Best of Region Incognito Year 1

From http://www.horrorphile.net/images/gozu-hideki-sone-and-shohei-hino1.jpg

One year of continuous writing, has anything been learnt? Maybe that doing a month of bad cinema wasn't a wise idea even with gems within it, but that was selected by readers of the blog on a forum I am on, so I can only blame myself for not being up for that task. Aside from that, probably the following, pompous fake awards selection will help.

Note, all the films mentioned here were reviewed on the blog, and I am including reviews I did for Videotape Swapshop in that selection. None from before August 5th 2012 will be included as they were from the very sporadic, "old" form of the blog that would never have justified this type of post because there were not enough reviews. Links to the actual reviews or links to ones on other sites are on this blog if you look through the tags and the list by date on your right.

Best Work of the Year

1. Perfect Blue (1998)

2. Redline (2009)

3. Gozu (2003)

4. Antonio Das Mortes (1969)

5. Fellini's Roma (1972)

6. La Dolce Vita (1960)

7. The Birds (1963)

8. Rumble Fish (1983)

9. Vampyr (1932)

10. Inferno (1980)

It does also evoke that the films I find the most from have to be interesting. Even if they have glaring technical flaws, I prefer them to better made, canonised films because they at least bring new things you rarely see. Aside from a bias for anime, this is a list of very well regarded films, even Glauber Rocha's Antonio Das Mortes a championed film that just happens to not be as well known enough as it should be.

Biggest Surprise of the Year

1. Central Bazaar (1976)

2. This Transient Life (1970)

3. Footprints On The Moon (1975)

4. Souls In The Moonlight Trilogy (1957/1958/1959)

5. Detention (2011)

6. 8mm (1998)

7. Terror In A Texas Town (1958)

8. They Eat Scum (1979)

9. Apollo 18 (2011)

A lot of unexpected discovered and expectations being broken. A supposedly bad found footage film (Apollo 18) turns out to be a far more creative horror film and far superior than the tedious Paranormal Activity (2007). Very, very low budget filmmaking (They Eat Scum)  is far more rewarding and Joel Schumacher is someone I will defend even if I'm in the minority (8mm). The others, from highly artistic films on sin from Japan (This Transient Life) to seventy minute westerns (Terror In A Texas Town), show how diverse and interesting cinema is.

Discovery of the Year

1. This Transient Life (1970)

2. A Man Vanishes (1967)

3. Footprints On The Moon (1975)

4. Souls In The Moonlight Trilogy (1957/1958/1959)

5. The Living Dead Girl (1982)

6. On The Comet (1970)

7. Godzilla Vs. Hedoran (1971)

8. Terror In A Texas Town (1958)

9. They Eat Scum (1979)

10. The Nazarene Cross and the Wolf (1975)

Biggest Change of Opinion

1. Inferno (1980)

2. Pitfall (1962)

3. The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)

4. Alphaville (1965)

5. Trash (1970)

6. Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam aka. Turkish Star Wars (1982)

7. Terror At The Opera (1987)

8. Snake Eyes (1998)

9. Total Recall (1990)

10. Les vampires (1915)

Even Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam deserves some love. It's certainly fascinating just to view the film and its repeated use of Jerry Goldsmith and Queen music.

Most Divisive Work of the Year

1. Behindert (1974)

2. Wild At Heart (1990)

3. Casa de mi Padre (2012)

4. The Exorcist (1973)

5. Krakatit (1949)

6. Visions of Ecstasy (1989)

7. Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

8. Mortuary (2005)

The Most Underrated Film

1. Gozu (2003)

2. Inferno (1980)

3. The Sky Crawlers (2008)

4. Malice @ Doll (2000)

5. Little Otik (2000)

6. The Living Dead Girl (1982)

7. Detention (2011)

8. Terror In A Texas Town (1958)

9. 8mm (1998)

