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DVD Baadasssss
Baadasssss! is actor-writer-director Mario Van Peebles's best film since 1991's New Jack City; more accurately, it is a mature and often dazzling work beyond previous expectations of Van Peebles' skills as a filmmaker. Certainly he was inspired by the autobiographical subject: The making of his father's 1971, independently produced Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, in which young Mario made his acting debut amidst a frantic, high-pressure operation that paid off when African American audiences embraced the film. Playing his ownhard-nosed dad, Melvin Van Peebles, the younger talent explores--honestly, but not ruthlessly--Melvin's rocky relationship with an ever-disappointed Mario (played by Holes' Khleo Thomas), but he also portrays the elder man as a stubborn idealist against a backdrop of Hollywood cynicism about black entertainment. The film is a whirlwind of action and innovative scenes recreating personal history but without the insistent discursiveness of memory. With Nia Long, Ossie Davis, and Saul Rubinek. --Tom Keogh
Most cinephiles will tell you that, as a rule, the making of any good film isn't fun, but a lot of pain and hard work. The topic of writer-director Mario Van Peebles' Baadassss! is the making of another film, Melvin Van Peebles 1971 blaxploitation "classic" Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song. If the aforementioned rule meant that a film that was made through hard work was automatically good, then Sweetback would have certainly ranked up on the charts with Citizen Kane. Sweetback was made with so much difficulty that most men would have given up before pre-production was finished, but Melvin Van Peebles, as portrayed by his son Mario, had a fiery, singular determination to get his film made that no price was too much to pay.
At the start of the film, Melvin is a director fresh off of directing the racially charged comedy Watermelon Man. He almost immediately decides to direct an action film, "serious as cancer," about a black man who fights corrupt white cops, and, gasp, gets away in the end! While today it is hard to imagine an action film without a positive black character, in 1971 this was a pretty radical notion. Unable to secure funding from the studio, Melvin is forced to solicit money independently, another taboo at the time. Between having next to no cash, inexperienced actors and crew, and a decidedly hostile reception from investors and theater owners, Melvin is pushed to a physical and mental breaking point, struggling to not only complete the film, but to make sure it is seen. One of the film's most interesting and trying moments is when Melvin discovers only two theaters in the entire country are interested in screening his film.
It is an achievement on Mario Van Peebles part that he is able to play Melvin in such a way that we still root for him to succeed. Melvin stomps around the set, barking orders at his overworked and mismatched crew, deferring any and all complaints with the cringe-inducing line "this is bigger than all of us." When most of the crew gets thrown into jail on bogus charges, Melvin refuses to bail them out, once again citing the film. He bounces a $500.00 check to the band Earth, Wind, and Fire. Worst of all, in a scene that reflects what must still be bitter feelings, Melvin orders his son to act in a sex scene. When the young Mario asks what he'll be wearing, Melvin nonchalantly answers "Nothing, this is a sex scene." Most true artists would go to extreme lengths to finish what they see as their life's work, though when Melvin puts his teenage son in a scene that borders on pornographic, the characters and the audience have to collectively wonder if the man is of sound mind.
Baadasssss! is so poignant because of its willingness to honestly explore the making of a film by a man that refuses to give up. Melvin doesn't take joy in being a bastard, but it may be the only way to finish his dream picture. When he chants the line about the film being bigger than him or his crew, we can tell that he believes every word of it, and Van Peebles suggests that Melvin may have been right. With that fiery, singular determination, Melvin is able to make it work. Sweetback may have been a corny action picture with a now dated message, but with Baadassss!, Van Peebles makes a much better film than his father could have dreamed of.
This was great!
There is only one thing to say about this movie and that's THIS IS BAD ASS! As a black filmmaker myself and to see people of color breaking down the stereotypes is great to see. It's not about race but about someone bleeding for their art and to change images in the media. The making of the original movie that this movie was about, Sweet Sweet Badassess Song, was about bringing different cultures together to make a relevent movie which was something they didn't do back then. Melvin Van Pepples set out to change that and he did, and this movie shows the struggles of an artist making his art and in the process helping people grow.
