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African-American Cinema DVDs

Cleopatra Jones

Sales Rank:13766
List Price: $9.98
Lowest New Price: $3.07
Lowest Used Price: $2.46
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Anamorphic
Closed-captioned
Color
DVD-Video
HiFi Sound
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Tamara Dobson
Bernie Casey
Brenda Sykes
Antonio Fargas
Dan Frazer

Special agent Cleopatra Jones (Tamara Dobson), six feet two inches of sinewy fighting fury clad in layers of runway chic fashions in bright rainbow colors, strolls up a sand dune and orders the destruction of a Turkish poppy field. Thousands of miles away, an L.A. drug lord named Mommy (Shelley Winters hamming it up with garish wigs and lecherous leers) screeches as her life blood burns away and lures Cleopatra stateside to plot her demise. A product of the "blaxploitation" explosion of low-budget thrillers featuring black heroes in the 1970s, Cleopatra Jones may not be the best of the batch but revels in the most outrageous fashion sense. Cleo looks great in furs, pantsuits, ponchos, turbans--a new outfit every scene--and drives a sleek black Corvette with a personalized license plate: "CLEO." It's a shame that the producers dropped the exotic potential of a globetrotting super-agent for an L.A.-bound gangster film, which is entertaining in a comic-book way but rarely reaches the energetic levels of the gritty Pam Grier action pictures Coffy and Foxy Brown. Bernie Casey is a role model of dignity and action as a neighborhood activist, and a garishly overdressed Antonio Fargas delivers a suitably flamboyant performance as Mommy's pusher Doodlebug. The glamorous super-agent flew off to Hong Kong for the 1975 sequel, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold. --Sean Axmaker

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Big Momma's House (Special Edition)

Sales Rank:17309
List Price: $14.98
Lowest New Price: $3.20
Lowest Used Price: $0.53
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Special Edition
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Martin Lawrence
Nia Long
Paul Giamatti
Jascha Washington
Terrence Howard

No one tries very hard in Big Momma's House, so your enjoyment of this Martin Lawrence vehicle pretty much depends on how much amusement you're able to derive from a guy dressed up as a very ample woman. The setup is of the eye-rolling, only-in-Hollywood nature: Lawrence, as detective Malcolm Turner, is after a killer, and apparently the only way to capture him is to pose as the bad guy's ex-girlfriend's grandmother, who--the film cannot stress this point too much--is quite large.

Apparently, Sherry (Nia Long), the young woman in question--she's as attractive as Big Momma is, well, you know--is none too bright, for she falls for Malcolm's ruse, which of course ostensibly amuses mainly because it's so transparent. She at least has an excuse--she hasn't seen Big Momma in two years--but Big Momma's oblivious friends must be functional morons. Screenwriters Darryl Quarles and Don Rhymer didn't tax themselves very much, as they have Malcolm-as-Big-Momma going through fairly predictable motions--botching a meal and delivering a baby unconventionally (Big Momma's a midwife), but ruling at basketball and self- defense and protecting Sherry while trying vainly not to flirt with her. Paul Giamatti is wasted as Malcolm's partner; director Raja Gosnell's clunky sense of comic rhythm is bewildering, because he used to be an editor (he brought a similar lack of magic to Home Alone 3).

Lawrence won't have anyone forgetting Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot, Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, or Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire anytime soon. Big Momma's House benefits mainly by being first to the marketplace ahead of Eddie Murphy's The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps; Murphy's work in prosthetics is far more accomplished, versatile, and funny. --David Kronke

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House Party 3

Sales Rank:20574
List Price: $9.98
Lowest New Price: $3.39
Lowest Used Price: $3.37
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Format:

Anamorphic
Closed-captioned
Color
DVD-Video
Full Screen
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Christopher Reid
Christopher Martin
David Edwards
Angela Means
Tisha Campbell-Martin

Kid 'n Play return to the raucous hip-hop comedy series, but this time Kid's engaged. Play is determined to make him go out kickin', and plans the most outrageous, out of bounds, out of control bachelor party ever to hit the hood!

