“I have no idea who was being exploited. Black people loved the movies, all the actors were being paid. I mean, if you compare it to Burt Reynolds or Clint Eastwood movies of the same time, they never called them ‘white exploitation’. It was a terminology they had to use to distinguish black film, because black films with heroes didn’t exist until [the 1970's].”
In a way, Blaxploitation could possibly be considered the first true form of "indie" film-making. These are people who knew that a major Hollywood studio wouldn't back their project, so they had to make it happen on their own. Sure, characters like Shaft, Super Fly and Dolemite ended up being pop culture staples, to the point where the entire genre has been parodied, yet honored at the same time, by the recent Black Dynamite (which believe me, you MUST see). But there are plenty of other stars and movies that have gone unrecognized. So praise the Lord that I was able to snag 15 movies for a five spot at Wal-Mart.
Ok, so a bit of a long-winded intro for what'll basically amount to a couple of half-assed reviews of cheap movies? Maybe. But don't think for a minute that I don't believe what I just said.
Anyways, despite the fact that half of the movies are duplicates from a similar cheap Blaxploitation set I already own, that still leaves me with quite a few movies for me to watch. So the past few days, I watched four of them (which almost ended up as two double-features, arguably the way movies like these were meant to be watched) and here are some thoughts from good ol' "Whitey".
Get Christie Love! - Honestly, there's not a whole lot I can say about this one. On the one hand, it's a bit better quality than your average Blaxploitation flick. But on the other hand, it's kinda boring. Basically you have Christie Love, a sexy badass female cop who's actually quite incompetent, trying to find a ledger containing a drug lord's records, all the while trying to bring a family together. It's kinda like a Lifetime Network movie of the week that doesn't completely suck. Teresa Graves is pretty sexy as Christie Love, though, and I'm wondering why she doesn't get mentioned in the same breath as Pam Grier. And now that I'm looking it up, turns out this was in fact a pilot for a TV series of the same name. I was kinda wondering whether this was made for TV considering there were some "commercial breaks" during the movie but then again, they did get away with saying the N-word within the first couple lines of dialogue so I wasn't sure. Anyway, you could do worse. I wonder if the rest of the show is any better but considering it only ran for one season, I'm guessing it never really took off.
Oh yeah, and it had some of the best drunk acting I've ever seen. I really wish I had the ability to capture video so I'll just describe the scene. After Christie grills a friend for some information only to get denied, said friend gets drunk and later tells her to come back to the apartment so that she'll get her information. Of course, the bad guys are on the lookout to and see Christie go to the apartment. So, Christie gets her info but knows the jig is up so she hides behind the bed with her friend, gun cocked and aimed at the door which is kicked down by the baddies. But her friend's "drunk sense" kicks in as she gets up and yells "SOMEONE FO'GOT TO SHUT THE DOE'!", resulting in her getting shot. So, so awesome.
The Tattoo Connection - This was probably the movie I was most looking forward to checking out since it starred none other than Jim Kelly, who shared the screen with Bruce Lee in one of the greatest martial arts movies ever, Enter The Dragon. While Bruce was undeniably the star and John Saxon had the acting chops, it was Jim Kelly who stole the show with his skills in kung fu and his equally deadly charm. But after Enter The Dragon and standing alongside Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly in Three The Hard Way, he popped up in a handful of other movies like Black Belt Jones, Black Samurai and The Tattoo Connection (and holy shit, Mr. No Legs too?!?) before seemingly dropping off the face of the earth. And after seeing The Tattoo Connection for myself, it's kinda easy to see why. I won't say it sucks because most kung-fu movies aren't exactly held to the highest standards of quality, but Jim Kelly just isn't as engaging here as he was in Enter The Dragon...and it's not just the fault of the horrible dub job. Then again, this movie did really give me the urge to break out some of my cheesy kung-fu movies again so maybe it did its job. I just wish Jim Kelly became a major star like he should have.
Oh yeah, it also has Bolo Yeung in it. And you do not fuck with Bolo Yeung. Especially if you happen to be a rabbit.
Black Streetfighter - Though I had hopes that this would somehow be linked to the epic Sonny Chiba "Street Fighter" series, those hopes were soon dashed by the crappily-pasted title card in the opening credits which revealed this as an obvious way to cash-in (much like the whole "Zombi" ordeal with Dawn of the Dead in Italy). It also goes under the names Bogard (which is odd considering I don't think there's a character named Bogard in the movie) and Black Fist (which makes A LOT more sense). Anyway, it's your typical story of boy joins underground fighting ring, boy makes money, boy is extorted by the po-po's, boy wants out to start a new life, head of the fighting ring murders boy's family, boy gets revenge. Damn, maybe I should've worded that a bit differently. All that usage of "boy" makes me sound like a damn racist. Anyway, Black Streetfighter is pretty paint-by-numbers but really gets interesting around the "revenge" part. But much like every Revenge-sploitation movie (I don't know if that's an actual sub-genre but what the hell, right?) that's not Lady Vengeance, the ending shows that revenge isn't always so cut and dry. Well, at least I think that's what the point of it was. At the end, the protagonist hears tons of voices in his head and stumbles into a room of mirrors, revealing to himself how much of a disheveled hobo he's become. So he punches the windows out, in an effort to recreate the album cover of Black Flag's Damaged, all the while accompanied by some creepy synths that can only be described as Giorgio Moroder being pushed down the stairs. And that's it. Honestly, the whole thing just took me off guard and, oddly enough, made me wanna pop in Maniac for some reason.
