Hudlin Entertainment Forum

Saturday Morning Cartoonist, 17th August 2019





Richard Williams, the triple Oscar-winning and triple BAFTA-winning animator famed for his work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, has died.

He was 86.

His family announced that he died at his home in the British city of Bristol on August 16 2019.

Born in Toronto but having moved to the U.K. in the 1950s, Williams – who claimed he was drawn to illustrations and animation having watched Disney's Snow White aged five – received critical acclaim with his first film The Little Island, which won a BAFTA in 1958.

His first Oscar would come in 1971 for his animated adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

Williams also worked on two Pink Panther films and Casino Royal, but it was his work as animation director on Robert Zemeckis' 1988 comedy Who Framed Roger Rabbit? which would cement his name into animation folklore.

The live-action/animated comedy starring Bob Hoskins was a critical and commercial hit, earning $330 million and becoming the first live-action/animation hybrid film to win multiple Academy Awards since Mary Poppins in 1964.

Two of the film's three Oscars went to Williams, who also won a visual effects BAFTA.

Elsewhere, Williams directed, produced and wrote his unfinished feature film The Thief and the Cobbler, a painstakingly hand-animated epic inspired by Arabian Nights, which he started in 1964 and is considered his magnum opus.




His best-selling book,  'The Animator's Survival Kit' is considered a bible in the industry, and has ben sold around the world and translated into nine languages.

Williams was still animating and writing until the day he died.







Would You Like To Know More?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/richard-williams-oscar-winning-who-framed-roger-rabbit-animator-dies-at-86/ar-AAFWAw6?ocid=spartanntp

Martellus Bennett was a guest last night on CNN's CNN Tonight hosted by Don Lemon along with Jemele Hill, promoting his new children's book, Dear Black Boy.

Tuesday, 16th April 2019


Netflix is adding to its growing slate of African content with its first original animated series, “Mama K’s Team 4,” produced by South Africa’s award-winning Triggerfish Animation Studios and British kids’ and family entertainment production company CAKE.

The series follows four teenage girls living in a futuristic version of Lusaka, Zambia, who are recruited by a retired secret agent to save the world.

It was created by Zambian writer Malenga Mulendema, who in 2015 was one of eight winners of the Triggerfish Story Lab, a pan-African talent search backed by the Cape Town-based animation studio and The Walt Disney Co. The series is designed by the Cameroonian artist Malcolm Wope.

In the past decade, Triggerfish has become a powerhouse in South Africa’s burgeoning animation industry.

Its first two animated features, “Adventures in Zambezia” (2012) and “Khumba” (2013), are two of the five top-grossing South African movies of all time.

Mulendema said she was inspired by the experience of watching cartoons as a child in her native Zambia, where none of the heroes looked like her or lived in a world that resembled her own.

“In creating a superhero show set in Lusaka, I hope to introduce the world to four strong African girls who save the day in their own fun and crazy way,” she said.

“Most importantly, I want to illustrate that anyone from anywhere can be a superhero.”

“Mama K’s Team 4” is the latest African original for Netflix, which recently announced its first two dramatic series on the continent.

The streamer is now collaborating with Triggerfish and CAKE on a pan-African search for local female writing talent to join the creative team on the series.

“In addition to giving African writers a global platform on which to be heard, we are excited to present this powerful and entertaining new animated series that brings Malenga’s incredible and unique vision to life on Netflix,” said Melissa Cobb, vice president of original animation at the streamer.

“‘Mama K’s Team 4’ has the potential to give a whole new generation of African children the opportunity to see themselves on screen in the powerful, aspirational characters they look up to.”

Triggerfish’s collaborations with the U.K.’s Magic Light Pictures have produced four multi-award-winning BBC Christmas adaptations, including Roald Dahl’s “Revolting Rhymes” (2016), which was nominated for an Oscar and won more than 15 international awards, including an International Emmy.

The studio is currently in production on its third animated feature, “Seal Team.”

Vanessa Ann Sinden, Triggerfish’s development producer, said:

“After animating four multi-award-winning BBC Christmas specials set in England, including the Oscar-nominated ‘Revolting Rhymes,’ Triggerfish is delighted to bring an African capital city to life on Netflix.”


















Would You Like To Know More?
https://variety.com/2019/tv/global/netflix-first-animated-series-africa-mama-k-team-4-triggerfish-1203189786/

Thursday, 10th December 2019


Clydie King was the background voice of many 1970s pop songs you've probably heard but didn't know who she was.

King naturally did backup for The Supremes' "Nathan Jones" to the Rolling Stones' "Tumbling Dice" and injected soul into classic rock ballards such as Lynrd Skynrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" (before the ditty became the anthem to southern racists) as examples of her musical presence.

Along with Merry Clayton, Venetta Fields and Shirley Matthews, King was one of the most in-demand backup and session singers of her time.