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Jazz on a Summer's Day/A Summer's Day With Bert Stern

Sales Rank:10413
List Price: $29.95
Lowest New Price: $26.97
Lowest Used Price: $17.90
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
NTSC

Director(s):

Bert Stern
Aram Avakian

Actor(s):

Jimmy Giuffre
Thelonious Monk
Henry Grimes
Sonny Stitt
Sal Salvador

Part concert documentary, part pop-cultural time capsule, Bert Stern's Jazz on a Summer's Day chronicles the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival with an approach as deceptively relaxed, even impulsive, as the music itself. Still photographer Stern sidesteps more formal documentary conventions such as narrative voiceovers to wander purposefully from festival stage to boarding-house jam sessions, taking in the parallel color and motion of the America's Cup preparations when he isn't capturing rich color footage of the performances and the celebratory mood of the concertgoers. In the process, he documents American jazz at a notably golden moment in its development--diverse, adventurous, and still broadly popular, this was jazz not yet under the shadow of rock and youth culture, played by an integrated artistic community a few short years away from social and political turmoil that would boil divisively to the surface during the '60s. To say Stern was rolling film in a jazz Camelot is overstatement, but only slightly so.

Stern's circular approach and wonderful eye achieve a breezy languor at the expense of more comprehensive coverage of the festival's bumper crop of strong jazz, blues, and gospel musicians. Perhaps inevitably, the camera lingers on Louis Armstrong, Anita O'Day, Mahalia Jackson, Dinah Washington, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, and George Shearing. Avid fans of later styles may be frustrated by the fleeting glimpses of other musicians such as Eric Dolphy and Art Farmer, or the honor roll of classic jazz stylists whose Newport sets weren't included in the film, but such omissions seem forgivable, if not necessary, to Stern's serendipitous design. --Sam Sutherland

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Dolemite

Sales Rank:12826
List Price: $14.98
Lowest New Price: $6.71
Lowest Used Price: $7.24
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Format:

Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Brenda Banks (II)
Jana Bisbing
Brenda DeLong
Pat Haywood
Karolynn Hill

Who's the baddest motherf****r to blow onto blaxploitation screens? Forget Shaft and just ask X-rated comic and "godfather of rap" Rudy Ray Moore. He'll give you the gospel of Dolemite. Street hustler, pimp, and all-around ghetto superhero Dolemite began life as a character in Moore's nightclub act and was a natural character for his self-financed film debut, a revenge tale set on the corrupt streets of L.A.

Dolemite is sprung from prison by an impossibly understanding warden so he can find the drug-dealing, gun-smuggling crooks who framed him. With the help of his all-girl army of kung fu killers and the most flamboyant wardrobe this side of Cher, he lays waste to dozens of bad guys while spouting his funky raps. Thick, slow and sleepy, Moore is neither a natural actor not a convincing martial arts action hero, but his lazy line deliveries are great, lyrical cascades of four-letter words and "ghetto expressions," and he performs two of his most famous stand-up raps, "Shine and the Great Titanic" and "The Signifying Monkey."

Dolemite is not a particularly competent movie--the direction (by costar D'Urville Martin) is clumsy, the performances flat, and microphones peek in from time to time (get that video letterboxed, Xenon!)--but the outrageous mix of nightclub rap, kung-fu action, and Moore's four-letter dialogue turned it into an instant urban hit and has kept it alive as a cult classic. Dolemite returns in The Human Tornado. The DVD also features clips from the documentary The Legend of Dolemite and the complete lyrics to his raps. --Sean Axmaker

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187

Sales Rank:16164
List Price: $9.98
Lowest New Price: $4.07
Lowest Used Price: $1.94
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Format:

Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Letterboxed
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Samuel L. Jackson
John Heard
Kelly Rowan
Clifton Collins Jr.
Tony Plana

A vicious high school student is dead. A gang hit? An act of sudden rage? Or did a once-idealistic teacher finally snap? The issues and the tension hit home when Samuel L. Jackson stars in a gritty urban-school thriller that's "gripping, high-octane entertainment" (Newhouse News Service).

