blaxploitation Tagged Articles at Cinematical

By Scott Weinberg (reprinted from January 2009 -- Sundance Film Festival)

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. 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 this newest arrival: The slightly overlong but consistently giggle-worthy Black Dynamite, which aims to do to Shaft and Superfly what The Naked Gun did to police procedurals.

And for the most part, the experiment works like a charm. What I found most appealing about Black Dynamite is that, while it will certainly strike a chord with the old-school blaxploitation fans, the flick also works on its own as a very broad, very goofy, and (yep) very clever little satire. Even if you wouldn't know Hammer from Blacula, there's a good deal of straightforward silliness to be found in Black Dynamite -- and it also feels like one of those eminently quotable comedies that frat guys and movie geeks will come back to time and again. Black Dynamite is to blaxploitation what Austin Powers is to '60s spy flicks -- and really, how many young comedy fans know anything about In Like Flint, Sweet Charity, or Modesty Blaise? Very few, I'd wager, but that didn't prevent Austin Powers from becoming a mega-popular franchise.

Director Scott Sanders and a team of screenwriters have concocted a '70s-era comedy that, to its credit, actually manages to evoke several of the sub-genres staples: Our hero is a noble ass-kicker who uses odd slang; women hang on his every gesture; villains quake at the sight of Black Dynamite's fighting stance; and of course the proceedings are coated with a colorful sheen of tacky clothes, crazy cars, and hilariously over-the-top fight scenes.

You know, I was content with thinking that blax-ploitation send-up Black Dynamite was merely a very creative fake trailer (we've included the red-band version post-jump, just to stay safe). But every indication seems to suggest that Michael Jai White's funky fight against The Man is a feature-length affair -- and one that's been accepted to the next Sundance Film Fesitval to boot.

I don't care if Grindhouse didn't make much at the box office, because the world is still better off for having that film (or those films) in it, and I can't help but think there's room on our '70s throwback shelf for a little African-American TNT. Those feeling the vibe might want to check out the official website for a soulful theme that would do Isaac Hayes proud, some fittingly bad-ass posters and anything you might want to know about the film and its influences.

So, without further ado, help yourself to some NSFW goodness after the jump...

Since 1998, Quentin Tarantino has hosted QT Fest in Austin every year or so. For a week each time, he shows films from his personal collection, grouping them loosely by subject matter: biker-film night, Italian crime film night, sexploitation night, and the traditional all-night horror-film marathon. Last week, Tarantino returned to Austin for Best of QT Fest, in which he showed his favorite films from the series. Despite being an Austinite, I had never attended a QT Fest movie before, and wasn't sure I wanted to watch a bunch of grindhouse and horror and martial-arts films. But I decided that I needed to broaden my filmgoing horizons and see movies in different genres -- plus, many QT Fest films are not available on DVD and are rarely screened. And happily, Best of QT Fest turned out to be a blast. I was a little sorry I didn't go every night, although seven consecutive nights of double and triple-features, including an all-nighter, would have been a little punishing.