Carl Bessai picks his favourite blaxploitation flicks

    1 of 5 2 of 5

      He's better known for actorly exercises like 2011's Sister & Brothers, but Carl Bessai has his dirtbag side. The local filmmaker unleashed his blaxploitation spoof Bad City last year, and with a special screening lined up at the Rio Theatre tonight (May 15), we asked Mr. Bessai (aka The Man) to hip us to his fave picks from the weird world of soul cinema. Dude's got good taste for a jive-ass honky.

      Superfly

      "For me, this is the all time greatest blaxploitation film… it’s got it all… funky clothes, plenty of drugs, terrible camera work… stills photo montages… the works—and the hair!! my god, the hair...  It is also the greatest soundtrack album ever by Curtis Mayfield—pure gold… it just doesn’t get any better than this.  Needless to say, we ripped off plenty from this diamond mine of 70’s cinema."

      Shaft

      "The films that got it all going… with its endless, hopeless, eternal zoom shots… it’s super funky soundtrack that just crackles on the screen, and the heroic Richard Roundtree—what a screen presence!… from the very first F-word, and flash of his middle finger, Shaft is a bad ass black dude carving out his space in a white white world… cheesy voices tell us from the get go… he is sticking up for his brother… again, a tradition that was heavily raided for Bad City, except using mostly white folks, eh..."

       

      Black Dynamite

      "This isn’t altogether fair, as this film is a modern reboot of a classic genre…It was a close shave with Black Sampson (authentically period and earnestly, laughably terrible as well, but in a good way…) but I went with Black Dynamite because it plays for so much humour and absurdity albeit intentionally.  

      BD: I’m crackin’ down on anyone sellin’ drugs in this community…

      Dealer/best friend: But Black Dynamite… I sell drugs in this community…’  

      Gun battle ensues.  Cinematic Gold!

      Bad City screens at the Rio Theatre tonight (May 15) at 6:30pm, with Carl Bessai, co-writers-actors Dustin Milligan and Aaron Brooks, and actress Amanda Crew in attendance.

       

       

      Comments