10. Apollo 18 (2011)

Biggest Disappointment of the Year

1. Visions of Ecstasy (1989)

2. Zachariah (1971)

3. The Ketchup Effect (2004)

4. Tokyo Zombie (2005)

5. Kill List (2011)

6. Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

7. Strike Commando (1987)

8. Corpse Bride (2005)

The only film banned in my home country for blasphemy, I will admit I had high expectations for Visions of Ecstasy, on my core list of films I wished to see because of their controversy. That is somewhat of a nun softcore fantasy seems below how it could have offended people more. The Ketchup Effect, another controversial film in Britain, should have been more braver. Zachariah is how a cover and the promise of an electric western does not make a good film, and Tokyo Zombie is a disappointment since its writer-director Sakichi Satô also wrote the script for Gozu. Kill List was a mess, although the recent film from Ben Wheatley A Field in England (2013) suggests he is worth following, while Plan 9 From Outer Space somewhat drops in interest from the halfway point onwards. Corpse Bride is just a lax film from a director, Tim Burton, who can do better. Strike Commando causes me to dread anything by Bruno Mattei even if I secretly want to watch his whole filmography like the masochistic completist I am.

The Long Awaited (Re)Viewing That Lived Up To Expectations

1. Death Laid An Egg (1968)

2. Inferno (1980)

3. Pitfall (1962)

4. Pistol Opera (2001)

5. The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)

6. Baccano! (2007)

7. Alphaville (1965)

8. Trash (1970)

Best Animation [Whole Film Or Partly]

1. Perfect Blue (1998)

2. Redline (2009)

3. Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) (2010)

4. Malice @ Doll (2000)

5. Baccano! (2007)

6. Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947)

7. Eden of the East (2009-2011)

8. On The Comet (1970)

9. The Professional: Golgo 13 (1983)

10. Apocalypse Zero (1996)

I'm glad for the anime I've covered, but I need to view more global animation. There's so much uncovered ground in this area to justify this award.

Best Cinematography

1. Yuzo Inagaki, Masao Nakabori and Kazumi Oneda [This Transient Life (1970)]

2. Hiroshi Segawa [Pitfall (1962)]

3. Vittorio Storaro [Footprints On The Moon (1975)]

4. Stephen H. Burum [Rumble Fish (1983)]

5. Dean Cundey  [Halloween (1978)]

6. Otello Martelli [La Dolce Vita (1960)]

7. Romano Albani [Inferno (1980)]

8. Mieczyslaw Jahoda [The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)]

9. Sacha Vierny  [A Zed & Two Noughts (1986)]

10. Jost Vacano  [Showgirls (1995)]

Honorable Mention

Ray Rennahan [The Halliday Brand (1957)]

Best Comedy

1. Detention (2011)

2. Gozu (2003)

3. Baccano! (2007)

4. On The Comet (1970)

5. Redline (2009)

6. Ginger Snaps (2000)

Best Director

1. Seijun Suzuki [Pistol Opera (2001)]

2. Jan Svankmajer [Little Otik (2000) & Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) (2010)]

3. Federico Fellini (La Dolce Vita (1960) & Fellini's Roma (1972)

4. Akio Jissoji [This Transient Life (1970)]

5. Dario Argento [Inferno (1980) & Terror At The Opera (1987)]

6. Takashi Miike [Gozu (2003)]

7. Carl Theodor Dreyer [Vampyr (1932)]

8. Giulio Questi [Death Laid An Egg (1968)]

9. Tomu Uchida [Souls In The Moonlight Trilogy (1957/1958/1959)]

10. Shohei Imamura [A Man Vanishes (1967)]

Honourable Mention: Hiroshi Teshigahara [Pitfall (1962)]; Wojciech Has [The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)]; Stephen Dwoskin [Central Bazaar (1976)]; Francis Ford Coppola [Rumble Fish (1983)]; Jean-Luc Godard [Alphaville (1965)]; Nobuhiko Ôbayashi [Hausu (1977)]

My coming round toward Pistol Opera has been a worthwhile one. Seijun Suzuki was seventy eight when he made this film, and made a film far more imaginative and creative than most twenty year olds may have made. The list is full of directors making their most vivid works, but the subtlety of Tomu Uchida and Shohei Imamura's shift to meta-documentary show how good a film can be directed in various ways.

