My blog is about anything and everything. I want you to come back wondering what I will say next. I can also address any topics my audience wants to talk about.
WHICH CHARACTER SHOULD I IMPERSONATE FOR A FUTURE BLOG?
Shaft is back and this time he has to break up a modern day slave trade.
African men are working for Europeans for a small amount of money every month. Half of that money is collected by the slave traders.
Shaft is working for the Oraganization for African Unity. He poses as an African and infiltrates the slave ring. But someone keeps blowing his cover, so Shaft is constantly fighting for his life.
Well, don't feel too bad for him. This is pre-AIDS Africa, so you KNOW he's gonna get laid.
Throw in some cool fight scenes, beautiful shots of African nature, and some great dialogue and you've got yourself a good movie.
One of the best lines in the movie:
Shaft had previously beaten up one of the Africans assisting the Europeans in the slave trade.
The Africans are loaded up into a truck and dropped in the desert. They will be taken to a boat by some Arabs.
The man in charge, Zubair, commends Shaft, posing as an African named "Jowi," for beating up the African. As a reward, "Jowi" will get to ride a camel with the Arabs instead of walking.
Zubair: You know how to ride camel?
Shaft: No ride camel. Ride ass!
The thing I like about the Shaft series is that they don't skimp on the action or the story.
I don't think I'd go as far as to say that this is as good as the original Shaft, but as far as being a continuation of the story (which it is), it's perfect.
Basically, two black businessmen, Cal Asby and Johnny Kelly, have been running numbers in Queens. For those of you that don't know, running numbers is basically a private and illegal lottery. They were also running an insurance agency and a funeral parlor.
Asby was going to buy Kelly out for about $200,000. Kelly owed the mob for the same amount. Kelly planned to steal the money, kill Asby, and still retain his share of the business. He succeeds... for the most part. Asby hid the money.
Now the mob wants in on the numbers game. Kelly agrees, but he tries to maneuver a double cross by setting the Italians up against a black crimelord, Bumpy Jonas (a character from the first Shaft).
So where does John Shaft fit in all of this mess? Well, Asby was a friend and Shaft was fucking Asby's sister, Arna. Kelly is trying to kill Arna so he can control 100% of the business. Plus, Shaft wants that $200,000.
There are some really good fights in this movie. Shaft even gets his ass kicked which separates him from the seemingly untouchable characters in other blaxploitation movies.
There's also a really cool chase scene with multiple cars, a boat, and a helicopter. You don't wanna miss that shit.
Let me start out by saying that John Shaft was originally a white man. I'm not saying that to "lay claim" to one bad mother... okay, I'll shut my mouth, but I was only talking about Shaft. Can you dig it? Yes, in the novels, he was written to be a white man. It wasn't until the success of Melvin Van Peebles's "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" and the creation of the blaxploitation genre that Warner Brothers got the message that black audiences mattered. Thus, Shaft became a black man. But enough of my Robert Osborne moments; Let's get to the plot overview, eh?
The movie starts with Shaft walking down the street. He goes to get his shoes shined and gets a tip that some people have been looking for him. Shaft returns to his office only to be ambushed by two armed men. John Shaft fights the attackers. One of the attackers throws himself out of a window and falls to his death. I must state for the record that low-budget plummets-to-demise are some of the greatest and funniest things in cinema. The other man is captured and reveals the plan. What a snitch.
A local gangster, Bumpy Jonas (played by Moses Gunn), is trying to get his daughter, Marcy, back from the mafia. Shaft is told to seek help from a local Black Pather-esque group led by a man named Ben. Shaft will need an army and "Ben's got one."
The whole time, the police are worried that a fight between black gangs and the Italian mob will spark some sort of race war in New York City. Shaft reluctantly keeps in contact with the police via Lieutenant Vic Androzzi. The police know something bad is going to happen between the black gangs and the mafia, but they don't know the exact details. Androzzi pleads for information at every turn.
Can Shaft get Bumpy's daughter back? Can the police stop a race war from spilling into the streets? Will there be gratuitous 70s nudity?
There's fist fights, gun fights, falling deaths, molotov cocktails, machine guns, swinging through a window to save a damsel in distress. What more could you want? A song by Isaac Hayes? Sure! It's got that as well. And, yes, there's gratuitous 70s nudity.
Thursday. February 17. The year of our Lord two thousand and one less than twelve.
So I have a reason for not following up with a blog at midnight EST as is my usual custom. I mentioned that I was going to a concert. I went to see a Frank Zappa tribute band: Project Object. This isn't your average cover band. PO is made up of some original Zappa band members and fronted by singer/guitarist Ike Willis.
I've never been to a concert before. I tried to get some of my friends to go, but they were either busy or just being typically uninteresting... in some cases both. I took some time off to get some sleep since I was out until the next morning (we're talking sunrise).
It was a great concert. I got fairly close to the stage for the first half of the show and I was directly in front of the stage for the second set. I was able to take some pictures. Here are a few of the good ones:
It was a great concert. My only possible gripe could be that the band was not healthy. Ike Willis had a sore throat. He's the lead singer, so that changed the show entirely. BUT! We got a lot of good instrumental songs from the Frank Zappa catalog to make up for it. If they come near you, check them out.
