Kam Williams Table

Book & Film Reviews, Interviews, Commentary

Kam Williams is a syndicated film and book critic who writes for 100+ publications around the country. He is a member of both the African-American Film Critics Association and The New York Film Critics Online. In addition to a BA in Black Studies from Cornell, he has an MA in English from Brown, an MBA from The Wharton School, and a JD from Boston University. Mr. Williams lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife and son.

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Commentary

Deal with the Devil

Election Day Returns

Hillary Clinton Revisited and Reviled

New Yorker Cover Depicts the Obamas as Terrorists

Race, Color, Language & Immigration Hysteria

Strange Fruit in Jena

There Must Still Be Something Out of Kilter Response to Don Imus

Vote Fraud Costs Obama

What’s Going On?: Black-on-Black Homicide Hits Home

Who Would Jesus Bomb

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Interviews

Aron Ranen--Black Hair Industry

Brian Sparks Reflecting on Being White

Brooklyn Sudano

Colin Roach

Daryle Jenkins: The Klanbuster

Dennis LeRoy Moore

Djimon Hounsou in New Movie

Forest Whitaker: The Last King of Scotland

Gore Vidal Goes Off

Jamie Foxx

Kola Boof

Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs

Master P, Hip-Hop Entrepreneur

Maxine Waters

Naturi Naughtonas

Nicole Ari Parker

Rashida Jones

Reverend Al Sharpton

Roland Martin

Rutina Wesley

Samuel Jackson--Black Snake Moan (Sharif and Williams)

Sean Diddy Combs

Shawn and Damien Wayans

Shelby Steele

Skip Gates

Spike Lee

Stephen Carter

Tasha Smith

Tavis Smiley

Thandie Newton

Vanessa Williams

Will.i. Am. of Black Eyed Peas

Reviews (Kam Williams)

The 10 Best Black Books of 2007

The 10 Best Black Books of 2008

African American Lives 2

American Violet

As an Act of Protest

The Audacity of Hope

Black Cinema (2005)

Blacktrospective 2006

Boys of Baraka

Cooked From the Streets to the Stove, from Cocaine to Foie Gras

Crisis of the Black Intellectual

Diary of a Lost Girl (book)

Do Me Twice: My Life after Islam (book review)

Dreamgirls Top Film of 2006

Four Sophisticated Film Reviews --

Flags of Our Fathers / SoulMate / Death of a President / Color of the Cross

Gook: John McCain's Racism

The Great Debaters Top Film of 2007

How to Reclaim the American Dream -- Review of The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

I'm African and Proud

Medical Apartheid

NAACP Image Awards

A Queen Sweep

Ralph Ellison: A Biography

Revisiting a Banner Year for Black Writers (book)

Rough Crossings (book)

The Stork Market:America’s Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry

We Gotta Have It (book)

Women of a New Tribe

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In Class with Hancock: A Black Family Man's View‏
A Film Review by Biko Agozino

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Books on Blacks in American Film

Why We Make Movies: Black Filmmakers Talk About the Magic of Cinema (2003)

Black Film as a Signifying Practice: Narration and the African American Aesthetic Tradition (1999)

Representing; Hip Hop and the Production of Black Cinema (1999)

Manthia Diawara. Black American Cinema (1993)

bell hooks, Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies (1996)

Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretative History of Blacks in American Films

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Films on DVD

Barber Shop / Woman, Thou Art Loosed / Amistad / Crash / Hustle and Flow / Tupac / Douglass

Sugar Cane Alley / Malcolm X / Get on the Bus / Bowling for Columbine Sankofa / Daughters of the Dust

Lumumba / Sometime in April / The Agronomist / Black Orpheus / The Sidney Poitier DVD Collection

Cotton Comes to Harlem / The Spook Who Sat by the Door / Putney Swope / Education of Sonny Carson

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Blaxploitation films on DVD

Baadasssss Cinema (documentary) / Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song

Superfly / Cleopatra Jones / Foxy Brown / Shaft / Shaft's Big Score! / Shaft in Africa /

Slaughter / Slaughter's Big Rip-Off / Hell Up in Harlem / Black Caesar / Across 110 th Street

Legend of Nigger Charley / The Ladies Man / Undercover Brother / Austin Powers in Goldmember

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Barry Michael Cooper -- Screenwriter for New Jack City, Above the Rim, & Sugar Hill

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We Gotta Have It

Twenty Years of Seeing Black at the Movies, 1986-2006

By Esther Iverem—Reviewed by Kam Williams

Do Me Twice: My Life after Islam A Memoir by Sonsyrea Tate / Women of a New Tribe By Jerry Taliaferro

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African Underground: Democracy in Dakar is a groundbreaking documentary film about hip-hop youth and politics in Dakar Senegal. The film follows rappers, DJs, journalists, professors and people on the street at the time before during and after the controversial 2007 presidential election in Senegal and examines hip-hop's role on the political process. Originally shot as a seven part documentary mini-series released via the internet - the documentary bridges the gap between hip-hop activism, video journalism and documentary film and explores the role of youth and musical activism on the political process. http://nomadicwax.com/film/democracy-in-dakar/

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Selected Film Reviews

African Films on DVD

The African Studies Film Festival Program at Morgan

Akeelah and the Bee (Review)( Marvin X)

Antwone Fisher (Review) (Kwaku Person-Lynn, Ph.D.)

As An Act of Protest :

Anthology Film Archives

Best Black Movie (Kam Williams)

Dennis Leroy Moore Bio

Dennis Leroy Moore Interview

Exposing the Black Man's Psyche