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There’s no doubt that in recent years, the world of true crime has become a mecca for crime sleuths, fans, and keen observers. With the rise of podcasts, true crime shows, and even networks dedicating their space to visual storytelling, true crime series have both educated and captivated audiences and given victims and their families closure.
Along with crime, tragedy, and the fight for justice comes the harrowing process behind acquiring justice. Coming this July, actor, producer/director, and author Vivica A. Fox will take true crime fans on an unprecedented journey into the place justice begins: the interrogation room. Fox will join the true crime community as host of the new series from FilmRise and Zig Zag Productions, The Interrogation Room. This series will finally uncover what occurs behind the scenes of the interrogation process as suspects are profiled individually.
In an interview with Black Girl Nerds, Fox opened up about her new show, her passion for true crime, and giving grieving victims a voice as part of the healing process.
So you have a diverse range in your work, from Kill Bill to classics like Independence Day to hosting. What was the experience like, shifting to a project with a serious undertone that retells people’s tragedies?
This was totally different. I played a detective before on a show called Missing for Lifetime, but that was me catching criminals. What’s wonderful about this show is that it takes viewers inside the interrogation — how the detectives work their magic to get confessions and materials needed to convict criminals.
Telling the stories of some of these cases was very emotional for me. The eight-year-old little girl who was killed was probably one of the most emotional episodes for me when we were doing the narration and I got to see the actual footage. It’s one of those tearjerker cases that just sticks with you. But I was glad that we could get justice for her and for her family. For me, this was totally new. I had never been inside the interrogation room. So I learned a lot.
What factors influenced you to pursue true crime?
I’ve been a fan of the genre for a very long time, since back in the day, from watching 48 Hours and watching Dateline. I used to watch the true crime stories so much that before I went to sleep it would creep into my dreams. I love seeing how detective and police work can solve crimes.
What methods did you use to prepare for this role and better understand the investigative process?
I did my homework. I watched a lot of shows that were hosted by some celebs that I know, like Donnie Wahlberg. I went back and watched some shows with John Walsh. Also, there is a version that’s in England where they have a gentleman that hosts the shows. I watched some of his episodes as well because it’s so serious. His delivery was just mesmerizing, to be honest with you. He really would take you inside the interrogation room. I watched a lot of his footage as well. Can I tell you that I was honored that they picked a woman, mainly an African American woman, to host?
What can viewers look out for regarding each episode and the interrogations that take place?
The way they break down criminals, I found to be absolutely fascinating. From their body language to the way they would move in on them to draw them in and make them comfortable. Sometimes they would let them marinate, leave them in there by themselves just a little bit longer than they thought, then come back. Just the little things that get them to break a criminal down. I think people are going to be really surprised by that.
What kinds of tactics are investigators using when it comes to interrogations?
Well, the body language and how interrogators could start so far away from them and how slowly but surely they move in and then they really go in for the kill. Also, how close they get to them and make them feel like, “I’m your best friend, come on, you can tell me.” I found that too to be interesting because I can see after taping so many episodes, they’re going in for the kill. So body language is imperative. And then people forget they’re being recorded.
What do you hope this series can accomplish as a catalyst for change?
Well, I hope that we do this for many seasons to come and that they enjoy my hosting abilities and that I give a touch of femininity to the interrogation room. So many times you think it’s a male-dominated field, but no, there are women that are involved in this and you have an excellent hostess with the mostest by the name of Vivica Fox.
There’s so much to learn and invest in. What do you hope viewers absorb from this series?
To not commit crime. Stop doing stupid stuff thinking that you can get away with it. Try to do the right thing. Or if you see a crime happening, don’t be afraid to pull out your camera to assist the police in solving a crime or keeping a crime from happening.
Lastly, what do you hope for the victims and families to get out of the experience of having their stories heard?
The memory of their family members isn’t forgotten. Their memories will live on. There’s justice being brought to the criminals who committed these crimes, and their stories get heard, because sometimes that’s just all you want.
The Interrogation Room, hosted by Vivica A. Fox, will stream for free on major platforms in the U.S. in July 2023.
When I went to Twitter, broken as it is today, I was instantly surprised to see the short but stunning preview trailer for Yubisaki to Renren better known in English as A Sign of Affection. As I wrote before when I praised this manga creating duo: In the modern age of Shojo, suu MORISHITA truly is one of the hardest working and most relevant creators in the game. The duo originally met in high-school and were classmates. Makiro creates the storyboard/layouts (writer), and Nachiyan illustrates the story. Among manga readers, they are perhaps best known for their polished art style of their books and the very engaging, layered stories of their characters.
