MasterChugs Theater: ‘Coffy’

Quick note, kids and kittens: this Saturday, May 1, is Free Comic Book Day. If you go into a comic book store, you will be able to come out with at least one special free comic book. There are ones for all ages, so don’t be afraid-embrace what you may or may not have seen yet. Also, if you’re in the Roanoke Valley area, or can get to it easily, I would highly recommend stopping by Cosmic Castle, located in Towers Shopping Center, over by Crock & Roll. Cosmic Castle is staffed with wonderfully intelligent and witty employees that can help you out at a moment’s notice, and will readily do so.

We close out yet another blaxploitation month with the movie that’s widely regarded by many as what made Pam Grier famous: Coffy. I’ve got to say that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this month. Blaxploitation movies are one of my favorite movie genres, but not in a “so bad it’s good” kind way-I truly love these movies. There’s something about the rawness, the grit, the from-the-heart feeling that stems from their craft that just gets me smiling. These types of movies are easily a go-to for me.

What’s also been great about this month is that we’ve taken a look at some really shining examples of the genre. Not only have the previous movies reviewed been good blaxploitation movies, but I’ll readily argue that they’re great movies-no extra qualifier. But does Coffy get to join these movies in their greatness? Well, they can’t all be amazing. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Coffy’

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Super Fly’

“(Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song) made being a revolutionary hip,” Mario Van Peebles said a former Black Panther and Congressman once told him, “but Super Fly made being a drug dealer hip. Big difference.”

Van Peebles, whose father Melvin was the auteur behind Sweetback, makes a quite strong statement of how Hollywood capitalized on his pop’s movie and created an assembly line of action pictures starring Afro-American actors. However some of these films deserve a more fair shake. Super Fly, directed by Gordon Parks Jr., the story of a coke dealer who wants out of the biz, isn’t like the others, and even stands out in the gangster genre. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Super Fly’

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Black Caesar’

Last week’s review of Black Dynamite has inspired me to have yet another blaxploitation theme month. Get ready for a classic film in the genre.

It’s probably only to be expected that the most ambitious of American International’s blaxploitation movies was directed by Larry Cohen. For one thing, the performance Cohen coaxed out of Yaphet Kotto in Bone, the director’s first feature film, gave him a reputation as someone who knew how to work with black actors. With that going for him, he was well placed to take advantage of the studio’s celebrated willingness to let a filmmaker experiment provided that the finished product could still make a buck at the end of the day. But beyond that, Cohen’s movies (yes, even the bad ones) have always reflected a desire to take on more than the conventional concerns of the typical exploitation picture. With Black Caesar, Cohen set out to make a blaxploitation movie that would deal seriously with issues that most of its ilk used as disposable plot devices while simultaneously paying conscious homage to the gangster films of the early 1930’s. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Black Caesar’

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Black Dynamite’

The spoof (aka broad parody) sub-genre is a schizophrenic beast. At its best, the spoof can treat you to something as sublime as Airplane!, as mindlessly amusing as the Scary Movie series, or as stunningly worthless as Epic Movie. It takes skill to make a movie bad on purpose, but movies that are bad by accident can be a lot more fun. But the spoof remains the comedy sub-genre for filmmakers who are also movie geeks. Basically, you need to have seen a lot of Airport movies to write Airplane!, and you need to have some solid experience with blaxploitation movies to produce something like Hollywood Shuffle, I’m Gonna Get You Sucka, or the newest arrival: the worthy Black Dynamite, which aims to do to Shaft and Superfly what The Naked Gun did to police procedurals.

Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Black Dynamite’

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Cleopatra Jones’

We close out both July and our look at blaxploitation with one more epic film in the genre. Starring the late Tamara Dobson in the lead role, Cleopatra Jones was the first film to mark the beginning of a sub-genre of blaxploitation films that focused on strong female leads who took an active role in shootouts and fights. That’s right, blaxploitation wasn’t just all about those super cool men. No, there were plenty of hot ladies that control of the screen. Once again, though, we ask the question-is it any good? Hit the jump to find out. Watch out though, cuz “Cleopatra’s coming at ya!”  Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Cleopatra Jones’

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Shaft’

As July continues on, we too continue to explore blaxploitation films as our theme. Blaxploitation is an interesting thing. To me, it’s one of the only two film genres that most embodies the American spirit. That is not hyperbole-I truly and honestly believe so. Blaxploitation is a concept that arose from a period of both social and civil unrest and change into product with its own unique culture and identity. In doing so, it created a precedent for all future items similar to itself in idea. Sound anything like the origin of a country that you or I may know?

Shaft (the original 1971 version, not that Samuel L. Jackson remake dreck) is, was, and will forever remain the definitive blaxploitation film, utterly and without question. Not only that, but it’s also considered by many to be the very first blaxploitation movie. Shaft and other blaxploitation films represented black action heroes fighting white crime in a cynical urban environment. The films symbolized black-power politics in an era when portrayals of blacks regularly consisted of servants and sidekicks. Shaft broke the mold, laying the groundwork for modern actors and filmmakers like Samuel L. Jackson and Spike Lee. But is it any good? Not everything ages well, after all. Pop on in and find out.

Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Shaft’