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The Academy Museum’s Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971 is not to be missed. Not only does the exhibition celebrate Black representation in film, it serves as an important reminder and lesson about the contributions of Black filmmakers and stars to the world of cinema.

Opening Aug. 21, seven galleries make up the exhibit exploring Oscar Micheaux’s low-budget dramas in the silent-film era to the works of Melvin Van Peebles.

The exhibition also introduces audiences to stars largely unknown to mainstream moviegoers — Ralph Cooper, Clarence Brooks and Francine Everett — alongside iconic screen legends Paul Robeson, Josephine Baker, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier and Lena Horne.

Poiter’s Oscar for “Lillies of the Field” is just one of the many artifacts on display in this historic exhibition. Alongside the award are tap shoes worn by the Nicholas Brothers and one of Louis Armstrong’s trumpets.

Cowboy Boots worn by Herb Jeffries in 1937’s...

“While the events of this story are fictional…These. People. Existed.” Thus begins Jeymes Samuel’s western “The Harder They Fall,” currently streaming on Netflix. The period picture is populated with 19th century Black icons including Nat Love (Jonathan Majors), a former enslaved cowboy, Mary Fields (Zazie Beetz), the first Black star-route mail carrier in the U.S., and Rufus Black (Idris Elba), the head of the ruthless multi-racial gang of bank robbers.

“The Harder They Fall” is the first major Western led by a Black cast since Mario Van Peebles 1993 “Posse.” The director, though, told the L.A. Times that “The Harder They Fall” shouldn’t be described as simply a “Black” Western. “It’s just a story about these people in their own world, just like ‘Rio Bravo” is a story about John Wayne and Dean Martin in their own world,” Samuel said. “These aren’t white Westerns or white movies,...

Tempest Storm, the often-flame-haired striptease artist, burlesque performer, star of early Russ Meyer films and later a rock generation icon, died Tuesday in her Las Vegas apartment. She was 93.

Her death was reported to the Las Vegas Review-Journal by Storm’s longtime friend and business partner Harvey Robbins. Storm had been suffering from dementia and recently underwent hip surgery.

Robbins was at Storm’s home when she died, as were a nurse and Las Vegas burlesque performers Kalani Kokonuts and Miss Redd.

According to the Burlesque Hall of Fame, Storm was born Annie Blanche Banks in Eastman, Ga, and at the age of 20, already twice-married, moved to Hollywood. At first working as a cocktail waitress, she soon found work as a striptease performer with the Follies Theater. She adopted the stage name Tempest Storm in 1950 and, shortly after her arrival in L.A. became friends with neighbor Marilyn Monroe.

The list of famous acquaintances,...

It's arrived -- thanks in part to a successful Kickstarter campaign, this nearly comprehensive compendium of American 'Race Films' is here in a deluxe Blu-ray presentation. Pioneers of African-American Cinema Blu-ray Kino Classics 1915-1946 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 952 min. / Street Date July 26, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 99.95 Directed by Richard Norman, Richard Maurice, Spencer Williams and Oscar Micheaux

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Black Cinema History? We didn't hear a peep about any such thing back in film school. Sometime in the 1980s PBS would broadcast a barely watchable (see sample just below) copy of a creaky silent 'race movie' about a 'backsliding' black man in trouble with the law, the Lord and his wife in that order. The cultural segregation has been almost complete. It wasn't until even later that I read articles about a long-extinct nationwide circuit of movie theaters catering to black audiences, wherever the populations were big enough to support the trade.

All the winners from Sunday’s 87th Academy Awards.

Show host Harris signs off with a chirpy, “Buenos noches!”

Sean Penn walks on. It’s time for the big one. Best film. Will it be Birdman or Boyhood? It’s Birdman! The movie ends the night tied with The Grand Budapest Hotel on four Oscars. Inarritu, referring to his pal Alfonso Cuaron who enjoyed success with Gravity at last year’s show, says, “Two Mexicans in a row. That’s suspicious, I guess.” Slightly more seriously, Agi also calls on his fellow Mexicans to help build a strong future for his beloved country. Wow, a good night for Birdman and a surprisingly barren one for Boyhood. Pirates indeed, Ethan Hawke, but glorious pirates.

And now Matthew McConaughey saunters on stage to announce best actress. Julianne Moore, five times a nominee at the Oscars is the favourite. Will she get it this time for Still Alice? Yes she’s got...

The news was announced yesterday that singer and actor Herb Jeffries passed away on Sunday at the ripe old age of 100. With a career that spanned over 60 years, starting in the early 1930’s, Jeffries was still performing until the mid-1990’s and made his mark with his signature smooth voice, appearing in nightclubs, concert halls, television, and dozens of recordings, and at one time, was a featured singer with Duke Ellington’s orchestra.But among Jeffries’ biggest claims to fame were the series of western “race” films he starred in, that were made for black filmgoers during the late 1930’s: Harlem Rides the Range, The Bronze Buckaroo, Two Gun Man from Harlem, and Harlem on...

Jazz singer and actor Herb Jeffries, the first black singing cowboy to grace Hollywood screens, died of heart failure today in West Hills, CA, reports the La Times. He was 100. Jeffries was born Umberto Alexander Valentino in 1913 to an Irish mother and a father of Sicilian, Ethiopean, French, Italian and Moorish descent. A singer with the Duke Ellington band and other pop orchestras in the 1940s, the blue-eyed Jeffries embraced his mixed heritage and played up his African-American roots. He made his screen debut in 1937′s Harlem on the Prairie, the first of many “sepia movies” he would star in aimed at black audiences. In 1939′s The Bronze Buckaroo he warbled tunes like “I’m a Happy Cowboy” and established himself as Hollywood’s black Gene Autry. He also starred in low-budget Westerns Harlem Rides The Range and Two-Gun Man From Harlem, and starred opposite Angie Dickinson in 1957′s musical romance Calypso Joe.

Herb Jeffries, the first black singing cowboy of the movies, who starred in such 1930s films as Harlem on the Prairie and The Bronze Buckaroo, has died, the Los Angeles Times reported. He was 100. Jeffries, who later became a recording star as a member of Duke Ellington's orchestra, died of heart failure Sunday at West Hills (Calif.) Hospital & Medical Center, Raymond Strait, who had been working with the actor on his autobiography, told the newspaper.  Jeffries also had the title role in the 1957 film Calypso Joe, playing a singer who helps Angie Dickinson find the right

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Calling someone a legend before they celebrate their 21st birthday might sound hyperbolic. But, in the case of burlesque dancer Tempest Storm, it just might apply -- with a notable caveat.

Storm, a fiery redhead known during the 1950s and '60s as "the Tempest in a D-cup," was born on Feb. 29, 1928, a leap year.

That means even though the calendar says she is turning 84, she is only celebrating her 21st birthday.

Some people might be a little anxious to wait 84 years for their first "legal" drink, but Tempest Storm says she never drinks so she is looking forward to other aspects of her unique once-every-four-years birthday.

"It keeps you young," she told HuffPost Weird News. "Certainly, my fans always know the date."

Yes, they do, according to Laura Herbert, the official historian of the Burlesque Hall of Fame, a Las Vegas institution dedicated to remembering or honoring dancers like Gypsy Rose Lee,...