A Sign of Affection is a Shojosei genre blurring manga that follows the slow burn-ish romance of new college student Yuki, who is deaf, and the jet-setting, world curious Itsuomi when they meet at the same college. Yuki communicates mostly through Japanese sign language, and Itsuomi jumps at the chance to start learning how to sign to not only be able to speak with her and to, eventually, show how much he adores her.
A Sign of Affection as a manga series is simply one of the most thrilling, yet intimate series to hit the Shojo genre in such a long time. The news of its anime adaptation brings so much joy to fans who have been wanting more of this incredible series that has taken the world by Shojo-sparkled storm. Am I extra for a barely-over-the minute trailer that’s not even coming out this year? YES. Is it the hype warranted? YES.
It Is All About Connection
Something personal that I was willing to share via social media that I hoped was wholesome to read about is that I’ve been slowly re-learning ASL partially due to A Sign of Affection along with all the folks on Tik Tok (Thank you Deaf Tok!) signing with purpose & confidence! I had learned ASL, American Sign Language, as a kid. Unfortunately, I did eventually forget what I had learned as I had no one to practice and sign with. It was easily one of my favorite childhood memories, and my heavy regret of losing this language has lessened once I started to pick it back up at my own pace. Recently during the Transformers Rise of the Beasts press tour, actress Dominique Fishback revealed how and why she learned Sign Language. That video snippet brought me back to why sign language was so important to me as a kid and why it still resonates with me now, as an adult.
A Sign of Affection revolves around Yuki: a first-year college student, whose world revolves around her friends, social media, and the latest sales. She’s happily exploring the world by way of her college classes, the new people she’s meeting on and off campus, and even considers a part time job. A chance encounter on a train leads to her meeting fellow student Itsuomi-san and her world starts to widen. But even though Itsuomi is a globe-trotting young man who can speak three languages, sign language isn’t one of them. The way these two are drawn to each other and how Itsuomi yearns to get to know Yuki and learn Japanese sign language is easily one of the most impactful manga series that I’ve come across in such a long time. Watching these two learn how to communicate, the budding feelings between them has been such an intimate and thrilling read and hearing an anime adaptation means the world to me. Seeing more hearing impaired disabled characters in anime is always welcomed!
Shojo/Shoujo Fans Are EATING
There has been documented and heated discourse in the manga and anime community on the decline of Shojo (and Josei) anime adaptations lately. Coleen, one of my faves on YouTube created one of my favorite videos explaining the problem here, and they returned the topic a year later. To the ones chronically online who enjoy Shojosei, the joke is that the Shojo girlies/fans are EATING after getting a few adaptations in recent anime seasons, yet we’re still in famine.
Then the A Sign of Affection trailer drops, and we’re all embracing each other and crying like Shojo is having a renaissance—You know what????? Bitch We Might be. We just may be, and guess who is here to enjoy the ride? As my favorite genres via manga and anime, it is frustrating the slow dip of coverage and releases dedicated to this fan base of mostly girls and women. As a genre, Shojo is NOT a background character. She breathes main character energy. Oh, he’s HIM? Guess, what? She’s HER. Shojo is THAT Girl. She has whole manga magazines dedicated to her in her native country and that I know she has nothing to prove.
Related news reveals that Kodansha USA announced this week at Anime Expo that their newest slate of print manga licenses arriving in spring 2024. This includes all-new print titles, new omnibus editions, new-to-print titles, and more, include an A Sign of Affection Omnibus of 3-in-1 omnibus edition! This is big news as this series dropped during the pandemic (first volume release: Mar 31, 2020) where manga buying soared among readers. Also, this series gained a bigger following being available digitally–I faithfully read it on the Azuki app and tweeted on chapter release day when I could. If Twitter of the past was my partial online diary, I was preaching the gospel for years about this series, see here in 2020, here in 2021 and here in 2022.
The omnibus means even more fans get a chance to read the incredible series next year as or around the time the anime adaption hits streaming services. I am so excited, and my heart is so full! A Sign of Affection defines what modern day Shojo is in my books, and since Shojo is my first love–when it comes to manga, I really feel like I am receiving a love letter that my much younger self would be so happy to receive. Simply put, A Sign of Affection illustrates that connection is important and trying to understand others is the key. Reasons to live? Anime Adaptation of A Sign of Affection come January 2024!!
The A Sign of Affection anime is scheduled for January 2024.
See more information of the anime’s official website and Twitter account.
