Is the #BigChopChallenge a thing yet?  If it's not, I imagine it will be after Netflix's Nappily Ever After, romantic comedy (based on the book by Trisha R. Thomas) about a black woman's complicated relationship with her hair debuts.  

After watching the trailer (below) for the new rags-to-riches rom-com, Crazy Rich Asians, I was flooded with an overwhelming and intoxicating sense of FINALLY...

T'Challa, I'm really happy you're finally getting your own movie and Entertainment Weekly cover, and I'mma let you finish, but the women of Marvel's Black Panther are the fiercest thunder-stealers of all time!  

They aren't just worthy of being this week's Women Crush Wednesday, but for the entire month for July!

Featured in Entertainment Weekly's Comic-Con Preview currently on stands, the gorgeous members of the Dora Milaje--the King of Wakanda's all-female Secret Service--and the royal family can do pretty much everything.  Flawlessly.  

Here are the women who are wholly redefining Black Ops and Black Excellence.  

I may have sprained my fangirl muscles this week, and Comic-Con hasn't even begun yet.  

One of the major reasons for my flailing is Entertainment Weekly's exclusive first look and Saturday's release of the phenomenal teaser trailer for A Wrinkle In Time at the D23 Expo, directed by the Oscar and now Emmy-nominated Ava DuVernay (Note: The 13th director and Queen Sugar director is always courting greatness, and by helming this film, she became the first black woman to direct a movie with a budget over $100 million).

A Wrinkle In Time, Disney's theatrical adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's award-winning science-fiction novel, follows a young girl though space and time on a journey to rescue her father from the enigmatic darkness.  ​

Empire's Cookie may be one of the only Lyons who don't grace the musical stage, but doppleganger Taraji P. Henson cannot stop singing the praises of her latest film, Proud Mary.  Henson has recently started sharing stills and videos from the last day on set, and she is already selling the film that isn't slated for release until 2018. 

If you've ever had the pleasure (or displeasure) of meeting me, you might eventually notice that I talk a lot.  I type nearly 100 words per minute, and my brain movies even faster.  I can talk endlessly about my favorite subjects-turned-obsessions. Growing up, my father affectionately nicknamed me "blabbermouth" (which was better than "Buckethead" or "Lizard Lips") when I began prattling his during his beloved Bears games.  It's just a colorful facet of my personality. 
 
And yet, I, the girl who's had lengthy discussions about Mahershala Ali's bone structure, struggled to identify or pinpoint my reaction to Hidden Figures, Fox's powerful biopic about Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), the NASA computer who helped invent the mathematics enabling space landings.   

​In 2012, a friend and I were at brunch when the secret service descended.  President Barack Obama, heavy on the campaign trail, wanted to eat a local restaurant, and doing so required a dozen agents fanning through a European eatery to assess the over the overall security of the establishment.  It was just another moment in the political grandeur that is being a sitting president.  
 
There is no trace of such star-spangled fanfare in Southside With You—a sweet, enlightening sense memory of a film about Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson's first date in 1989.

Admittedly, the state of movies thus far in 2016 has left a lot to be desired unless you prefer your outings to the cinema to contain capes, slaptstick comedy or CGI animals. 

​Thankfully, we’re entering into the back end of the year when movies become more sophisticated in order to court the attention of a very selective award named Oscar.

The trailer for the dramatic biopic, Loving was released this week, and it is nothing sort of heart-stirring. A romantic epic with a painfully timely civil rights spin, Loving tells the true story of a Virginia interracial couple Richard and Mildred Loving who fought for the right to marry in the 1960s.  A nearly unrecognizable Joel Edgerton (Black Mass) and Ruth Negga (Preacher) star in a film that not only won the posh hearts of Cannes Film Festival, and had this blogger reaching for the tissues. 

Loving boasts that “some love stories can change the world.”  And if the movie, set to hit theaters this November, lives up to its preview, it just may do the same.  It’s simple and yet drips with a tempered grandeur as Edgerton and Negga, the southern setting, and the sweeping score marry into something that feels extraordinary, lovely and necessary.
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Watch the trailer below, and share your thoughts in the comments section!

Pacific Rim’s long-awaited sequel just got universally cool.  Deadline.com reports that Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ John Boyega will star in Pacific Rim 2, the follow-up to the 2013 original cult sci-fi action movie pits giant Godzilla-esque beasts intent on destroying the world against massive human-powered robots called Jaegers. 

Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi are expected to reprise their roles.

​Two distinctly important things happened during my first viewing of Marvel’s record-breaking blockbuster, Captain America: Civil War.  First, Civil War—part Jason Bourne thriller, part superhero movie finery—didn’t just live up to the hype, it annihilated it.  Second, I may have gone in a shield-carrying member of Team Cap, but I left purring for Black Panther.