Black Dynamite
(NSFW, contains nudity and sexual references) Goddamn, Black Dynamite looks good. It's hard to imagine this movie not being awesome, if it's anywhere close to what the trailer promises in glorious "anamorphic duovision." Every second of the preview looks great. Movie just sold for $2MM at Sundance, to the jive motherfuckers at Sony. Worth its weight in CIA ghetto smack. This analysis of the essential elements of blaxploitation by the filmmakers is ROFL-arious:
# Stick it to The Man: Black paranoia is usually right in there. There's usually this conspiratorial thing that The Man is plotting your doom. There's a lot of real blaxploitation movies that involve a plot to exterminate black people. It's a constant storyline. In these movies, white people spend 95% of their time coming up with plots against black people.(Thanks, Coop!)# White people by the pool: Every one of those ['70s blaxploitation flicks] depicted white people beside a swimming pool. We actually had that scene, but we cut it. A lot of times they were older character actors.
# The exploding car off a cliff: Cars always exploded for no reason.
# Bad physics: When somebody got shot, they would often fall the wrong direction.
# Random theater actors: You had really terrible actors alongside these theater actors trying to be drug dealers, but they'd over-enunciate everything.
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If the full movie hews as close to the classic blaxploitation movies as that trailer did, with the same tongue in cheek approach, it should be amazing.
It's like Rudy Ray Moore never died. **snerfle**
a) Captain Kangaroo in a Blaxploitation film = WIN!!
b) With our president now being a total stand-up buthah with one hot babe for a wife, and one of the key criticisms of Blaxploitation films in the '70s being the example it set for young African American men (aspire to be a pimp versus a president), this seems like it'll be a nice full-circle kind of a nod to this dogma of the past living in the past... and going into the future with a big phat "screw you, doubters!" heads-held-high smile. :)
@bemopolis, I wonder if "Dynamite" was a nod to "Dolemite"?
@nina, one word: BARACKSPLOITATION.
I just cried a little while watching the trailer, so funny
Chuck Norris could take out Black Dynamite.
How soon will the producers of Nailin' Palin come out with Once You Go Barack, You Never Go Back?
The trailer is encoded at 15fps, so it's all jerky :(
The film nerd in my is angry!
However, the content looks amazing and I can't wait for it to hit Australian shores (probably via a film festival or DVD import rather than any sort of cinema release).
This might have been a lot funnier a decade ago... It just seems to be a cultural laggard.
I'm unsurprised that Sony snapped it up like that. They jumped on The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, too. ;)
It just seems to be a cultural laggard.
When done well, blaxploitation, like Jane Austen, is never out of date.
If it lives up to the trailer... (and the buzz says it is so)
Something to look forward to, and hopefully to get Utoob nibbles of as we wait for release.
You gonna wake up the resta tha bitches!
Gosh Damn!! I can't wait for this to make sweet lovin' to the theaters.
No way that's actually Captain Kangaroo. Didn't he die in about 1979?
I so want to see this. But how can they make any money if they sell it for $2 million? Doesn't it cost a lot more than that to make a movie?
Folks on AICN and JoBlo.com gleefully report from Sundance that the movie fully lives up to the amazing trailer. And yes, all of the "elements of blaxploitation" are in it, including a boom mic that wanders into shots and audibly hits Black Dynamite in the afro.
@Nina
Regarding Barack Obama, check out the following link and click on the 3rd video...
http://www.blackdynamite.com/media/videos
@ Joe in Australia,
Not when you're using $5000 cars and $100 suits!
(my fav. line)
I LOVE the fact that he is actually named and addressed "Black Dynamite".
Don't forget the cheesy music and "black speak".
Wow. Wow!!!
Damn smack! Talk back! Butt crack! Amtrak! Guaranteeeeed to put yo ass in traction!
WANT.
All I can say is long live Rudy Ray Moore.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/21/local/me-moore21
I'm sure an advanced screening of:
Dolemite
Dolemite II The Human Tornado
Shaolin Dolemite
will make more of the references in Black Dynamite recognizable.
Two million? A steal. Makers must be getting some sweet royalties.
This looks awesome. I lol'd, literally.
It really does look funny....but you have been Bamboozled.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboozled
Sounds like there is some great music in this movie.
I noticed quite a few 1970's KPM Library Studios music.
The very first song you hear is "Base Line" by Syd Dale. Here is the song in it's entirity to listen to.....
http://www.divshare.com/download/6364988-7d4
great great music.
@Keeper Yeah, it's a look alike. Bob Keeshan--the real Cap'n as well as Clarabelle from Howdy Doody--died in 2004.
http://www.americanprofile.com/asset/file/art/58/19758/87y388.jpg
If that pic ain't pimp, I don't know what is.
Looks great. Michael Jai White and porn stars making real film debuts, it can't go wrong. And if there is no cameo by Snoop or Andre 3000 I will like it even more.
Or Don Juan the Magic Wand! Although he's sort of a product of the original stock, as this is.
RE: Rudy Ray Moore, here's an interwebs classic: Back in 2000, gamer celeb Sean Baby accompany Old Man Murray's Erik and Chet (now writers at Valve) on a kind of vision quest to find the blaxploitation hero. Being gamers, they also seek to enlist his support in their war against snob game designer Roberta Williams. Don't ask, just read:
http://www.seanbaby.com/cleveland/part2.html
AGH! I was at Sundance and waited in line FOREVER to see this. We actually purchased tickets in the wait line. . .only to be told there was no room left :( At least it's getting some press though, I'd be sad if I never got to see it.
also missed out on the "fight smack in the orphanage" free shirts. such a crappy day!
Michael Jai White and porn stars making real film debuts
Are you suggesting that Universal Soldier: The Return, The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie and Undisputed II: Last Man Standing aren't real films? Michael Jai White's filmography has more colons in it than the Museum of Gastroenterolgy's specimen room.
# White people by the pool: Every one of those ['70s blaxploitation flicks] depicted white people beside a swimming pool. We actually had that scene, but we cut it. A lot of times they were older character actors.
But they put that scene in the trailer anyway, not that I'm complaining.
Actually, Black Dynamite is responsible for making "Barry" President:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2raHizWcapY
Also, I've seen lots of crappy parodies and satires. Holy crap has comedy film gone down the tubes. But if this film can live up to the trailer... It's like a new Airplane...
I just want to go on record as saying I encourage giving Michael Jai White as much film work as possible. Because he is chock full of awesome.
Cut my man MJW some slack, he had a significant role in *Dark Knight*:
http://www.blackvoices.com/blogs/2008/07/14/michael-jai-white-talks-the-dark-knight-and-working-with-heath/
I like Michael Jai White, although maybe not in a way that he could enthusiastically reciprocate.
Yep, the big giveaway to the bogus Captain Kangaroo was the width of the white striping on his red suit, which is 3 times wider than the real Captain had.
Thing is, more cheese does not a better pizza make.
I don't know why the hell I just said that.
^When I said ^
"Michael Jai White and porn stars making real film debuts"
I meant to say
"Michael Jai White, and porn stars making real film debuts" (with a comma)
Because I liked him in Spawn, and then in Undisputed 2. I'm trying to get people to call me "White Michael Jai" but I gotta hit the gym for a couple of years first.
The drug czar's best dealer is a guy in a powdered donut suit? Awesome.
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