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The post The First ‘A Sign of Affection’ Trailer Dropped, and We’re All in Love appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
Mild spoilers ahead…
AMC’s 2022 Interview with the Vampire TV series took a fresh approach to the beloved 1994 classic film — starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Christian Slater, and Antonio Banderas — and offered a new perspective on the life, death, and un-life of Louis de Pointe du Lac, as well as a whole new take on Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. Season 1 was a masterpiece of storytelling; the recasting of Louis — portrayed by Jacob Anderson — brought a different dynamic to the narrative that offered a creative approach to the ennui of this classic vampire tale.
This is particularly true when it comes to the Season 1 finale, which was bloody — pun intended — miraculous . Besides a Mardi Gras blood feast in which plenty of plump bodies were exsanguinated, Louis and Claudia (portrayed by Bailey Bass) killed their maker Lestat — which coincidentally occurs halfway through the original Anne Rice novel — thus making it a fitting point to bookend Season 1’s narrative. However, all the gory violence and immortal-relationship woes aren’t the only things that left fans parched for more, as the narrative revealed that Rashid, Louis’ manservant, is actually the ancient vampire Armand.
But who is this mysterious vampire, and what makes his appearance in the series so exciting? Well, while Armand plays a crucial role in Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles, Daniel, the reporter interviewing Louis de Pointe du Lac, doesn’t actually meet Armand in the Interview with the Vampire novel. The meeting between Daniel and Armand was made specifically for the this new reimagining.
AMC’s televised take on Louis and coterie has been a somewhat faithful adaptation that, in many ways, is truer to the book than the 1994 film ever was. Still, some liberties have been taken, like the change in setting and smaller changes in the chronology of certain events. The introduction of the vampire Armand to Daniel this early in the narrative is a significant deviation from the source material, especially when we take into consideration that the two haven’t met in the Interview with the Vampire novel but in a subsequent 1985 book titled The Vampire Lestat.
From what we know from the novels, following the apparent murder of Lestat at the hands of his own creations, the murderous duo, Louis and Claudia, depart New Orleans and set course for Europe, all under the seemingly watchful eye of Armand and an actually none-dead, un-dead, Lestat, as confirmed at the end of the Season 1 finale.
The narrative sees Louis and Claudia travel through Bulgaria, Romania, and Paris — with the latter being the city where Armand carved out his place in vampire society. Here, Armand, the oldest among those vampires, built his Theatre des Vampires, a theatre in which a coven of vampires perform horrific acts for live human audiences, who believed that the performances were mere theatrical spectacle and not a display of supernatural showmanship.
Louis and Claudia encounter the coven, which then captures Louis and executes Claudia because vampire law prohibits turning children and she’s seen as an abomination. Armand, who has developed a deep emotional connection to Louis, seeing him as a kindred spirit, frees Louis from captivity, motivated largely by his own desire for companionship. Fueled by rage and grief, Louis doesn’t leave the coven with Armand, as the latter hoped. Instead, he sets the theatre on fire and kills most of the vampires in the coven.
The two cross paths in subsequent novels, but they have the most significant amount of interaction in The Tale of the Body Thief, which is the fourth novel in the series and the one in which they develop a romantic relationship. However, in the new version developed for the television show, Armand’s story has been seamlessly woven into Louis’ narrative, and the strategic reveal of his identity provided not just a shocking twist in the series but also showcased some very clever storytelling and a deep psychological understanding of dynamics in co-dependent relationships.
This new version of Armand is a powerful 514-year-old vampire, posing as an unsuspecting Rashid, Louis’ faithful manservant. His ability to withstand the sunlight gained through the ages allows Armand to merge and blend with the human world. This contrasts Louis’ struggles with his own vampiric nature while also allowing Armand to protect Louis when he’s most vulnerable. This retouching of the original source materials gives the fandom a unique taste of familiarity complemented with an authentic twist that not many saw coming.
The upcoming season will likely adhere to the source material to a large degree, so we’re bound to see Louis and Claudia going to Europe, where they will inevitably come into contact with Armand and the Theatre des Vampires. All the events described above, including Claudia’s death, Lestat’s resurrection, and the burning of the Theatre des Vampires, are likely to transpire in the upcoming season, though it’s also safe to assume that the narrative might suffer some minor changes.
We can also expect Armand and Louis’ relationship to be put under the microscope as the narrative dives deeper into their intertwined histories recounted by Louis de Pointe du Lac, with Armand’s relationship with Daniel being nothing short of a fascinating subplot in the upcoming season. In Rice’s chronicles, Armand eventually gives the Dark Gift to Daniel in The Queen of the Damned novel — loosely adapted into a 2002 film of the same name, with a very good soundtrack.
