A Soulful Halloween List

 

 

Blacula/Scream, Blacula Scream. There were variations on Dracula, Frankenstein, and Werewolves but The Blacula duo was the best of the bunch.  The casting was good the stories made sense and they didn’t degrade Black people.  I would love to see a remake of these bad boys!

 

Abby/J.D.’s Revenge. Both of these movies are about good people being possessed by spirits. Although they had great casting they were in some ways weak.  William Marshall tried to uplift Abby by adding elements of African spirituality into the story.   J.D.’s Revenge was horror story with a moral.

 

Sugar Hill.  Before they were borged, zombies were an African diasporic storyline.  Most of the time they featured a voodoo priest or in this case priestess that controlled them for a purpose that could be good or bad.  In this case it was a priestess to strike back at the criminals that killed her man.

 

Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde.  This variation on the Robert Louis Stevenson story had a sympathetic lead that was trying to find a cure for a liver disease and volunteers to work in a Free Clinic.  This movie was directed by William Crain who also directed Blacula.

 

Son of Ingagi. This is the first ‘monster’ movie to feature an all Black cast.  That means that the hero was Black and not running around with bus eyes saying feet don’t fail me now.  It was written by Spencer Williams who went on to be a leader in producing what was known as “race movies”.

 

Cosmic Slop.   Like a P-Funk Twilight Zone because the stories were introduced by George Clinton’s floating head.  Although that was a bit corny the stories were pertinent. The main problem was that it was sometimes as subtle as a hammer – but the stories were only about 30 minutes so that’s excusable.  This was a Hudlin Brothers work.

 

Tales from the Hood.  This is an anthology of horror that weaves the supernatural with political realities which adds to the strengths of this movie.  It features racist cops versus zombies and gang bangers versus mad scientists!? This was produced by Spike’s 40 Acres and A Mule and directed by Rusty Cundieff.

 

Def by Temptation.  An underrated movie directed by James Bond III that featured Kareem Hardison from A Different World; Bill Nunn from a number of Spike Lee joints, and Samuel L. Jackson it is about an urban succubus.  It strikes a balance of fright and comedy it is another horror story that deals with gender issues.

 

Thriller.  Hey this music video was better than a hundred so called movies.  It had great effects a decent story and the most unexpected rapper of all time.

 

Blade.   It can be argued that there wouldn’t have been The Avengers, X-Men, or Spiderman franchise without Blade.  The Blade series was better than Daredevil/Electra, Ghost Rider, and The Funky Four. The success of first movie led to a Guillermo Del Toro directed sequel which was the best of the series.  Unfortunately, the third movie was just plain Green Lantern bad.

 

Ganja and Hess.  It has great acting by Duane Jones and Marlene Clark.  A very slow moving blaxplotation crossed with an art house type of a vampire movie.  You have to sit and watch this one Hess becomes a vampire after being stabbed by his assistant with an infected dagger.  This movie is much more than a ‘monster movie’ and if you see it make sure you catch the director’s cut. It is one of  the heaviest vampire movies you will ever see.

Black Reel Registry of Honor

The Board for the Foundation for the Advancement of African American in Film (FAAAF) has just announced that they have established a Black Reel Registry of Honor to recognize five films per year that are culturally and historically significant. For those of you that don’t know, the FAAAF has been sponsoring The Black Reel Awards since 2000.  For the new registry there are fifty nominees (I have seen 43).

I would put the emphasis on movies that are not so well known because they were produced, directed, and written by Blacks. It doesn’t seem right to honor movies that were edited to southern sensibilities BEFORE we honored movies that were produced and directed by Blacks. It also seems wrong to honor movies that essentially co-opted and destroyed the African-American film industry when it became known that a profit could be made from them – besides those movies are known and are recognized.

