'Shaft' & 'Shaft'

Ironically, Shaft was based on a novel by a white journalist.

That's right. African American's biggest and best-known pop culture nugget is only in existence because some white, geeky journalist decided to write a book about a black detective. Named Shaft.

First Elvis Presley steals rock, then white culture steals Shaft.

Kidding aside, Melvin Van Peebles once noted that the original story was going to be a white detective. Instead, they decided to take the Shaft novel and turn it into a film after the success of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Thus, Blaxploitation had its poster boy in Richard Roundtree.

Shaft isn't a bad film at all. Although I didn't get into Sweet Sweetback and I'm not particularly a fan of other Blaxploitation, this is a nice, short film. The acting isn't horrible and it does a great job in fully developing this man named John Shaft into a character that we still know little about other than he's a guy that always does the right thing and spends little time putting up with bullshit.

No mater our skin color, those are traits we can all relate to.

And, to top things of, we finally have a film where the soundtrack is better than the actual movie. Isaac Hayes' score and soundtrack is the pillar of mid-1970s funk and soul. It'd be good on its own. Put a film behind it and it's even better.

'Superfly'

I like Superfly for a blaxploitation film because it's pretty believable.

A cocaine dealer wanting to make one last huge haul and then retire. It's edgy and raw in that it paints a stark picture of the drug trade and intimate involvement from a number of levels, from street pushers to white government officials.

The film's taken criticism for making the unstated comment that the Civil Rights movement opened up schools and water fountains, but it still kept African Americans in a position of subservience. Instead of the white man, it was the white powder. And most will tell you that they are the same thing anyway.

If you really wanted to use Superfly as a gauge for the plight of the black American and the drug epidemic that put many into graves and many others behind bars. And in the end it was a white police commissioner pulling on the strings. This, of course, cites the aforementioned theory that drugs are just another set of chains for African Americans.

On the other hand, as debilitating drugs are, sticking a needle into your arm or snorting that line are choices. Just as Youngblood Priest was making a choice, there are still factors and overriding forces keeping you in.

Funny that it's the only film to be outgrossed by the soundtrack. Damn Curtis Mayfield.

'Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song'

I thought this was a pretty dumb and unwatchable film. I get that it probably means a lot more in context of the time and also of the African American zeitgeist of the "blaxploitation" film and art, but that doesn't make it not dumb.

Every time a kid uses crayons to draw something, just because it's his or her first drawing or because it's the greatest picture that that kid's ever drawn or we don't want to criticize because it might hurt his or her feelings doesn't mean it's not awful.

This film is bad and has little or no redeeming value and I can not be convinced otherwise despite there being enough evidence to the contrary.