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Robin Harris' Bebe's Kids

Sales Rank:9316
List Price: $9.98
Lowest New Price: $9.98
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Animated
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Subtitled
Widescreen
Surround Sound
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Faizon Love
Vanessa Bell Calloway
Wayne Collins Jr.
Jonell Green
Marques Houston

BEBE'S KIDS is a fun-filled animated film about a ladies' man named Robin who luckily meets the woman of his dreams. Unfortunately his plans for a romantic first date take a drastic turn when he is stuck entertaining her kids at the amusement park Fun World.

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Ray (Full Screen Edition)

Sales Rank:14309
List Price: $14.98
Lowest New Price: $4.99
Lowest Used Price: $0.84
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

AC-3
Color
Dolby
Dubbed
DVD-Video
Full Screen
Subtitled
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Jamie Foxx
Regina King
Kerry Washington
Clifton Powell
Harry Lennix

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Coffy

Sales Rank:13202
List Price: $14.98
Lowest New Price: $3.64
Lowest Used Price: $2.98
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)

Format:

Anamorphic
Closed-captioned
Color
DVD-Video
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Pam Grier
Booker Bradshaw
Robert DoQui
William Elliott (II)
Allan Arbus

In the opening minutes of Coffy, Pam Grier's star-making role, she blasts the skull of a sleazy drug pusher into pulp like a watermelon and shoots his junkie assistant with an overdose of heroin. Jack Hill knows how to open a movie, and he never lets up on the down-and-dirty action. Coffy is an emergency room nurse by day and vigilante by night, targeting the dealers who made her sister a comatose junkie. She works her way up to the Italian mobsters muscling into the ghetto drug trade while she's romanced by glib, smooth-talking politician Booker Bradshaw and wooed by nice-guy cop William Elliot, whose refusal to sell out to the corrupt force earns him a crippling beating.

There's plenty of sex, a catty girl-fight that leaves the losers topless, and car chases and shootouts galore, but what makes Coffy a blaxploitation classic is Grier's Amazonian presence and fiery charisma, and the gritty, low-budget action scenes marked by visceral, wincing violence. Mob strong-arm Sid Haig (Spider Baby) cackles while dragging his victim (a strutting peacock pimp played by Nashville's Robert DoQui) behind a speeding car in a sadistic lynching, and Grier runs down one bad guy with a speeding car and takes care of another with a shotgun to the groin. Hill had previously directed Grier in The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage. Their next and last picture together, Foxy Brown, was originally written as the sequel to Coffy. --Sean Axmaker

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Love & Basketball (Movie & Music Edition)

Sales Rank:9710
List Price: $19.97
Lowest New Price: $9.97
Lowest Used Price: $9.97
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

AC-3
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
HiFi Sound
NTSC
Special Edition
Subtitled
Surround Sound
Widescreen

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Lathan
Epps
Warren

Gina Prince-Bythewood, a former college athlete, puts a spin on this one-on-one tale of Love and Basketball. Sanaa Lathan (The Best Man) is the fiercely driven, hot-tempered Monica, a tomboy who gives her all for basketball. Omar Epps (The Mod Squad) is Quincy, an NBA player's son who has pro dreams of his own. Next-door neighbors since first grade, they start as rivals (she flabbergasts the boy by outplaying him in a game of driveway pickup) and age into best friends and lovers. The romantic complications follow a familiar game plan, but the film throws a fascinating spotlight onto the contrast between men's and women's basketball. While Quincy plays college ball on huge courts to cheering, sold-out crowds, we see Monica's sweat, tears, and sheer physical dedication in front of tiny audiences in small gyms and second-rate auditoriums.

The story is pointedly set in the late 1980s, years before the establishment of the WNBA, so Monica's prospects for pro ball lie exclusively in Europe, while Quincy steps into the pros at home. It's a pleasure to see a character as passionate and fully developed as Monica, and Lathan gives a fiery portrayal (she had never played ball before the film, but you'd never tell from her performance). Prince-Bythewood favors her struggle over Quincy's and opens our eyes to her unique challenges with a sharp, savvy contrast. Alfre Woodard costars as Monica's harping mom (always trying to get her to be more ladylike) and Dennis Haysbert is Quincy's philandering father. Hoops fan Spike Lee produced. --Sean Axmaker

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African-American Cinema DVDs

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