Redemption of a Broken Mind (2015)

A trouble-making teenager spends the summer working at a Southern California beach learning about responsibility.

Lee Daniels’s Billie Holiday biopic The United States vs. Billie Holiday was released on February 26th, 2021, and my immediate reaction to it was one of discomfort.

The new biopic 'Elvis' highlights the beginning and end of the career of this rock and roll legend. The audience is taken on this journey knowing the tragic ending but not so much about what led him there. A large topic of discussion is the influences on Elvis that made him who he was as a singer, musician, and performer, which were blues, gospel, and country. Many of the songs that rose him to fame were songs by Black artists he heard growing up in primarily Black settings.

In Stowaway, director Joe Penna narrates the story of a starship crew (Anna Kendrick as Zoe Levenson; Toni Collette as Marina Barnett; and Daniel Dae Kim as David Kim) struggling with serious technical problems on a two-year mission to Mars. During the trip, they discover aboard the presence of Michael (Shamier Anderson), a stowaway who jeopardizes everyone’s life on board.

Richard speaks with Dia Frampton about some of her experiences with acting and music.