“I don’t remember all the people who I sung for,” she said in a 1971 interview in which she estimated she’s sung on 300 records by then.

In addition to several tracks on Exile on Main St., the list included hits like Linda Ronstadt’s “You’re No Good,” Arlo Guthrie’s “City of New Orleans,” Graham Nash’s “Chicago,” and Elton John’s “The Bitch Is Back.”

King also sang on albums by Steely Dan, Humble Pie, Joe Walsh, Phil Ochs, Carly Simon, Neil Diamond and Ringo Starr as well as the soundtrack to Barbra Streisand’s 'A Star Is Born' remake.

(King appeared in the film as well as one of the Oreos alongside Fields.)

Clydie King passed away Monday at age 75.





Would You Like To Know More?
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/clydie-king-ray-charles-bob-dylan-singer-dead-777417/

Tuesday, 27th November 2018

According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment - Volume II, someday, horrible wars will be broken out on American soil because of 2 and a half factors:

1) Climate migration
2) Climate refugees







Would You Like To Know More?
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/
https://www.globalchange.gov/nca4

Wednesday, 29 August 2018

New law to make California first state to end bail
by Sophia Bollag

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California will become the first state to eliminate bail for suspects awaiting trial and replace it with a still murky risk-assessment system under a bill signed Tuesday by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Brown’s signature gives the state’s judicial council broad authority to reshape pretrial detention policies ahead of the new law’s October 2019 start date.

Based on the council’s framework, each county’s superior court will set its own procedures for deciding who to release before trial, potentially creating a patchwork system based on where a suspect lives.

Most suspects accused of nonviolent felonies will be released within 12 hours of booking, while those charged with serious, violent felonies will stay in jail before trial.

The new law gives judges wide latitude to decide what to do with other suspects based on their likelihood of returning to court and the danger they pose to the public.

It’s still unclear which suspects would fall into each category or how long they might spend in jail.

California’s new law is the latest development in the nationwide debate over bail, which many people say unfairly punishes people for being poor.

Other states including New Jersey, Alaska and New Mexico have overhauled their bail systems, although no other state has completely eliminated bail.

Advocates of the California law say incarceration should depend on a suspect’s risk to public safety, not the ability to pay.

“Our path to a more just criminal justice system is not complete, but today it made a transformational shift away from valuing private wealth and toward protecting public safety,” the law’s author, state Sen. Bob Hertzberg, a Democrat from Van Nuys, said in a statement.

Opponents, including some social justice groups, argue the new law gives judges too much power to decide who should be released.

Gina Clayton Johnson, executive director of Essie Justice Group, which advocates for women with family members in prison, says she worries the policy will lead to mass incarceration.

She said there’s not enough protection in the law to ensure it doesn’t perpetuate racial bias in the criminal justice system.

“This is a bill that has confused a lot of people because it does do something very positive, which is to end the bail industry,” she said. “Yet what we had to trade for that win actually sets us further back.”

Others, meanwhile, argue it will allow dangerous people to go free and perhaps not return for trial.

Such arguments are playing out in New Mexico after a judge decided to allow the release of several members of an extended family accused of child abuse at a desert compound.

The judge said her decision was tied to recent reforms that set a high bar for holding suspects without bail.

Other states have been watching California as they weigh overhauling their bail systems, said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, who works on criminal justice issues for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU has been in talks with more than 30 other states about bail overhaul and is now advising them to avoid using California as a model because its system won’t ensure due process and won’t prevent racial bias, she said.

In California, overarching rules will be set by the judicial council, the policy-making body for California’s courts headed by the state’s chief justice.

The new law lets counties set up their own pretrial assessment agencies or run their risk assessment programs through existing probation departments.

It gives officials 24 hours to determine whether a suspect should be released before trial. That time can be extended by 12 hours if necessary.

Some criminal justice reform advocates worry defendants will spend weeks in jail while their lawyers try to prove they should be set free.






Would You Like To know More?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/bill-to-make-california-first-state-to-end-bail-before-trial/2018/08/28/c461f8c0-aaf9-11e8-9a7d-cd30504ff902_story.html?utm_term=.c1da08164d57

Friday the 13th  July 2018




(CNN) - The investigation of the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, barbarous even in an era in which blacks in the South were subjected to untold viciousness, has been reopened based on "new information," according to a US Justice Department report to Congress.
 
The 1955 slaying was listed in a March report among "activities" the department was pursuing under the 2007 unsolved civil rights crime act that bears Emmett's name.

The act paves the way for the department to "expeditiously investigate" unsolved pre-1980 civil rights murders.

Emmett's crime? He had been accused -- we now know, falsely -- of flirting with and making advances at then-21-year-old carolyn bryant, who, along with her husband, Roy, owned a grocery store in Money, Mississippi.

Emmett had traveled there from Chicago to visit his great-uncle, who lived in the area.






Would You Like To Know More?
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/12/us/emmett-till-murder-case-reopened-doj/index.html