Features | Opinion | Videos | Calendar | Advertise Thursday, February 9, 2012
Sunday, February 22, 2009

Who’s The Black Private Dick Who’s A Sex Machine To All The Chicks?

Words
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 pm

shaftYou’re damn right. He is Shaft. Isaac Hayes may be gone, but his rapturous description of this particular movie detective will outlive us all. As will his Burt Bacharach covers.

The Fantasmo kids are going to spend a whole night on him. Richard Roundtree will grace the Chesapeake Central Library screen on Saturday, March 28th at 8pm for a double bill of Shaft and Shaft’s Big Score. The Shaft movies are an interesting anomaly in the ’70s soul cinema cycle, in that they were quite a bit more polished and conventional than their independent brothers such as Sweet Sweetback’s Bbbbbbaaaaaaaddddddddddddaaaasssssssss Song* and Superfly. At least before he went to Africa, Shaft functioned much like a conventional private eye hero in an average great ’70s crime picture (though relatively, on a scale excluding the decades of the ’70s and the ’40s, that means these are wonderful private eye crime pictures). The difference being that by-the-numbers narratives were liberally sprinkled with black-power-informed dialog and an overtly sexualized hero having artsy, kitschy, semi-explicit sex with often deep ebony women, a highly entertaining and refreshing idea that Hollywood seems to have forgotten about. Let’s all go to the library for some learnin’!

*number of letters in the word “badass” exaggerated from actual title, but not by that much.

"
"
Tags:, , , , ,
Bookmark and Share

COMMENTS

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Facebook comments:

  • George Booker | February 22, 09 @ 1:11 pm

    i suppose i should have said something about gordon parks.

    he directed shaft, and he was one of the greatest american photographers of his time. look him up.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Parks

  • Brendan Kennedy | February 22, 09 @ 4:16 pm

    Nice. The shaft theme really makes me want my own theme music, no matter what consequences Peter Griffin has with his own.

  • George Booker | February 23, 09 @ 1:58 pm

    hey brendan, remember “i’m gonna git you, sucka”, the first and best big ping on the cultural radar for the wayans dynasty? hilarious blaxploitation spoof with a bunch of the big names (including isaac hayes) from the era? the heroic jim brown, mentoring the pre-in-living-color, not-yet-tired keenan ivory wayans, advises him that every great hero has his own theme music. indeed, he does, and he literally has a rhythm section walking behind him at all times. what do they play? “theme from shaft”, of course. curtis mayfield outdid hayes by creating the best song score in cinematic history for the mediocre movie “superfly”, but nothing beats this theme for pure iconic single power. well, maybe prince or the bee gees did, but who can go toe to toe with those guys? just isaac hayes, really.

Post a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.

ABOUT THE WRITER
George Booker is writing this about himself in the third person. He was considering second person, maybe making this the "Bright Lights, Big City" of bios. He was looking into casting Micheal J. Fox in the forthcoming film adaptation, as the disabled actor would likely portray him with ample charm, sympathy, and fifty-something boyish handsomeness. Recently, however, Booker has realized that only Anne Hathaway or Chiwetel Ejiofor could really capture his essence. Late 20s, Norfolk raised music writer. Former DJ and production head for WVFS Tallahassee, former staff clerk at defunct Norfolk music stores DJ's and Relative Theory. Current Film Editor and Contributor to No Ripcord Magazine, contributed blurbs to Link and Port Folio Magazine.
Other posts by .