So, there are actually plenty of exciting things in store for Season 2 of Interview with the Vampire, and Armand’s unexpected but not unappreciated appearance in the narrative has the fandom chomping at the bit to sink its fangs into the new but still captivating universe of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles. AMC had commissioned the making of Season 2 even before Season 1 premiered, but the exact release date remains hidden amongst the shadows, with the nearest possible release date poised for early-to-mid 2024.
Whether you fell for his charm as the popular kid on Degrassi or became a fan once he dropped his first album, Drake, also known as Aubrey Drake Graham, is undoubtedly a talented individual.
Drake switched from television sets to recording studios in 2006 with the release of his mixtape Room for Improvement. Since then, his career has been on an upward trajectory. With numerous singles and albums reaching the top of the charts in addition to winning five Grammys, it’s clear that Drake has made a wise career move.
Often considered alternative hip hop or emo rap, his music is filled with catchy and honest lyrics that have helped him gross over $450 million.
The Canadian rapper has built a strong fan base through his music, and before pleasing his fans with a new album, he teased his fan base with the release of a poetry book.
While this might seem like an out-of-the-blue move for Drizzy, it’s not too odd that he’s released a book of poems. After all, “rap” has been defined as “rhyme and poetry.” But does the talent of a platinum rapper translate well when his words are written in short poetic phrases instead of being attached to a beat and played over a stereo system?
About Drake’s poetry book
Rappers such as Mos Def, Common, and Lauryn Hill are known to have poetic flows that have audiences grooving while they contemplate the meaning of life. Thus it’s not too much of a surprise that another rapper, such as Drake, would try to exercise their poetry muscles. But does this actor-turned-rapper have the skills to take on this literary endeavor?
Drake’s poetry book Titles Ruin Everything: A Stream of Conscious, is a collaboration between himself and Kenza Samir. The book is supposed to accompany an album release, which can make one believe that this release of new material may be a simple marketing tactic. How serious is Drake about poetry? Or has his hip-hop exterior hidden away his more artistic and literary side?
Regardless of his intentions for putting out this book, Drake appeared excited upon its release. According to a caption on his Instagram, he wrote: “I don’t know if I have ever wanted people to buy or support something more in my life.”
Evidently, this book is meaningful to Drake, but what can fans, readers, and other poetry enthusiasts expect from this blue-covered 168-page book?
Opinions and critics of the book
According to critics and summaries of the book, it seems that, similar to Drake’s lyrics, his book of poems is meant to be silly but sprinkled with some deep one-liners.
Poet Aris Kian wrote to Complex magazine and shared over emails that the book is “a goldmine of mediocre mic drops.” Sama’an Ashrawi wrote in the article that the poems “mostly alter between bitter, jaded, and braggadocious, yet they seem to be…funny?”
Despite some critics, Drake has received support from his fellow hip-hop artists. DJ Khaled, perhaps one of Drizzy’s biggest fans, was seen on social media reading aloud passages from the book. Khaled also boasted about how Drake did the unexpected and came out with a book.
While it’s nice to see rappers supporting each other, and Drake does deserve recognition for doing something different, it is also important to promote quality over novelty.
Riddled with one-liners such as “Charged it to the game and paid the bill,” “Life isn’t fair, but karma helps,” and “Some days I got it all figured out, but most days I never learn,” the book seems to imitate Drake’s lyrical style.
For fans, it makes the book an enjoyable read. For serious poetry fans, you might agree with Kian, who was quoted in the Complex article saying, “Where he could push himself to indulge in the silliness and sentimentality that even the purest of poets would forgive, he disintegrates into petty abstractions and instead gives us lines like, ‘You were in my dream last night / They call that a nightmare, right?’”
Is Drake’s poetry book right for you?
All in all, I wouldn’t say Drake pushed any boundaries or grew to another level of artistry when writing this book — no offense to his process. However, in my humble opinion, Drake took words he would have used for a song and simplified them to appear as poems. The quality of the poetry is debatable. However, I do believe Drake fans will enjoy the book. It’s more of Drake but in a slightly different form.
The book may not impact those who aren’t already Drake fans. As Ashrawi wrote in his article, what makes Drake appealing is the whole package: the lyrics, the beat, the voice, the vocals, etc. His words may not be as attractive when you take a part of Drake and only put it into black text on white paper.