Most Fitting Work To Cover On Region Incognito

1. Antonio Das Mortes (1969)

2. Death Laid An Egg (1968)

3. Malice @ Doll (2000)

4. Igodo: The Land of the Living Dead (1999)

5. Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam aka. Turkish Star Wars (1982)

6. The Sky Crawlers (2008)

7. Norwegian Ninja (2010)

8. The Nazarene Cross and the Wolf (1975)

9. Apocalypse Zero (1996)

10. Dracula - Prisoner of Frankenstein (1972)

Honorable Mentions: International Gorillay (1990); Intrepidos Punks (1980)

Best Female Performance

1. Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle [Ginger Snaps (2000)]

2. Tippi Hedren and Jessica Tandy [The Birds (1963)]

3. Holly Woodlawn [Trash (1970)]

4. Holly Hunter, Deborah Kara Unger and Rosanna Arquette [Crash (1996)]

5. Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Kyes and P.J. Soles [Halloween (1978)]

6. Sayaka Aoki [Baccano! (2007)]

7. Anita Ekberg [La Dolce Vita (1960)]

8. Carola Regnier [Behindert (1974)]

Best Male Performance

1. Marcello Mastroianni [La Dolce Vita (1960)]

2. Kataoka Chiezo [Souls In The Moonlight Trilogy (1957/1958/1959)]

3. Ryo Tamura [This Transient Life (1970)]

4. Nedrick Young  [Terror In A Texas Town (1958)]

5. Brandon Maggart [Christmas Evil (1980)]

6. James Spader and Elias Koteas [Crash (1996)]

7. Nicolas Cage and Willem Dafoe [Wild At Heart (1990)

8. Masaya Onosaka [Baccano! (2007)]

9. The Male Cast of Gozu (2003)

10. Raúl Juliá [Street Fighter (1994)]

Yes, not even Sterling Hayden can outdo Nedrick Young  in Terror In Texas Town. Its impressive.

Best Production Design

1. Inferno (1980)

2. Pistol Opera (2001)

3. Hausu (1977)

4. This Transient Life (1970)

5. Rumble Fish (1983)

6. The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)

7. Total Recall (1990)

8. The Halliday Brand (1957)

9. Krakatit (1949)

Best Score

1. Paul Giovanni and Contributors [The Wicker Man (1973)]

2. Stewart Copeland [Rumble Fish (1983)]

3. Bruno Maderna [Death Laid An Egg (1968)]

4. Danny Elfman [The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)]

5. Angelo Badalamenti and Contributors [Wild At Heart (1990)]

6. Howard Shore [Crash (1996)]

7. Tatsuo Tabei, Yasukasu Tabei and Yasushi Ishii [Hellsing (2001-2002)]

8. Krzysztof Penderecki [The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)]

9. Makoto Yoshimori [Baccano! (2007)]

10. Asei Kobayashi and Mikkî Yoshino [Hausu (1977)]

Best Screenplay

1. Noboru Takagi (Baccano! (2007))

2. Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, Jon Povill and Gary Goldman [Total Recall (1990)]

3. Toshiro Ishido [This Transient Life (1970)]

4. Jean-Luc Godard [Alphaville (1965)]

5. Karen Walton and John Fawcett [Ginger Snaps (2000)]

The complexity to Baccano! in juggling all its characters and settings, and not failing, especially since anime television series can be incredibly erratic in consistency and pace, makes Takagi the justifiable winner of this award. The complexity of This Transient Life's script was handled exceptionally, while it's great to see a young Godard make a genre film but include manipulations of words and phrases that he would continue in his later, experimental films. The writers of Total Recall make an Arnie film really interesting, and Walton and Fawcett made Ginger Snaps more than just a werewolf film.