The following films I dropped – Beverly Hills Cop, 48 Hours, Lillies of the Field, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Blackboard Jungle, Anna Lucasta, Porgy and Bess, Stormy Weather, Pinky, and The Green Pastures, and In The Heat of the Night. I like most of them – a lot, but I feel that especially in the inaugural list that the films should be as Black as possible. A lot of them are Sidney films but he gets in The First Class for A Raisin in the Sun, and possibly Uptown Saturday Night. Most of these films are or have been recognized by the public and various entertainment bodies anyway.

There were some startling omissions – I think that some films like Cotton Comes to Harlem the first film directed by Ossie Davis, drawn from the works of Chester Himes a Black author, and a primarily Black cast. Another gross omission was Ousmane Sembène and his film Black Girl (La Noire de…) or Xala.

I’m not sure what the exact criteria for nomination was – for example, if it is to recognize African-American film why are Black Orpheus and Sugar Cane Alley listed?  These are the five that I would pick from the list that was released. With that being said, looking at the list of fifty, these are my selections:

Within Our Gates, any inaugural would have to include the first African-American filmmaker. It’s the oldest existing Black film and it’s done by Oscar Micheaux. It is sometimes called an answer to The Birth of a Nation.

A Raisin In the Sun, Written by a Black woman, starring an amazing cast of thespians. It is a classic story with classic performances.

The Blood of Jesus which was a Spencer Williams film. It referenced aspects of African-American culture. A contemporary of Micheaux who did a number of westerns, horror, comedies, and ended up

Killer of Sheep, a powerful film in terms of imagery. This was filmed as a graduate project so there are no movie stars here but people as real as the locations the movie was filmed at. Burnett kept it real.

Sugar Cane Alley was directed by a Black woman from the novel of the same name. The source material is from a Black author. The film may take place in Martinique, but it is something that African-American’s can relate to. There is interconnectedness between Blacks in The Americas, Caribbean, Europe and Africa.

Quality TV For Black Viewers?

There was a post on The Root website that asked this question: “Do Black People want quality TV?”

Mos Def!!  Now, there isn’t a lot of quality programming let’s face it.  Not just because reality programming is cheaper to produce, but also because of the sheer number of stations available. It seems that there is only so much quality to go around and what quality that is leans to the Eurocentric.  For all the talk of diversity and crying out about political correctness the fact remains that there is a lack of diversity in quality TV.  To make things simpler let’s define quality as award worthy.

There isn’t a lot of programming about US, unless it’s Black History Month, Asian-Pacific Month, Hispanic American Month, or Native American Month.  Even then it’s usually early in the morning or late in the evening.

If we look at the nominations and winners of The Emmy’s and The Golden Globe Awards there isn’t a lot of diversity or quality apparently by the number of repeat nominees and winners.  Occasionally there are programs ‘aimed’ at Blacks like Undercovers and Scandal. I hope that Scandal does better than Undercovers.  Undercovers was just fluff and I suspect that someone in some back room thought it was enough. There are some programs that have Black people, but aren’t about Black people. And that makes people happy, the checklist gets marked and we watch.

We get riled up over our lack of representation on Mad Men and Girls, and settle for half hour sitcoms and racially neutral roles.  I suspect a lot of this is because there are so many Black people on the screen in sports and entertainment.  It’s not that music and comedy is in our DNA as much as those are the vehicles that we are presented.

I want a BLACK PLANET

Isn’t there a Black Planet in this big old universe?

I was one of the folks that went to Star Trek (The Reboot) with high hopes and not so high expectations.  Lo and behold I was pleasantly surprised – the movie rocked.  I rate it an Outstanding – A Must See and a Must See Again.  Unlike some people, I didn’t want to see a reboot of every character and story.  A little nod here and there would be okay.

So it’s a bit of a disappointment that I read that the next villain will be Khan.  And not only that, but he won’t be Indian.  That really sucks, it’s not surprising, but it does suck. The Wrath of Khan is the best of the original movies and probably the best example of bringing an original television show to the big screen. Casting Sherlock Holmes as Khan just negates the whole unity in diversity thing.

