Black Movie Awards

I watched the first part of the Black Movie Awards last night on TNT for work, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I was moved by the acceptance speeches and the tribute to Sidney Poitier. I never knew that he'd been knighted by the Queen or been Ambassador to Japan from The Bahamas. How cool is that?

The show was dignified, classy and boring as hell. Cedric the Entertainer tried to keep things lively in his opening monologue, but even he gave up after awhile. There was no badly written banter between presenters that usually makes you cringe at most award shows. No pre-show on BET or TNT so that viewers can ooh and aah over the outfits. I guess since TNT only gave them two hours, they couldn't waste time on frivolity.

What struck me the most about the show was how few of the biggest names in Black Hollywood weren't there. No Denzel, no Halle, no Jamie Foxx. No Chris Rock. Cuba Gooding Jr., Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson (the hardest working man in show business), Charles Dutton, GAbriellWhoopi Goldberg, Lou Gossett Jr., Pam Grier, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll, Spike Lee, John Singleton or any of the many black directors working in Hollywood. The biggest names were Don Cheadle and Edward James Olmos who helped introduce Sidney Poitier. The inaugural Black Movie Awards and they couldn't show up? Instead stars from TV shows like CSI New York were presenters.

There was a lovely presentation to Kimberly Elise as a Rising Star, presented by Cicely Tyson, but how much nicer it would have been to have Denzel (who's worked with her twice) and Oprah (where the hell was she?) speak or at least a taped message. Maybe because of time constraints things were cut (like Best Actress and Director), but still?

The new musical The Color Purple was honored, and instead of Oprah (who's a backer) or Whoopi (the star) we had Margaret Avery (where's she been the past twenty years?) introducing the cast in a musical number.

The awards themselves were not that attractive, consiting of a giant open sculpture of Africa with a strip of film through it. Why not name the awards after a pioneer of black cinema like Oscar Micheaux? I know, there are already Oscars but if this award show wants to be the Black Oscars, there going to have to step it up a notch. It's not good when you can't get the biggest names in Black Hollywood to show up. Heck, even Mel Gibson has pre-dated speeches for The People's Choice Awards if he can't be there.
A great idea, but seriously lacking in the execution.