Worst Film

1. Dominator (2003)

2. Almighty Thor (2011)

3. Track of the Moon Beast (1976)

4. Frozen Scream (1975)

5. Don’t Go Into The Woods Alone (1981)

6. Zombi 3 (aka. Zombie Flesh Eaters 2) (1988)

7. Demons 6 - De Profundis (1989)

8. Sunday School Musical (2008)

9. Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000)

10. The Ultimate Ninja (1986)

Doing a series of bad cinema would have fixed this award, but bad films I didn't intentionally look out for were viewed. Almighty Thor was one of the first films covered for this year, and still one of the worst, a soulless film made to be intentionally bad, a grim view of what genre cinema is now, more so as there are two of these mockbusters by The Asylum on the list. Yes, I watched them wanting to enjoy their badness, but it's such a crushing feeling afterwards to see lacklustre filmmaking and obviously cheap CGI being celebrated than something actually interested. Unfortunately this list also includes two people - Luigi Cozzi, whose heart is in the right place, and Godfrey Ho, who was still able to make commercial product entertaining unlike The Asylum - making immense failures. Zombi 3 doesn't really qualify as a failure in Luici Fulci's filmography as I would rather blame Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso for being incompetent. Dominator turned out to be even more bad than being just one of the worst films I've seen, stupid enough to rewatch it in hope I would find it entertaining. On a positive note, for a potential re-evaluation, the Mexican Video Nasty Night of the Bloody Apes (1969) may finally have some reward after a year of stewing on it from the Halloween 31 For 31  series.

The Pleasure of the Year I'll [Sadly] Have To Defend

1. Apocalypse Zero (1996)

2. Intrepidos Punks (1980)

3. Sword For Truth (1990)

4. Batman & Robin (1998)

5. Star Crash (1978)

6. They Eat Scum (1979)

7. Showgirls (1995)

8. The Nail Gun Massacre (1985)

9. Dracula - Prisoner of Frankenstein (1972)

10. Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam aka. Turkish Star Wars (1982)

It would be a struggle only to defend some of these choices to people who cannot find a lot of merit to them. Even Showgirls though has a camp following to defend it, while Sword For Truth, Intrepidos Punks and Apocalypse Zero are a tougher sell for defending because of their unsavoury content. The only thing close to them is admitting you find Batman & Robin more entertaining than anything Christopher Nolan has contributed to in the Batman franchise.

Genre Blending Premises of the Year

Even in the first year, with plenty of films and works to see, there was still the following:

The 5,000 FIngers of Dr. T (1953) as re-imagined with a man in a gorilla suit and diving helmet (Robot Monster)

A Steven Seagal film that nearly turns into The Boxer's Omen (1983) but could have gone further and become it (Belly of the Beast (2003))

An animal attack film as made into a psychodrama (The Birds (1963))

An auteur of grim, stripped down drama wanting to make a horror film and making an avant-garde dreamscape of death (Vampyr (1932)

An environmental message welding, animated sequence and psychedelic scored Godzilla film (Godzilla Vs. Hedoran (1971))

Alien (1979) as re-imagined as lesbian softcore, tentacle rape fantasy hentai (Alien From The Dark (1996))

Avant garde giallo with set on a battery chicken farm (Death Laid An Egg (1968))

Body horror, gross-out comedy, road movie, homoerotic sub texted mystery film (Gozu (2003))

Canadian, made on video mass of horror, copyright of Night of the Living Dead (1968) discussing, numerous dimension breakings and shoes in the fridge film (Things (1989))

Emotional drama crossed with zoology dioramas (A Zed & Two Noughts (1986))

Epic Turkish science fiction film with monsters, wizards, brain waves and bootlegged Star Wars clips and Flash Gordon theme tune (Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam aka. Turkish Star Wars (1982))

Experimental, Marxist redubbing of an Asian martial arts film (Can Dialectics Break Bricks? (1973))

Haunted house film as envisioned through a young daughter's imagination, animation and Pop Art (Hausu (1977))