I know that we have Black and Asian Vulcans here and there – but come the heck on they are just tokens.  Either European looking people or CGI prosthetically enhanced people populate the universe.   There aren’t that many diverse characters in Star Trek, why throw out one of the few.  Yeah, I know Ricardo was Mexican not a Sikh, but there are enough Indian actors around that a new Khan could have been played by one – like Naveen Andrews from Lost or better yet – The King of Bollywood, Shahrukh Khan.

In The Federation as far as I can tell there were two planets with transplanted Native Americans (I guess The Preservers didn’t think the slave trade was so bad), one Black planet Ligon II (I could argue two and count the Tamarians in the Darmok episode).  I don’t recall any Asian-like planets – though Vulcan and Romulus could be debated, and no I don’t know what happened to the Deltans either.

I want a Black Planet.  I don’t want a “new” one  either.  I want Qo’nos.  I want Klingons.  They have a Black attitude anyway. I’m not saying that there couldn’t be Euro-Klingons.  Kang and Kor were cool and absolutely badass.  So were Gowron (that I will cut you stare) and the Duras Sisters (I could see them snatching off wigs and earrings.)

But consider the following as Klingons:  Eamonn Walker, Idris Elba, Michael Jai White, Michael Clarke Duncan, Angela Bassett, Viola Davis, Regina King, and Queen Latifah most definitely some BADASS attitude.

Oh – and drop the Klingon Opera and give us some warrior worthy percussion.

An Open Letter to Magic Johnson, Entrepreneur

Magic Johnson Enterprises will be launching a cable channel called Aspire that will be aimed at the Black community.  I wish you well in this endeavor Magic. You are a businessman so I hope that you will make money – but I hope that you will do so in a manner that is not destructive or disrespectful to Black people.

Mad Men has shown that quality can be lucrative. Why debate whether or not there should be Black people on the shows when we have enough resources to produce our own shows?

Music, reality, and “urban” programming are inexpensive – low production costs but high yield – but you Magic are a person that changes the game and raises the level of the team’s play.  So I respectfully submit the following ideas for programming.  Of course, they could easily be picked up by network or cable channels but the fact that they haven’t does suggest that they won’t.

1)      American Genius:  For some reason BET had to go gangsta and decided to tell the story of crooks and criminals.  So since BET covered that already, I think American Genius would be in order.  Benjamin Banneker and George Washington Carver natch, Dr. Mae Jemison, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dr. Ronald McNair, and Ernest Just to name a few.

2)      The Harlem Detectives.  Way before we talked about Shaft Chester Himes created the characters Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson.   I always thought that they were great characters.  Strong, not very nice at times and more importantly tried to do right for the community.  It would have been fun to see Denzel and Sam play them on the big screen but there are plenty of talented TV actors that could play the roles. Andre Braugher, Tony Todd, and Courtney B. Vance for example.

3)      An Afrocentric Anime.  It’s funny how a lot of animation from Japan looks European. However, The Last Airbender proved that other cultures can be successful.  I’m not talking about the movie but the original television program. Let Aaron McGruder loose for this one. Check out some of The Boondocks episodes that use Korean animators or use up and coming Nigerian ones like TransTales Entertainment.

4)      Tulsa or Greenwood.  The Tulsa Race Riot in 1921.  Personally, I’d prefer Tulsa because it would be more – honest.  However, that wouldn’t be accepted mainstream. This show could be a mini-series of a two or three year series along the lines of some BBC shows.  The first season would establish the characters of the successful Black community in Tulsa, the second season would deal with the race riot, and the third with what happened afterwards.  A historical drama if there ever was one.

5)      The Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor.  Science fiction, African folktales, young adults.  It’s a no brainer!  And we won’t have to worry about what color Rue is.

Our villages have hundreds of stories and thousands of talented brothers and sisters that have the talent to communicate them.  We have a history and a culture that is wide ranging and we have the money to preserve and present them and if we don’t, who will?

Take the shot Magic!