Cult Sci Fi Movies The Boy In The Bubble Peachtree' title='Cult Sci Fi Movies The Boy In The Bubble Peachtree' />Separate Cinema Blaxploitation. Blaxploitation is a term coined in the early 1. Bollywood Thriller Movies Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest. Featuring African American actors in lead roles and often having anti establishment plots, the films were frequently condemned for stereotypical characterization and glorification of violence. Critics of the films saw them as morally bankrupt and as portraying black actors in the most negative way. However, not everyone in the black community agreed as they provided black audiences with cinematic heroes up on the silver screen in a more honest portrayal of urban life unseen in most Hollywood pictures prior to that time. It is important to note that Blaxploitation arose at a critical juncture for the Hollywood film industry. The 1. 96. 0s were a turbulent time in American race relations, and the civil rights movement exploded into the national consciousness. As the decade wore on, cries of Black Power were heard from the ghettos across America, and it became increasingly difficult for Hollywood studios to ignore black society. While black political activists battled in the courtrooms and the streets for the end of segregation, for voting rights, and for equal rights, black filmmakers and actors began to infiltrate Hollywood. By the late 1. 96. Hollywood studios were still reeling from the profound effects of a two decade old Justice Department lawsuit that involved their profitable theater monopolies. Combined with the insurgence of television, and the drop in audience popularity for The Musical the film industry was losing millions of dollars, forcing many to face the distinct prospect of bankruptcy. The civil rights movement and some bad luck for Hollywood studios would come together at just the right moment and Blaxploitation would be born. Enter Melvin Van Peebles, the first modern day folk hero of black cinema. As writer, producer, director, soundtrack composer, and star, he lit the fuse of Blaxploitation in 1. Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song. Shot on a miniscule budget in little more than two weeks, the film and its provocative depiction of a black man fighting the system, and winning, understandably struck a chord with African American audiences around the country. That the film was rated X by an all white jury only helped the film and by the end of 1. Sweetback had grossed 1. Sweet Sweetback may have been credited with kicking off the genre, but MGMs release of Shaft, a few months later, probably set a more precise blueprint for all the movies that would follow. Making Shaft was a huge gamble for MGM, a once prestigious studio Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz that had fallen on incredibly dire times. Blaxploitation is a term coined in the early 1970s to refer to black action films that were aimed at black audiences. Featuring AfricanAmerican actors in lead roles. Before director James Gunn hit the big time with Guardians of the Galaxy, he helmed this delightfully disgusting Bmovie, a scifi horror comedy taking place in the. Taking a risk, they hired Gordon Parks, who had been the first black mainstream Hollywood director with The Learning Tree 1. Richard Roundtree in the movie that would ultimately rescue MGM from financial ruin and receive an Oscar for Isaac Hayes enduring score. Shaft provided audiences with a sexy, practically omnipotent hero, in the style of a Black James Bond, and his precarious balancing act between the white world and the ghetto. Viewers ate it up and the film quickly grossed 1. The success of Sweet Sweetback and Shaft came just as Hollywood fully realized the power of the black ticket buying public, which accounted for more than thirty percent of the box office in major cities and quickly seized upon the potential profitability of the new formula. Blaxploitation films, most notably the independently produced Super Fly. Cult Sci Fi Movies The Boy In The Bubble ' title='Cult Sci Fi Movies The Boy In The Bubble ' />Directed by Gordon Parks Jr. Curtis Mayfield, Super Fly took living the life a term used to describe an urban existence which revolves around drugs, sex, pimps, gambling and guns to the extreme by making a cocaine drug dealer Ron Oneal its protagonist and center of focus. Through 1. 97. 