Bobby Seale Movies

In 1972, John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, made a strategic and historic week-long guest appearance on the hit talk/variety television program The Mike Douglas Show, hoping to get their counterculture message across to middle America. Day four, February 17, 1972, features Black Panther Chairman Bobby Seale talking in the last segment about the Panthers' nonviolent agenda of "intercommunalism," or redistribution of wealth and resources -- an agenda scarcely, if ever, covered by mainstream media. Earlier in the program, Douglas gets Lennon to talk about his childhood, teens, and the death of his mother, Julia, by a drunk driver when Lennon was 16. Other guests include pop and gospel singer and Broadway actress Vivian Reed; comedy troupe the Ace Trucking Company; National Black Youth Conference organizer Marsha Martin, and Donald Williams of the Mid-Peninsula Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation. Vivian Reed sings "Everybody's Talkin'" and "His Arm Is on the Sparrow." Also featured is performance art by Yoko Ono and the music video for the song "Mrs. Lennon" from the Imagine album. ~ Steve Blackburn, All Movie Guide

Writer-director Spike Lee's epic portrayal of the life and times of the slain civil rights leader Malcolm X begins with the cross-cut imagery of the police beating of black motorist Rodney King juxtaposed with an American flag burning into the shape of the letter X. When the film's narrative begins moments later, it jumps back to World War II-era Boston, where Malcolm Little (Denzel Washington) is making his living as a hustler. The son of a Baptist preacher who was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, Little was raised by foster parents after his mother was deemed clinically insane; as an adult, he turned to a life of crime, which leads to his imprisonment on burglary charges. In jail, Little receives epiphany in the form of an introduction to Islam; he is especially taken with the lessons of Elijah Mohammed, who comes to him in a vision. Adopting the name 'Malcolm X' as a rejection of the 'Little' surname (given his family by white slave owners), he meets the real Elijah Mohammed (Al Freeman, Jr.) upon exiting prison, and begins work as a spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Marriage to a Muslim nurse named Betty Shabazz (Angela Bassett) follows, after which X spearheads a well-attended march on a Harlem hospital housing a Muslim recovering from an episode of police brutality. The march's success helps elevate X to the position of Islam's national spokesperson. There is dissension in the ranks, however, and soon X is targeted for assassination by other Nation leaders; even Elijah Mohammed fears Malcolm's growing influence. After getting wind of the murder plot, X leaves the Nation of Islam, embarking on a pilgrimage to Mecca that proves revelatory; renouncing his separatist beliefs, his oratories begin embracing all races and cultures. During a 1965 speech, Malcolm X is shot and killed, reportedly by Nation of Islam members. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Produced in part by the National Black Programming Consortium, Shola Lynch's Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed is a documentary about the 1972 presidential campaign of American legislator Shirley Chisholm. After becoming the first black woman elected to Congress in 1968, Chisholm ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972. During her time representing New York state in the U.S. House of Representatives, she fought for women's rights, educational reform, and an end to the Vietnam War. Though she built strong grassroots support, she went unnoticed by the mainstream press. The nomination went to Senator George McGovern from South Dakota, who lost the election to incumbent President Richard Nixon. Unbought and Unbossed is also the name of a book Chisholm published in 1970 by Houghton Mifflin. Chisholm '72 was part of the documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival before receiving its broadcast premiere on the PBS series P.O.V. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

As originally screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, at the Cannes Film Festival, and on Turner Classic Movies, the mammoth, epic-length documentary Brando chronicles in encyclopedic detail (and with a consistently reverent overtone) the life and career of the man widely regarded as the most formidable American actor of the 20th century - famous for not only reshaping, but reinventing the craft of film acting and teaching audiences how to view a motion picture performance. Divided into chronological, thematically-unified segments, the film first treats Marlon Brando's dysfunctional upbringing - his alcoholic mother, his abusive father, his stint at a military academy - before charting his acting tutelage at the behest of Stella Adler and his early cinematic and theatrical roles, including work for Elia Kazan, who famously made many aggressive (and unsuccessful) attempts to discipline the headstrong actor onscreen. Throughout this segment, many Hollywood A-list actors appear - among them, Al Pacino, Johnny Depp and Robert Duvall - expostulating at length on Brando's influence over their approaches to performance, and attempting with great effort to define the elusive style known as "method acting" that Brando helped to create. The second half of the documentary moves into Brando's career during the '70s, '80s and '90s, covering the production of The Godfather, the actor's noteworthy political activism, and his tumultuous personal life. Francis Ford Coppola, who of course teamed with Brando for the first Godfather installment and for Apocalypse Now, is noticeably absent from the proceedings. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide