Yeah, just ran down a Rolling Stone article from 2012. Mary left because of financing; I think they cleaned it up later: http://www.rollingstone.com…

Yeah, Mary was apparently attached back when the film had a development deal at Paramount Pictures (this was circa 2007 or so). Once it fell through and it went the indie route, Mary left the project (I've heard tell that it was "scheduling conflicts", but that the new investors didn't think she was big enough of a…

Even though she lost to Holly Hunter, Angela Bassett was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for playing Tina Turner in "What's Love Got to Do With It"

There are "Our Gang" comedies with the kids doing blackface routines. In one instance ("Ye Olde Minstrels", 1941), they put all of the white kids (except Spanky, Darla, and the key white kids) in blackface, and had Buckwheat appear - as a gag - in temporary whiteface.

He's painted charcoal black.

Also, "Pinky" (1949) with Jeanne Crain as a light-skinned Black woman.

No, I remember. But 20 years is a long time.

Regina Hall is playing the lady who runs the beauty-shop side of the business; Jasmine Lewis is still playing Ice Cube's wife as she did in the other two films.

I think my mouth was hanging open about halfway through when I realized "I am actually enjoying a season 2 episode of Empire! It's a miracle!" Can they promote Malcolm Spellman to co-showrunner?

Sitars in rap records were an overused cliché during the turn of the century. As Carlton said above, this song sounds like something from that era - like something recorded for but discarded from "QB's Finest" or "…And Then There Was X"

Oh no; it was true. Lola is Jamal's sister rather than his daughter.

It's only supposed to have been maybe about a year total from the pilot so far.

He apparently used to run a label, and tried to sign Lucious at one point, but Lucious didn't sign with him because "he gay!"

Yup. And as for Tim, he was busy working on his own album while they were in production, and his team seems to have produced only about three (at best) of the 15 or so songs we've heard so far this season.

The gutters of Nazareth.

To be fair, whenever Lee Daniels, Danny Strong, or anyone else talked about "Empire" in the press, he made it clear from the start that the show was supposed to be a primetime soap, essentially Black "Dynasty" - which, more or less, is what it is, just on severe uppers and without a core to hold all of the mania…

What you're speaking of is called a table read: pretty much every scripted show on television does a table read, including this one. What they need is better writing overall, because there's only so much the EPs will let you change at the table read.

It's a soap opera - it was never meant to be taken seriously.

Didn't she and Olivia (Raven-Symoné's character) move back home to New Orleans after they shot the abusive boyfriend?

All of the responsibility for putting over Hakeem's PTSD fell into the hands of this episode's director, Mario Van Peebles (he of "New Jack City" fame). With all of the double-tracked echos and jump cuts, I was led to believe that those kidnappers had raped Hakeem, which, if that were the case, we really needed to…