except this movie. Looking at this movie today it really is so contrived. But, I guess it's not fair to judge this movie from today's standards. I never got the point of it. Apples and Oranges. And if a black person woke up one morning and was white what whould happen? Would it be the opposite of everything in this movie? I thought it was very silly and pointless. But, that's my opinion.
Watermelon Man
This movie was funny from start to finish. It was like watching Archie Bunker from All in the Family.
Interesting..
Very interesting take on life in the 60's (film relased in 1970). Of course before those times it was worse! Today some would say it's an exaggeration. A white man wakes up one morning and discovers he's turned into a black man overnight. Of course he is suddenly treated differently at home and work as he tries to scrubb off his color. He's accused of theft and refused admission to certain places. Keep in mind he'd been making some off-color jokes about blacks. Some parts are quite realistic. Who wouldn't wish they were white if they work up with dark skin and kinky hair the next morning, after being a white bigot the day before?. His wife didn't want to sleep with him after almost begging him for intimacy the day before. A co-worker wanted to see if the myth was true...then cried rape when she was rejected. Yes it happens. They are able to turn on you quickly when they've used your race for their purpose. Some parts are realisic and funny and it's not a bad comedy for a film made in that time...note, for a film made during it's time.
This story is a strong representation of a book that captured the imagination of many urban African Americans in the late 1960s. The U.S. and local governments were actively moving against Black Americans in the same spirit as U.S. governments now move to implement Homeland Security. The movie and the book that it is based on reflect the reality based paranoia that many educated African Americans experienced. The Spook who sat by the Door is not meant to be realistic about how successful Black revolution was. It portrayed the narrowed range of realistic alternatives that African Americans face when your govenment has declared war on its own minorities. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Ivan Dixon DVD Release Date: Released the 27 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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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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Based on Chester Himes's novel, this film marked actor-writer Ossie Davis's directing debut. Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques play Himes's volatile police detectives, Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, who are on the trail of white men who pulled an armed stickup at a Back to Africa rally in Harlem. The money belongs to the poor people who paid for a chance to return to the motherland--but was it really a stickup? Or is the flashy preacher at the center of the Back to Africa movement (Calvin Lockhart) involved in a scam to rip off his own people? The plot drags; the best part of the film are the performances (as well as spotting cameos by such actors as the then-unknown Cleavon Little) and the on-location shooting in parts of New York where a camera had rarely ventured... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Godfrey Cambridge - Raymond St. Jacques Director(s): Ossie Davis DVD Release Date: Released the 26 December 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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If you're looking for a movie that shocked the filmgoing public with its outspoken take on race relations in corporate America circa 1969, look no further than this Robert Downey debut effort. Made on a shoestring in black and white, this film begins with a wonderful moment of racial discomfort. The board of directors at a Madison Avenue ad agency must elect a new chairman, and, in the maneuvering to make sure that enemies don't get votes, all the board members accidentally cast their ballot for the board's token black man, Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson). Swope immediately cleans house and transforms the agency into New York's hippest shop with a Black Power mentality and a willingness to tell previously unspoken truths in advertising. Though it looks dated today, it is a fascinating time... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Arnold Johnson Director(s): Robert Downey Sr. DVD Release Date: Released the 22 May 2001 Usually ships within 24 hours
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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... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Mario Van Peebles - Joy Bryant - Ossie Davis - Nia Long Director(s): Mario Van Peebles DVD Release Date: Released the 14 September 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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