6, an estimated 2. Blaxploitation feature films were produced with the range of stories as varied as mainstream action films. Film Top 25 Quotes from Office Space I dont like my job and I dont think Ill go anymore. Luc Besson returns to the realm of scifi, serving up an expansive, expensive adventure whose creativity outweighs its more uneven elements. Blue Oyster Cult Columbia 1972. Echoey drums way off in the background, slithery but sleazy rock and roll wankoff guitar lines with a touch of menace, a bass player. However, action, gratuitous violence, and guns were the underlying element in all of them and most used a black versus white dichotomy as the defining element. Every available genre was plundered in an attempt to re hash old movie plots and ideas. There were horror variations Blacula and Abby, gangster tales Black Caesar and Book of Numbers, crime melodramas Cool Breeze and Hit Man, kung fu fests Black Belt Jones and Black Samurai, excursions in a sci fizombie vein Sugar Hill and J. D. s Revenge, even black westerns Boss Nigger and Thomasine and Bushrod. Notwithstanding, the weaknesses of clich ridden, and low budget formula movies themselves, the Blaxploitation era did succeed in creating its own stars. Ex football players like Jim Brown and Fred The Hammer Williamson fit the bill perfectly. It wasnt all macho, misogynistic posturing either. Cult Sci Fi Movies The Boy In The Bubble MeaningThe voluptuous Amazonian figures of Pam Grier and Tamara Dobson led the female charge as a gun totin, revenge seeking, super mamas who flaunted their sexuality with hard hitting films like Coffy, Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones. The one consistent ingredient underneath it all was the brilliant music, which, whether coming from James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield or Isaac Hayes, added an element of depth and sophistication. Blaxploitation movies proved that black actors possessed a strong box office appeal and despite many of the films being written, directed, and produced by white Hollywood, black audiences finally saw the recognition African American actors, directors and writers deserved, and fought for, since the early days of silent film. But, by the mid 1. Blaxploitation began to bloom. The studios received considerable criticism from black pressure groups, including the NAACP, for the negative stereotypes featured in most of the genres movies that were eroding the positive role models and reinforcing white prejudices about black culture. Audiences had also tired of the industrys cheap, endless re workings of the crime action ghetto formula. Within a year production pretty much stopped dead, ironically putting the black actors and technicians who had fought so hard to get into the movie business back out of work. The boom was over and Blaxploitations popularity declined as quickly as it rose. In retrospect, Blaxploitation and the legacy it left behind have been acknowledged as a positive contribution to African American film history. Cult Sci Fi Movies The Boy In The Bubble PlasticThe emergence of young black actors like Eddie Murphy in the early 1. Hollywood movie. Since then, a succession of black actors and directors among them Denzel Washington, Samuel L Jackson, Will Smith, Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett, Halle Berry, Spike Lee, John Singleton, Bill Duke, Robert Townsend, Mario Van Peebles have succeeded in establishing themselves as big box office draws, confirming that the achievements of their antecedents like Fred Williamson, Richard Roundtree, and Pam Grier were not in vain. The Phantom May Be the Most Eager to Please Superhero Movie to Ever Wear Spandex. In the 1. 99. 0s, between The Rocketeer, The Shadow, and The Phantom, standalone, retro styled comics films had a moment. Only one, however, featured Billy Zane galloping through the streets of New York City on horseback while wearing a skintight purple unitard. Its hard to argue with anything so cheerfully corny. The Phantom came out in 1. It suffered from being too similar to the movies thatd come just before and from coming out in a year where the big action movies were Independence Day, Twister, The Rock, and Mission Impossible. In comparison to the cutting edge special effects on display in those films, The Phantom looks downright old fashioned. Its plot is old fashioned, too, keeping faith with its source materiala comic strip thats been appearing in newspapers since 1. The comic had some big name fans who circled the adaptation, including the legendary Sergio Leone, Gremlins director Joe Dante, and Batman Robins Joe Schumacher. The gig eventually went to Australian director Simon Wincer, whod hit big in 1. Free Willy. He also made the 1. Tom Selleck Aussie Western Quigley Down Under, which is perhaps a more relevant credit. In The Phantom, the year is 1. Indiana Jones outran a boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Phantom owes a lot to the Indiana Jones series in certain ways, right from the opening act, which begins as a trio of bad guys and a native kid theyve pressed into service as a guide cross a rickety swinging bridge to steal a priceless, supernaturally charged silver skull. The subsequent action sceneslots of derring do on airplane wings, horseback acrobatics, hand to hand combat, shipboard rescues, and clever escapesalso tip their hat to