Over at Fancast.com, I'm posting a number of reviews and "appreciations" of films, trailers, and television episodes you can watch at this site for free (In previous BB posts, I've explained the site, and why I'm blogging there). Here's a snip from my latest contribution, about full-length features and trailers there featuring the fabulous Pam Grier.
COFFY: BLACK. STACKED. AND PACKED WITH FURY." So begins the funky baritone voiceover in the trailer for Coffy, a blaxploitation classic starring Pam Grier as a sexy anti-drug vigilante. The 1973 film is one of the true greats of the genre, written and directed by Jack Hill. Foxy Brown (1974) also a Hill creation, and also starring Grier, was another important work from this period. You can watch trailers for both on Fancast.
Foxy and Coffy were two of the first "soul cinema" flicks to feature a female protagonist. Previous works of the genre generally presented women as accessories of male success, whose purpose was to support their man, whether for good or evil intent. Grier was unstoppably hot, but also vengeful, righteous, and well-armed. She spent about as much time on screen seducing men as she did shooting them.
These two films are also are notable because they presented drug dealers and men who managed prostitution rings as bad guys. Previous films of the genre presented pushers and pimps as noble characters making the best of the hard lot they're dealt the ghetto. In "Foxy" and "Coffy," however, they are not outcasts who deserve empathy, but villains who exploit the vulnerable – and must therefore be killed by Grier.
Full post here:
Action/Adventure: Blaxploitation Trailers and Movies on Fancast (link includes discussion thread over there, thanks!)
More to read and watch: "JACK HILL: The Exploitation and Blaxploitation Master, Film by Film" offers an extensive filmography of Hill's works. And if you'd like to watch the films in entirety, I recommend picking up "Fox in a Box," a DVD collection that also includes Grier in "Sheba, Baby."
