theGrio treats Harlem teens to 'Man of Steel' screening
theGRIO REPORT - Warner Brothers’ highly anticipated superhero epic Man of Steel hits theaters this Friday and the movie studio presented theGrio with 20 tickets to an early screening in New York City...
Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ highly-anticipated superhero epic Man of Steel hits theaters this Friday and the movie studio presented theGrio with 20 tickets to an early screening in New York City.
To tie into the theme of the latest Superman movie, which tells the story of a one-of-a-kind hero, Warner Bros. asked theGrio to invite deserving members of the local community who aspire to achieve greatness in their everyday lives.
So theGrio invited students and faculty from Brotherhood/Sister Sol, a Harlem-based youth development organization that provides comprehensive and long-term support services for students ages 8 to 22.
“We provide rites of passages, intensive environmental work projects, job training and college guidance among many other resources and activities,” Khary Lazarre-White, the organization’s founder, told theGrio.
The organization — also often referred to as Bro/Sis — was founded in 1995, and has provided valuable resources to students in Harlem, and beyond, who usually come from lower-income families.
“They’re all so deserving, I love those kids,” says Lorisse Bentine, a chapter leader at Bro/Sis. “I’m truly thankful to Warner Bros for giving us this opportunity. This is a big deal and the students are all very appreciative. This is the type of opportunity that they don’t get all the time from whey they come from.”
The students arrived to the Times Square movie theater at 7 p.m. and were buzzing with excitement. They were all members of Bro/Sis’ comic and environmental club and had a strong interest in Superman and comic book heroes.
“I run the comic book club, which is a brilliant learning experiment, where we do a cross-section of comic books under all things media at a cross-section of social justice,” said Frantz Jerome, who was also one of the organization’s facilitators, at the screening. “I utilize the context of what they love, comic books, and relay it and show parallels to social justice issues and themes and prominent leaders of the past. Things they can relate to and hopefully use in their studies at school.”
Soon, the comic fans settled into their seats, put on their 3D glasses and enjoyed the refreshments provided.
Every seat in the theater was filled with lucky moviegoers who also had the opportunity to view the early screening for a film many of the students called “brilliant.”
“It was awesome,” one student said. “All of the fighting scenes were perfect.”
The reactions to the movie drew rave reviews from this group of youngsters. Many hailed it as the best Superman movie ever while others say they would even recommend it to fans of Superman’s closest competitor, Batman.
“It was incredible, it was the best movie and had the best action scenes,” said one audience-member. “Finally everybody can realize who the best DC hero is. People say it’s Batman. No. Superman is the best DC hero of all time.”
Other attendees said the movie surpassed their expectations and did an “amazing” job of delivering the larger-than-life comic book character to the big screen.
“This movie sets an entirely new benchmark for rationalizing comic book fiction,” Jerome told theGrio. “I’ve never seen an icon redefined so well. It was amazing.”
