November 22, 2017 The Skanner Page 7
Arts & Entertainment
Destined cont’d from pg 7
Della Reese, of TV’s
‘Touched by an
Angel,’ Dead at 86
Late-life TV fame followed long
career as a singer and actress
LOS ANGELES (AP) —
Della Reese, the actress
and
gospel-influenced
singer who in middle age
found her greatest fame
as Tess, the wise angel in
the long-running televi-
sion drama “Touched by
an Angel,” has died at age
86.
Reese’s co-star on the
series, Roma Downey,
said in a statement that
the actress died peaceful-
ly Sunday evening in her
home in the Los Angeles
area. No further details
were included.
Before “Touched by an
Angel” debuted in 1994,
Reese was mainly known
as a singer, although she
had costarred on “Chico
and the Man,” ‘’Charlie
and Company” and “The
Royal Family” and host-
ed her own talk show,
“Della.”
“Touched by an Angel”
was a gamble for CBS
from the start. The story
of an apprentice angel
(Roma Downey) and her
supervisor (Reese) being
sent to Earth to solve peo-
ple’s problems appeared
to have little chance in a
TV world dominated by
sitcoms and police dra-
mas.
The
first
season
brought mediocre rat-
ings, but slowly the
show’s audience grew
until it became one of
television’s highest rat-
ed dramas. It lasted until
2003.
“Through her life and
work she touched and
inspired the lives of mil-
lions of people. She was
a mother to me and I had
the privilege of work-
ing with her side by side
for so many years on
‘Touched By An Angel,’”
Roma Downey wrote in a
statement. “I know heav-
en has a brand new angel
this day.”
She had been ordained
by the Chicago-based
Universal
Foundation
for Better Living, and
when co-star Downey
got married, Reese per-
formed the ceremony.
Reese’s singing career
also began in church,
‘Destined’
Della Reese
when she joined the ju-
nior gospel choir at the
Olivet Baptist Church
in her hometown of De-
troit. Soon she was sing-
ing at other churches, at
civic events and on the
radio.
When Mahalia Jack-
son, known as The Queen
of Gospel Music, came
to Detroit, she needed a
singer to replace a mem-
ber of her troupe. She
turned to Reese, who was
only 13.
Jackson was so im-
pressed by the teenager’s
voice that she enlisted
her for a summer tour,
and Reese went on to
tour with her for five
summers. In later years
she would remark that
she would never forget
what she learned from
the legendary gospel
singer, including “how to
communicate with peo-
ple through song.”
Reese is survived by
her husband, Franklin
Lett, and three children.
The late AP Entertain-
ment Writer Bob Thomas
contributed to this report.
FILM REVIEW: Returning WWII Vets Forge Unlikely
Friendship across Color Line in ‘Mudbound’
By Kam Williams
For The Skanner News
D
ateline:
Missis-
sippi, 1946, which
means many of the
Magnolia
State’s
soldier native sons are
making the adjustment
back to civilian life after
serving overseas during
World War II.. But the
fighting isn’t over for
Sergeant Ronsel Jackson
(Jason Mitchell), a Black
man reluctantly return-
ing to the repressive Jim
Crow system of segrega-
tion.
After all, since he had
been willing to die for his
country, Ronsel figures
it’s reasonable to expect
equality and all the rights
of citizenship, racist tra-
ditions
notwithstand-
ing. So, when he arrives
home, he boldly enters
the local general store
through an entrance re-
served for Whites.
But despite still wear-
ing his Army dress uni-
form, the proud veteran
is greeted with a hate-
ful warning snarled by
a seething customer.
“You’re in Mississippi
now, [N-word]! Use the
back door, if you don’t
want any trouble.” Ron-
‘Mudbound’
sel grudgingly obliges,
ostensibly less fearful of
direct harm from the el-
derly white man than of
the veiled threat leveled
should he have the te-
merity to cross the color
line again.
Ronsel can’t afford to
take any chances, be-
cause the intimidating
bigot is Pappy McAllan
(Jonathan Banks), the
patriarch of the family
which owns the farm
where his parents (Mary
J. Blige and Rob Mor-
gan) presently reside as
sharecroppers. Pappy’s
elder son, Henry (Jason
Clarke),
subsequently
pays the Jacksons a visit,
demanding an apology
for the transgression.
The plot thickens when
Pappy’s younger son, Ja-
mie (Garrett Hedlund),
a decorated Air Force
pilot, comes back to the
plantation with some
new notions about race
relations. He’s sudden-
ly pro-integration after
having fought alongside
some brave Tuskegee
Airmen.
Thus unfolds Mud-
bound, a searing South-
ern saga based on Hil-
lary Jordan’s best-selling,
first novel of the same
name. The movie marks
the sophomore offering
from director Dee Rees
who made her own im-
pressive debut with Pari-
ah in 2011. Here, she coax-
es a career performance
out of Mary J. Blige, who
might very well be re-
membered come awards
season.
How did Nina Simone
put it? ‘Mississippi God-
dam!’
Excellent HHHH
Rated R for nudity, eth-
nic slurs, brief profanity
and disturbing violence
Running time: 134 min.
Production Studios: Ele-
vate Films / MMC Joule
Films / Armory Films /
Zeal Media
Distributor: Netflix
To see a trailer for Mud-
bound, visit: TheSkan-
ner.com.
er jettisoning one-half Production Studio:
and fleshing out the Whitewater Films /
other into a full-length Tilted Windmill Pro-
feature. Instead, we’re ductions / Confluential
treated to a one-trick Films
pony that repeatedly il- Distributor: XLrator
lustrates the diverging Media
fates of a guy who kept
To see a trailer
his nose clean and that
for Destined, visit:
of an identical strang-
TheSkanner.com.
er who ventured to the
dark side.
An amusing idea that
runs out of steam not
long after the premise
is established.
Fair H1/2
Unrated
View movie trailers at
Running time: 91 min.
TheSkanner.com