I'll leave you with a video of them performing "Crew Slut". This isn't from the concert I was at, but you can at least hear what they sound like.
DON'T FORGET THAT TODAY IS THE LAST DAY OF THE IMPRESSION POLL!
This movie was made right after "Shaft." In fact, the director of "Shaft," Gordon Parks, put up some money for "Superfly." His son, Gordon Parks Jr., directed this movie. Expect a review of "Shaft" soon, by the way.
Ron O'Neal plays Youngblood Priest, a cocaine dealer looking to get out of the business. How does he plan to do that? One last deal worth one million dollars. Actually, he'll only get half a million. His business partner Eddie will take the other half.
They plan on selling 30 kilos of cocaine inside of 4 months. How will they get such a huge amount? They know a guy.
Scatter runs a restaurant in town. He bought it with coke money. He has the hook up for the 30 keys, but he's reluctant to give Priest and Eddie the information. You see, Scatter has recently retired from the coke business.
Eventually, he caves and gives them the information.
Can Priest make it out alive?
The soundtrack was performed by Curtis Mayfield. He performs the songs "Superfly" and "Pusherman." Both are really great pieces and they'll stick in your head.
The movie was made with essentially no money, but you can't really tell.
The dialogue is great and it has some great plot twists.
This movie is said to be the reason why blaxploitation films began, so I would be remiss if I didn't talk about this film.
The overall story is VERY good.The movie, however, shows its shoestring budget.
Sweetback is a sex worker. He puts on shows with women while an audience watches and cheers for him.
There has been a murder and the public is clamoring for justice. To appease the public, two detectives talk to Beetle, owner of the whorehouse where Sweetback performs. They ask Beetle for one of his men. They want to bring in someone for appearances' sake. Beetle gives them Sweetback.
While they are on their way to the police station, the two detectives have to help some of their fellow police break up a black demonstration. The detectives arrest a young black man and put him in the car with Sweetback.
The detectives drive to some remote location and begin to beat the young black man. Sweetback can't stand to see it, so he takes a pair of handcuffs and uses them like brass knuckles to beat the detectives to death.
The man is appreciative and asks Sweetback where they're going. "What's this we shit?"
So... Sweetback is on the run. He's trying to get to Mexico. No one will help him. The police would rather kill him instead of trying to bring him back alive.
Can he make it?
So the story is pretty good. The way it's the way it's shot that is very odd. The way it's cut together can be confusing at points and there are times when the dialogue is repeated so much that you just want to stop watching. That point is when the police are questioning Sweetback's family members (later in the movie).
You can fast forward through a lot of the end chase sequence. Don't skip it, but you're not missing any relevant dialogue and seeing him run at high speed makes me laugh.
This movie gave an up-and-coming band a big start. Earth, Wind, and Fire performed for the movie. Melvin Van Peebles (director, producer, writer, star, editor, etc.) didn't have any money to advertise the film. He chose to release an album as a means of promoting the movie. It paid off. The budget was $500,000 and the film made $4.1 million.
I suggest this film to you in a reluctant way. The story is good, but the editing of the film is rather shitty.
The story is good enough to save it and is enough reason for you to see it, but there are elements of the film that really hurt the overall quality of the movie.
Valentine's was uneventful, but maybe this week will pick up. I might go to a concert. More detail on that tomorrow. Don't forget the poll, kids.
This is the sequel to "Dolemite." I'm a big fan of these movies because either they were great parodies of blaxploitation movies at the time. Rudy Ray Moore was a comedian, after all.
Apparently, Dolemite has moved to Alabama (more on that in a little bit). He's set up pretty much the same operation he had in California. It's so similar that the locations are the exact same place (LOL@ budget constraints).
He decides to give his entire house to a preacher in order to start a club for boys (OMFG! MOLESTATION!).
At the party where Dolemite announces his decision, a naked white woman is waiting for him in his bed. Dolemite's the man.
A young white guy and his mother drive by Dolemite's place. They notice that there is a party going on and they are jealous of Dolemite's success. They decide to report the activity to the local sheriff. He's basically racist Santa.
The sheriff and his deputies raid Dolemite's place. They break into a room to find Dolemite having sex with the white woman. Racist Santa is shocked. Not only because it's interracial lovin', but because the woman is his wife. Racist Santa orders his deputy to kill them both. The deputy kills the woman.
Dolemite rolls out of bed, ass shining, and shoots the deputy. He then runs out of the house and jumps down a hill.
Dolemite escapes to California only to find that new problems plague him, Queen Bee, and a huge cast of characters that includes a young Ernie Hudson (OZ, Ghostbusters).
This movie features Dolemite's rhymes, an extremely weird sex scene involving about 4 black guys, a white woman, and a playground slide, great music, lots of kung fu (including a fight with a South American nunchuck champion), car chases that were noticeably sped up, and Rudy Ray Moore's ass.
If that isn't enough to make you want to see this movie, then you are too goddamn demanding.
Someone from GameTrailers.com was nice enough to give me this picture:
