When we first met Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) a decade ago in The Fast and the Furious, the decorated police detective went rogue to help career criminal Dominic "Dom" Toretto (Vin Diesel) evade justice for masterminding a string of multimillion-dollar truck hijackings. Four sequels later, we find the pair up to their old tricks, although the ex-cop is now with the FBI while the ex-con has just been sentenced to life without parole for murdering a mobster during a heroin sting gone bad. 

It seems we are in a new N-word era, a no-man's land where the rules are unclear. When lines are blurred, people get hurt. Yet if there's one group unscathed by the word, it's young African-Americans, blissfully immune from this particular history.
In Waterbury, these young people seized the power of the word.  

Kam's Kapsules for Movies opening May 6. Read Kam Williams reviews of Jumping the Broom, Something Borrowed, Thor and more..

 Oregon Shakespeare Festival will host a hip-hop poetry open-mic, May 2. The open-mic is the third of four free events, all scheduled for 7-9 pm Mondays at The Black Swan Theater, 15 S. Pioneer Street, Ashland. Upcoming dates are: May 2 and Oct. 10.

"Black in Latin America" the PBS documetary with Henry Louis Gates is a must-see for anyone interested in appreciating the history and continuing fallout of slavery South of the Border

Two tix to Mos Def go to Ted McCauley, winner of The Skanner News Video Contest. Watch here and meet Ted McCauley. Jefferson High and Atlanta Clark University graduate and neighborhood filmmaker. 

Have you ever noticed how few African-American Republicans there are? At any Grand Old Party gathering you see on TV, there are generally so few blacks in attendance that they tend to stand out like a sore thumb.
That sorry state of affairs inspired Tavis Smiley to remark that "You can fit all the black Republicans with any clout into a phone booth." And they're probably also about as hard to find as a phone booth is nowadays.

The Conspirator, Rio, Scream 4, A Screaming Man, Armadillo, Square Grouper: The Godfathers of Ganja, Atlas Shrugged: Part 1, The Double Hour, The First Beautiful Thing, Fly Away,

It stands to reason that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be the next-to-last offering in what is already the most lucrative film franchise in history, unless author J.K. Rowling succumbs to fan pressure to extend her best-selling series of children's novels. This installment covers the first half of the seventh and presumably last book, with the final adaptation slated to be released in July.

Arthur, Hanna, Soul Surfer, Your Highness, American: The Bill Hicks Story, Blank City, Born to Be Wild 3-D, Ceremony, Henry's Crime, Meek's Cutoff, Meet Monica Velour