Yeah yeah, mama. Now you could hit the sheets or the streets, it don’t make me no never mind. Now that’s your bag baby, you can go, or you could come. Can you dig it?
After Tarantino and Rodriguez gave us the Grindhouse double feature Planet Terror and Death Proof in 2007, I thought for sure there’d be a whole rash of late-night, back-room splatter n’ ass flicks saturating the screens, but no one else really hopped on that ol’ time B movie midnight train, which is a shame really, because they are some of the most fun you’ll ever have at the movies. However, blaxploitation films have seen their share of attention ever since their glory days in the 70s, mostly as spoofs, and Michael Jai White, Byron Minns, and Scott Sanders have stepped up to the throwback plate and penned one of the best in recent years. I’m talking about the delicious, ridiculous, outta sight, boogie lovin’, bad-ass blaxploitation gem Black Dynamite!
Posted by Jeff on Apr 24 2010 in Movies
Tags: '70s, Black Belt Jones, Black Dynamite, blaxploitation, Byron Minns, chicken and waffles, Death Proof, Dolemite, dope, Dr. Wu, funk, ghetto, Grindhouse, Hammer, jive, killing, kung-fu, malt liquor, Michael Jai White, pimp, Planet Terror, righteousness, Rodriguez, Roscoe, Scott Sanders, Shaft, smack, spoof, streets, Tarantino, the man, tribute, Tricky Dick, Trouble Man, war, White House
We’re out the other day, the wife and I, and we happen across a bin of two-for DVDs on sale. If you’ve never rummaged through a bargain DVD bin before, I suggest you do it the next time you come across one, because that is where you’ll find the only movies worth watching, movies that were never really made at all, but born in that bin, deep down, sheltered from artificial light, waiting for you to come along and release their awesomely bad power. Now, lucky for us we scored some pretty sweet finds, including George Lucas’ first ever movie, THX 1138, Blade Runner (director’s cut, of course), and some whimsical cartoon, The Last Unicorn, that will no doubt be magically awesome if watched under the proper influences. But the real treasure we unearthed that day was a movie I had only ever heard about through various underground sources or read about on various underground web sites. Then there it was, its cover so desirable, so becoming, so fantastic, so absolute, no red-blooded man or woman could resist its lure. I’m talking, of course, about Tokyo Shock’s The Machine Girl (2008).
You know, I really didn’t have much hope for The Last House on the Left, the 2009 remake (or rather, adaptation) of Wes Craven’s 1972 film of the same name, because remakes are, for the most part, unoriginal, money-making film fodder. And I thought that my hopelessness was indeed going to prove true after watching the first five minutes of this movie and having to digest the terrible cop/criminal dialogue that takes place therein. Add on to that the usual isolated house in the woods location (where, of course, cell phones don’t work), a big storm on the horizon, the convenience of the father’s occupation as a surgeon (who better to exact torturous revenge?), the convenience of the daughter’s skills as a swimmer (who better to escape from the killers’ grasp by the lake?), and…well, you get the idea. However, my hopelessness quickly turned to complete and utter uncomfortable interest as this movie went on. By the end, I was disgusted…and pleased.