Van Peebles delivers a true and unforgettable experience
Mario Van Peebles (New Jack City) stars as his father Melvin Van Peebles who wanted to make a movie called Sweet Sweetbacks' Badasssss Song and he puts everything on the line. He even has a distant relationship with his son. In the movie, Melvin casts his own son, who was like 12 or 13 in a scene where he loses his virginity to a hooker. There's no joking or kidding around in this movie people, Mario embodies his father and breathes his air all throughout this giving us a performance of no holds barred truth. Mario lived threw all of this and his father had a dream and it worked and it paved the way for other films, like Shaft. Also starring David Alan Grier (In Living Color), Adam West (Batman), Nia Long (Boiler Room), Terry Crewes (Friday After Next), Saul Rubinek (True Romance), Troy Garity (Bandits), Abe Vigoda (Underworld (1996)), Vincent Schivalli (The People Vs. Larry Flynt), Paul Rodriguez (Blood Work), Ossie Davis (Get On The Bus) and Khelo Thomas (Holes) as young Mario Van Peebles. A fascinating story about one man's dream.
Raw, jagged, and explosively angry, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a landmark in American independent cinema. Melvin Van Peebles directed, wrote, produced, edited, scored, and stars as Sweetback, a passive bouncer raised in a brothel. Shot guerrilla style on a starvation budget on the streets of Los Angeles, it's a violent tale of Sweetback's journey from passive acceptance to political awareness and active defiance. He becomes the target of a manhunt when he kills two cops who beat up a young black activist, and he bounces from hideout to hideout before running for the border, all the while getting more booty than Shaft and Superfly put together. The movie was so inflammatory by conservative industry standards that it was "Rated X by an All White Jury," which the ads proudly... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Melvin Van Peebles Director(s): Melvin Van Peebles DVD Release Date: Released the 14 January 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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In a long and varied career, She Hate Me is easily one of Spike Lee's most unusual films. On the one hand, it's a drama. On the other, it's a comedy. Then there's the structure: a crazy quilt made up out of several different stories. Even the style is a patchwork incorporating animation and pseudo-documentary--in the vein of Lee's 1986 hit She's Gotta Have It. It all revolves around one John Henry "Jack" Armstrong (8 Mile's Anthony Mackie), a successful executive at a biotech company much like ImClone (the one that brought Martha Stewart down). When Jack blows the whistle and loses his job, ex-fiancée Fatima (Ray's Kerry Washington), who left him for another woman, offers the now-penniless Jack $10,000 to impregnate her. All goes well, so they set up... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Anthony Mackie - Kerry Washington - Ellen Barkin Director(s): Spike Lee DVD Release Date: Released the 01 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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When a movie can blend passionate social concern with good old-fashioned suspense, it must be doing something right. Maria Full of Grace scores high on both counts. Maria is a Colombian teenager who, for a large paycheck, agrees to be a mule for drug-runners: she has to swallow dozens of thumb-sized capsules of heroin and smuggle them into New York. This debilitating process is painstakingly described, and of course not everything goes as planned when Maria and her fellow mules land in America. Director Joshua Marston is working on a low budget, which explains the film's narrow, single-minded focus--but this may be a strength, not a weakness. The trump card is the lead performance of Catalina Sandrino Moreno, who won awards at the Seattle and Newport Film Festivals. Her empathetic... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Catalina Sandino Moreno - Guilied Lopez - Orlando Tobon Director(s): Joshua Marston DVD Release Date: Released the 07 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Solidly built around a subtle yet commanding performance by Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda emerged as one of the most highly-praised dramas of 2004. In a role that demands his quietly riveting presence in nearly every scene, Cheadle plays real-life hero Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in the Rwandan capital of Kigali who in 1994 saved 1,200 Rwandan "guests" from certain death during the genocidal clash between tribal Hutus, who slaughtered a million victims, and the horrified Tutsis, who found safe haven or died. Giving his best performance since his breakthrough role in Devil in a Blue Dress, Cheadle plays Rusesabagina as he really was during the ensuing chaos: "an expert in situational ethics" (as described by critic Roger Ebert), doing what he morally had to do, at... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Don Cheadle - Sophie Okonedo Director(s): Terry George DVD Release Date: Released the 12 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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What a great treat to find so many beloved icons in Isaac Julien's excellent documentary about blaxploitation cinema: actors Pam Grier, Fred Williamson, and Gloria Hendry, among others, as well as directors Gordon Parks and Melvin Van Peebles. Through their piercing perspectives, plus commentary by the likes of film critic Elvis Mitchell and (of course) cult aficionado and filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, Baadasssss Cinema makes a persuasive argument that 1970s blaxploitation was both an American achievement and a temporary fix for Hollywood's then-economic doldrums. Julien gracefully leads viewers on a tour of blaxploitation's aesthetic and social roots, including a desire by African American audiences to see black protagonists stand up to power. Baadasssss Cinema also explains... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Isaac Julien DVD Release Date: Released the 28 January 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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