Shaft Tagged Articles at Cinematical

From Pacman to Public Enemies, he's had more ups and downs than most other actors of his generation. Christian Bale has careened between extreme highs and deep lows, in the view of the folks at MovieFill, and they decided that a rollercoaster was the most apt visual metaphor for his career. A reduced-size version can be seen above.

They squeeze most of his films into the chart, though they left out a few. Before his sensational role in Mary Harron's American Psycho, he was very appealing in Metroland and got good notices in Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine; pre-Batman Begins / The Dark Knight, he was fun to watch as a frisky villain in John Singleton's Shaft and an uptight, would-be psychiatrist in Laurel Canyon. I don't agree with every notation in the chart. Harsh Times, for example, is cited as one of his "lows," but Bale was riveting. Two notorious off-screen incidents are included, which both affected his public perception, though it seems somewhat unfair to lump those in with his films.

Still, the rollercoaster graphic provides an easy way to look back and consider the range and daring of what he's done, especially earlier in his career. Recently he's been in more big-budget productions than anything else, and next up is David O. Russell's boxing biopic The Fighter. I'd love to see him in a couple of smaller indie flicks. What are your thoughts on Christian Bale's career so far? More ups than downs?

According to the Associated Press, 65-year-old singer-songwriter Isaac Hayes has passed away after being found unresponsive in his Memphis, TN home.

An indelible influence on the world of music, a pop culture icon besides for his work as Chef on "South Park" and in its full-length feature, Hayes will be most fondly remembered in the world of film for his award-winning theme to Shaft and his role as 'The Duke' in Escape from New York.

Hayes showed up in his fair share of other movies, apparently including a cameo as himself in the upcoming comedy Soul Men, starring Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac -- this after making an appearance on "The Bernie Mac Show" in 2005 and an uncredited cameo in the 2000 version of Shaft, starring Jackson.

In Wanted, rapper-actor Common plays The Gunsmith -- a cool, deadly expert marksman who mostly lets his bullets do the talking. But meeting with Cinematical in Los Angeles, the veteran of films like Smokin' Aces and Street Kings is warm and obviously enthusiastic about his experiences, talking about everything from his preparation process for playing what he calls "a Samurai warrior" in Wanted to the challenges facing African-American actors -- plus what's good to drink in Prague and how holding a real gun to James McAvoy's head can get you in the moment for your scenes.

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The last time we heard about Luke Cage, back in February, director John Singleton (Boys n the Hood) said the comic adaptation is developing slowly because of the main character's skin color. Sure, such a statement makes little sense after the popularity of the Blade franchise, but then again, for every Blade movie, there's a Spawn or Steel or Meteor Man to make studios wary about black superheroes. Apparently, though, it may be even worse for a black superhero movie that also deals with black issues. Black Panther, which for years was said to be in the works with Wesley Snipes (before he became Blade), is another project that couldn't seem to get the greenlight, possibly because its main character deals with problems in Africa.

The person most rumored to play Luke Cage in Singleton's pic is Tyrese Gibson, and in a new interview to promote Transformers, the actor has confirmed that he's set to fill the character's shoes. He also says the movie is continuing development, with the script (by Ben Ramsey) currently in a rewrite stage. Gibson will be meeting with Singleton and others soon, though, to present the project to Sony and see if they can move forward. Personally I was hoping the project would add Cage's old partner Iron Fist in order to widen the appeal, but otherwise I'm excited about the progress, and I hope Sony is into what they have. Between his Shaft remake and 2 Fast 2 Furious, Singleton is losing a lot of credit as a good filmmaker, but if he can at least make a hit with Luke Cage, if not a great film, then he might be able to save himself from becoming a hero director for hire in the future.

Hopefully we'll never again have to see Marlon Wayans' face on the body of a little person, or covered by a white-girl mask. If he and his brothers (Shawn and Keenan Ivory) want another franchise (they are still going with the Scary Movie series), they could possibly make one out of their next project. The Wayanses are turning their comic book Super Bad James Dynomite into a live-action feature film for Rogue Pictures with Marlon starring as the title role. Dynomite is a 1970s blaxploitation-era detective -- ala Shaft and Dolemite (which is apparently being remade) -- who has been in prison for the past 35 years, or so. When he's released in the present, he retains his 70s look, complete with exaggerated afro, and sets off to find the criminal who framed him.

The comic is full of adult material, so turning it into a franchise wouldn't be as easy as it has been for superhero titles. The Wayans brothers aren't reported as being interested in sequels, but I'm sure Rogue would love a franchise if the guys were down and if the first movie does good business. Of course, there are a few reasons why the movie might not be too successful. The most important of these reasons is that blaxploitation doesn't need another homage. Between the Shaft remake, Jackie Brown and the spy comedy Undercover Brother, we've seen enough tributes to and jokes on the genre recently to last us another 35 years. Plus, the Wayanses already covered the territory with the blaxploitation spoof I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. The bottom line, though, is that the original films are just too enjoyable by themselves to require any kind of hindsight rehash. If Dynomite is only a single shot film, Rogue should be fine. The studio also just bought another script from Marlon and Shawn, which was co-written by Xavier Cook and Mitchell Marchand (The Wayans Bros. television series).

With the recent brouhaha over Isaac Hayes leaving South Park, maybe it's time to remember his earlier days, when he played live-action characters instead of the animated Chef. Think of early Isaac Hayes and you might think of the theme from Shaft. However, Hayes doesn't actually appear in the 1971 movie for which he composed the Oscar-winning song. His first onscreen role was in the movie Truck Turner, a 1974 blaxploitation picture in which he had the title role. Yes, "Truck Turner" is a name, not a description.

Blaxploitation.com has posted a number of screenshots from this American-International flick, if you want a better idea of the plot. The cast includes Nichelle Nichols, Yaphet Kotto, Scatman Crothers, and the ubiquitous Dick Miller. And it's available on DVD. Perhaps now would be an excellent time to host your own Hayes movie retrospective night, including not only Truck Turner but Three Tough Guys, Escape from New York, and most recently Hustle and Flow. I'd rather think of Hayes as a bad-ass musician than as part of all this Scientology vs. South Park silliness.

As Kim mentioned earlier today, filmmaker/writer/photographer Gordon Parks died Tuesday. As a result, I thought it was only fitting to post a photo from Shaft, Parks' most popular film. I have only ever seen clips from Shaft, and ought to rent and watch the whole movie.

A few years ago, I attended an event in which Joe Bob Briggs showed clips from the movies listed in his book Profoundly Disturbing: Shocking Movies That Changed History. One of the movies was Shaft. Briggs noted that Parks had instructed Richard Roundtree (who plays the title character) never to look to the sides when he crossed a street in the film ... and kept the footage in which Roundtree was nearly hit by a cab. Briggs' essay on Shaft in the aforementioned book is worth reading and includes some good background on Parks, as well as commentary on the ways in which the movie affected the film industry, as well as the streets of New York.

Digging around the Web, I found a nice photo of Gordon Parks directing, although I decided to use a still from the movie here instead. I realize as I read his filmography that I watched his last film, a made-for-TV movie called Solomon Northrup's Odyssey, in a high-school history class. So I have seen one of his films after all, although I suspect it is somewhat different from Shaft. Maybe I should try seeing The Learning Tree first (although that movie is not currently available on DVD in the U.S.).

Gordon Parks, Hollywood's first major black filmmaker, died Tuesday at the age of 93. Parks, who was best known for directing Shaft and The Learning Tree, broke barriers in white Hollywood and spawned a series of black-oriented films after the success of Shaft. Before he directed The Learning Tree in 1969, Parks was known primarily as a writer and photographer. He wrote for twenty years for Life, until 1968, and as a photographer captured scenes of poverty here in the United States and abroad.There are some nice tributes to Parks around other film sites. Here are a few:

Polly Anderson of AP has a full obit.

Roger Ebert discusss Parks films, and ponders whether Parks turned to making commerical films like Shaft because the more lyrical The Learning Tree wasn't a box office hit.

Andy Grundberg has a nice write-up about Parks in the New York Times.