Dr. Jones. But despite the timeline, The Phantom is completely given over to fantasy. No Nazis here. Just a guy who inherited his secret identity from his father and, like, hangs out in a treasure filled cave waiting to fight any villains who might stumble into Bengalla, the nebulously located but vaguely Southeast Asian island that hes sworn to protect. Hes buddies with the indigenous people, who regard him as a folk hero hes also pals with the head of the British jungle patrol that occupies the island. Its a weird conflict of interest that the movie never addresses. Instead of worrying about cultural inappropriateness, or, uh, plot logic, The Phantom instead keeps its focus on light hearted adventure. As Kit The Phantom Walker, Billy Zanein his cheesy beefcake prime here, just a year before he turned scoundrel for Titanicis not exactly the most fascinating hero around. The fact that hes a superhero without any real superpowers unless a pet wolf counts makes him marginally more appealing, though the stakes are never he might die high. Unlike Batman or Superman, the Phantoms not really well known outside the funny pages. No doubt comic creator Lee Falk spent a lot of time crafting the character, who existed for 6. The Phantom movie spends the length of its prologue explaining its protagonists multi generational backstory, but theres not much depth beyond that. A movie made today would contain, at the very least, a flashback to Kit ascending to Phantom hood when his father is killed. Maybe wed learn who his mother was, and how she played a part in his life. Instead, we get just his father in ghost form Patrick Mc. Goohan, popping up in random places to tut tut him and give him guidance. Theres something to be said for a superhero movie that isnt an origin storybut a little more context wouldve gone a long way toward anchoring the story. Shallow though it may be, though, The Phantom is breezily entertainingand you can tell that most everyone involved knew they werent reinventing the wheel. It also has certain flashes of flair that are pretty obviously why its become something of a cult favorite. The three main supporting characters, in particular, do a lot to bulk up the films paper thin story about secret pirate brotherhoods and magical skulls. As mustachioed antagonist Xander Draxthe character spells it out at one point, making sure we notice it begins and ends with an X, for reasons only he knowsTreat Williams is clearly having the best time. Who wouldnt, if they got to play an eyeball stabbing, artifact looting, wannabe world dominating, dapper yet evil businessmanKristy Swanson, so often cast as an airhead, gets to play Diana, the no nonsense love interest who a figures out that Kit is the Phantom, which nobody else ever manages to do and b takes a raincheck on romance by leaving him behind at the end, even though nobody refuses the Phantom. She also punches a bunch of dudes and gets to wear pants throughout the entire movie. Even better, though, is a pre Mask of Zorro Catherine Zeta Jones, who slithers in to play the only character who actually has an arc the glamorous Sala, who commands an awesomely cool squad of lady air pirates. She realizes halfway through the movie that being a mean girl sucksand that she should really be helping the good guys instead. The Phantom is not without flaws. Its got that deliberately retro thing going on, in its 1. But its also got that 2. Phantom dwells alongsidehavent aged so well. The people of Bengalla supposedly chose Kits ancestor to be their avenger and are therefore the reason hes got a superhero mantle at all, but aside from Kits Alfred Pennyworth equivalent and the little kid he saves at the beginning, the islanders are basically treated as set dressing. Its not good and its also a side effect of The Phantoms frantic urge to compact anything resembling exposition in favor of swinging from ropes, sword fighting, flinging pirates into shark infested waters, etc. The Phantom isnt here to illuminate anything about the human condition or even the condition of its characters. It just wants to please and have fun. Logic be damned. This is a movie that sends its jungle dwelling, leotard wearing hero to New York City makes careful mention of the fact that he attended college there, which suggests he must have some degree of smarts and then has him pay an incredulous cab driver with a pocket full of jewels, because thats the only thing of value he bothered to bring with him. Its ridiculous, and it pulls you out of the movie to ask yourself, Wait. Itd be very easy to ding The Phantom for the many WTF moments like this one, butlike Billy Zanes campy performanceits too goofy and earnest to hate it. Look, if you want darkness, gloom, existential pain, and cynicism, there are a zillion other superhero movies you could watch instead. Or you could have a blast with the movie that decided to bring you this.