Besides all that, it actually has a few name "stars" before they were famous. Like Dabney Coleman, who is probably best known as the sexist boss from 9 To 5 or...Principal Prickly from Recess? Really? Hmmm. Anyway, he plays the crooked douchebag cop and is arguably the best character in the movie as he plays it to a tee, yet shows a sliver of humanity when he gets in too deep. But he still gets his in the end. Also, Philip Michael Thomas, otherwise known as Not Don Johnson from Miami Vice, plays two roles. In the first half, he plays the perpetually drunken best friend of the protagonist who gets killed, which compels him to get out of the fight game. Then in the second half, he plays a Puerto Rican pimp/drug dealer named "Boom Boom", who gets the crap kicked out of him multiple times by the Black Streetfighter on his path to revenge. It's always cool to see actors' earlier roles, especially when they're in low-budget stuff of questionable nature like this.
Lady Cocoa...
OH GOD, what the fuck is that?!?
Ok, now with the most random, trippy title card ever out of the way, we can now get on with this tale about a sassy independent black woman...that may or may not be bi-polar and/or autistic. Sound weird? Well, let me explain. You see, Lady Cocoa is being held in a hotel room with a bodyguard overnight so that she may live to see the next day, where she will end up testifying in court against her boyfriend drug lord that put her in the slammer, who undoubtedly has put a hit on her. So it's a lot like Death Journey, another film in this set. But instead of a fumbling fat white guy, you have a cute black chick. And instead of Fred Williamson, you get Gene Washington, NFL football player and leader of The Black Six (also in this set), who looks a lot like Fred Williamson if you squint hard enough. And instead of going cross-country, they're...stuck in a hotel room. Yeah, I know that sounds kinda boring but they do get out a bit, after a bit of cajoling from Lady Cocoa, who perpetually nags and whines about wanting a new dress.
And that's where my earlier odd diagnosis with this character comes in. Lady Cocoa will turn bitchy and whiny at the drop of a hat until she finally gets her way, to which she'll quickly turn tail and become the sweetest girl you ever did see. As a perpetually single male who has no idea how the female psyche works, I know that women do act like this but the rate at which her emotions changes is staggering, leading me to believe that she may be bi-polar. Ok, nothing major I'm sure. But there are a few other scenes, notably early on in the hotel room, where she'll talk about art and philosophy for no real reason, and then go on to quote something word-for-word, followed by a bibliography of who wrote it, what book it was in and what year the book was published. WTF?!? I want to think that this was some weird character quirk or something. She did spend time in prison so maybe she read a lot. But it's never really touched on again, leading me to believe that she could be autistic. Never mind the fact that she basically bilks a blackjack dealer for all he's got later on in the movie, predating Dustin Hoffman in Rainman by more than 10 years. Also, she has a tendecy to call her bodyguard "Buster Brown", but uses it as an insult, which is funny because that's usually what a mother will call their 2 year old child if they don't pick up their toys or something. So when she says "Go fuck yourself, Buster Brown", you can't help but think "Awww, she thinks she can insult. How cute." Yup, she seriously says that. I haven't heard a worse insult since "I'm not a chicken. You're a turkey!"
But other than that, it's pretty boring...at least for the first half. Sure, you have another NFL player "Mean" Joe Green as a silent sniper with a greasy sidekick, all the while a creepy version of "Pop Goes The Weasel" that sounds like it's played out of the speaker of an ice cream rape van plays whenever they show up on screen, but that's not really all that entertaining. But just when you think you're going to drift off, it starts picking up and ends up as a caper involving stoner surfer newlyweds, crossdressers for no real reason and obvious double-turns, culminating in a chase through the hotel that kinda reminded me of the one involving Will Ferrell and Will Arnett in Blades of Glory for some odd reason. But still, that chick needs to get back on her meds.
So, there you go, a little taste of blaxploitation for ya...and that's not even really the "good" stuff! There's not really anything witty that I can end this off with, since I'm white and all, so here's a bit of a present. If you caught that link for that Mr. No-Legs poster earlier on and would like to see more, please visit Wrong Side of the Art, a collection of posters showcasing not only Blaxploitation but any example of [Insert Random Word Here]-sploitation you can think of. In my own personal opinion, I consider this era and this sort of style as a great acheivement in movies and art. This was a time where you actually got epic hand-drawn or hand-painted posters that made you want to see the movie, instead of the vauge "teasers" or super-bland Photoshop abominations that you see today. I really wish we could see these kinds of posters for current movies, outside of Quentin Tarantino films. Honestly, the only things that rival this sort of style for the medium are old school DIY punk rock show posters from the '80s. If nothing else, at least check this poster out, which may have the greatest tagline I've ever seen. Oh yeah, this site is definitely not safe for school or work.
As an aside, I'd like to dedicate this article to the memory of Titus O'Neil. Astute readers of Sarcasmatron may remember him as the rookie from NXT Season 2 that I gave the lowest chances of winning. Of course, my chances were dead on as he was the first rookie to be eliminated last week. But when I said that I didn't expect him to show any charisma in the wake of his elimination, unlike Season 1 rookie Michael Tarver, I was dead wrong. Once eliminated, O'Neil gave a speech so heart-felt and positive that I wanted him to come back immediately. Even though the man is jacked to the gills, I don't even want him to wrestle. I want him to come out and cut promos like after-school specials. So in a way, O'Neil was exactly like Tarver...only his exact parallel since O'Neil doesn't have the ability to murder a person just by looking at them. But seriously, he seems like a genuinely nice guy and that really stands out in an industry like professional wrestling that attracts some of the scummiest of scumbags. And believe me, that goes a long way with me. Why the hell do you think I defend John Cena so much?
So, remember this, if you're going to make it a win...make it a win.
Woof woof.
Woof woof.
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