is developing a new comedy project with NBC. The Grammy-winning singer will executive produce Mixed Blessings, according to Deadline. The project will focus on a popular hip-hop artist who finds his single life disrupted when he discovers that he has a secret teenage son. The potential series is loosely based on the childhood of Legend's fellow executive producer Mike Jackson. Medium's Rob Pearlstein will also serve as writer and co-executive producer on Mixed (more)...
- 9/22/2011
- by By Morgan Jeffery
- Digital Spy
Platinum-selling musical artist John Legend has made his first major deal as a TV producer, selling a single-camera family comedy entitled "Mixed Blessings" to NBC through his Get Lifted Film Co. Legend will executive-produce the project along with his production partner Mike Jackson, whose upbringing in suburban Philadelphia served as the inspiration for the show. The series will center on a famous, urban-raised hip-hop artist who discovers he has a teenage son living with his white adoptive family in the suburbs, Deadline is exclusively reporting. He then attempts to establish a relationship with the boy and his brood, resulting in a...
- 9/21/2011
- by HitFix Staff
- Hitfix
Exclusive: After lengthy negotiations, NBC has closed a deal for Mixed Blessings, a single-camera comedy project executive produced by singer-songwriter John Legend and former NBC executive Teri Weinberg. Rob Pearlstein (Medium) will write and co-executive produce the comedy, which received interest from multiple networks before entering exclusive negotiations with NBC, reuniting Weinberg with the network where she served as Evp under Ben Silverman. John Legend and Mike Jackson are executive producing though their Get Lifted Film Co. and Weinberg’s through her Yellow Brick Road banner. Universal Television will produce. Inspired by Jackson’s childhood growing up in suburban Philadelphia, Mixed Blessings centers on a prominent, black, street-bred hip-hop artist enjoying his single life who discovers that he has a teenage son and decides to connect with him and his white suburban family. The show explores the culture clash and the complicated journey of a father and son beginning their...
- 9/21/2011
- by NELLIE ANDREEVA
- Deadline TV
Oakland — Just in time for the holiday season, the Gravy has arrived.
Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie opens up in various theaters across America at the start of December. Wavy Gravy is an icon with an ever changing career. He’s gone from the legendary Merry Pranksters to the head of security at the original Woodstock to running a respected charity and finally achieving international greatness as a flavor of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. The many facets of his life are covered in the documentary directed by Michelle Esrick.
We had a chance to sit down for an extensive interview with Wavy Gravy and Michelle Esrick when the movie premiered at 2009’s Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.
This first part has him discuss getting drunk with Jack Kerouac (On the Road) and dropping acid at the Electric Acid Kool-Aid Tests. Ahhh good times.
Now we get...
Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie opens up in various theaters across America at the start of December. Wavy Gravy is an icon with an ever changing career. He’s gone from the legendary Merry Pranksters to the head of security at the original Woodstock to running a respected charity and finally achieving international greatness as a flavor of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. The many facets of his life are covered in the documentary directed by Michelle Esrick.
We had a chance to sit down for an extensive interview with Wavy Gravy and Michelle Esrick when the movie premiered at 2009’s Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.
This first part has him discuss getting drunk with Jack Kerouac (On the Road) and dropping acid at the Electric Acid Kool-Aid Tests. Ahhh good times.
Now we get...
- 12/3/2010
- by UncaScroogeMcD
Well… we’re just about halfway through the 2010 movie season, and seen at least 150 films reach theaters near you since January. How would you rate the year thus far? How have “black films” done critically and commercially?
The biggest box office hit so far this year? Alice In Wonderland. If you asked me at the beginning of the year, which film would be leading the money race by mid-year, Alice In Wonderland probably wouldn’t have been my first choice; it may not have even been in my top 5. And if you’d told me that the Smith family remake of The Karate Kid would be one of the year’s biggest hits, I would likely have scuffed. It’s the highest grossing film of 2010 with a black person starring – specifically Jaden Smith, who will likely quickly become a household name, and, dare I say, a real box office draw,...
The biggest box office hit so far this year? Alice In Wonderland. If you asked me at the beginning of the year, which film would be leading the money race by mid-year, Alice In Wonderland probably wouldn’t have been my first choice; it may not have even been in my top 5. And if you’d told me that the Smith family remake of The Karate Kid would be one of the year’s biggest hits, I would likely have scuffed. It’s the highest grossing film of 2010 with a black person starring – specifically Jaden Smith, who will likely quickly become a household name, and, dare I say, a real box office draw,...
- 7/2/2010
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
Why hasn't Bafta done more to give back the British film industry its self-esteem?
The Brits aren't coming
As Avatar nudges box office history, British films are having a tough time at home. Despite warm reviews and wide media coverage, films such as Me and Orson Welles, Nowhere Boy, Fish Tank and Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll have returned frankly rubbish UK audience figures. But is this any surprise when our own awards body relegates British film to its own sub-ghetto? Don't last week's Bafta nominations basically suggest that British film is a weedy cousin to Hollywood, not worthy of playing with the big boys but allowed instead a tiny playground category of its own? British film cannot possibly grow in confidence and ambition when it receives such limiting knocks from its compatriot peers. The message it sends out, to both audiences and film-makers here, is thus muddied and unhelpful. In...
The Brits aren't coming
As Avatar nudges box office history, British films are having a tough time at home. Despite warm reviews and wide media coverage, films such as Me and Orson Welles, Nowhere Boy, Fish Tank and Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll have returned frankly rubbish UK audience figures. But is this any surprise when our own awards body relegates British film to its own sub-ghetto? Don't last week's Bafta nominations basically suggest that British film is a weedy cousin to Hollywood, not worthy of playing with the big boys but allowed instead a tiny playground category of its own? British film cannot possibly grow in confidence and ambition when it receives such limiting knocks from its compatriot peers. The message it sends out, to both audiences and film-makers here, is thus muddied and unhelpful. In...
- 1/24/2010
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
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