Mexploitation, bike riding punk film (Intrepidos Punks (1980))

Mexploitation Frankenstein riff with female lucha wrestling subplot (Night of the Bloody Apes (1969))

Norweigan conspiracy, meta-documentary, on Cold War events with ninjas (Norwegian Ninja (2010))

Polish, sci-fi noir about a nuclear arms metaphor (Krakatit (1949))

Psychodrama, serial killer, street fighting martial arts film (Undefeatable (1993))

Psychological dissection of a legendary horror franchise through alt. culture, white horse imagery and Weird Al (Halloween II (2009))

Salman Rushdie as the villain for a Lollywood action, musical epic (International Gorillay (1990))

Top 10 assassin manga premise, quasi sequel to the director's most infamous film, as adapted as a theatre piece-avant garde-comic book panel-diorama piece (Pistol Opera (2001))

Turn of the century adventure with science fiction and dinosaurs (On The Comet (1970))

Ultraviolent, cross-cutting multi-narrative, 30s gangster anime series (Baccano! (2007))

Unofficial Argento sequel mixing gothic horror, Suspiria (1977), sci-fi space foetus and Edgar Allen Poe (Demons 6 - De Profundis (1989))

The Celluloid Bucket List [Warning: Will Contain Some Spoilers]

If you want to see the following, see these films:

80s Computer Animated Helicopters (The Professional: Golgo 13 (1983))

A Clearly Fake Cat Puppet Smooched Against Brain Matter (A Cat In The Brain (1990))

A Fight Between A Schoolgirl and A Telephone (Hausu (1977))

A Film-Within-A Film-Within-A Film-Within-A Film-A Film (Detention (2011))

A Ending Involving A Mass Motorbike Group On The Streets Of Rome (Fellini's Roma (1972))

A Ninja Ran Over By A Bus (Sword of Bushido (1990))

An Oval Death Star (Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam aka. Turkish Star Wars (1982))

A Punch Line Involving A Random Man On A Toilet Screaming (Gozu (2003))

A Villain Who Will Kidnap The British Queen Just To Make His Own Currency Official (Street Fighter (1994))

A Woman With the Hair The Size of a Tumble Weed and Using Dee Snider's Make-Up Box (Intrepidos Punks (1980))

A Zombie Head Flying Out of a Fridge (Zombi 3 (aka. Zombie Flesh Eaters 2) (1988))

An Aeroplane Terrorizing People On A Beach (Violent Summer (1959))

Alien Head Tendrils And A Chicken's Arse Being Chewed (The Boxer’s Omen (1983))

Arnie Encountering Subjective Reality Theory For The First and Last Time In His Career (Total Recall (1990))

Consumption By Snails (A Zed & Two Noughts (1986))

Death By Barbecue Sandwich (The Invisible Maniac (1990))

Evil Pet Rocks (Apollo 18 (2011))

Ian Smith, From Neighbours, Swearing (Body Melt (1993))

Jean-Louis Trintignant Hammering Headless, Limbless Chickens To Death (Death Laid An Egg (1968))

Liquid Fire Being Urinated (Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012))

Mutant Disco (They Eat Scum (1979))

Nicolas Cage Losing A Fight To Bees (The Wicker Man (2006))

Nicolas Cage Punching Women Out In A Bear Suit (The Wicker Man (2006)

Policeman Performing A Synchronised Dance On A High Wall While The Beatles Are Wearing Animal Costumes (Magic Mystery Tour (1967))

Robot Messengers For Secret Ninja Societies Carrying Videotapes (Ninja Terminator (1985))

Robots With Texas Accents (Star Crash (1978))

Rubber Dinosaurs On A Moon (On The Comet (1970))

Salman Rushdie And His Evil Villain Island and Clones (International Gorillay (1990))

Seduction Through $1.19 Grilled Cheese and A Drink (The Nail Gun Massacre (1985))

Such A Move Called "Double Tit Missile Bomb" Being Shouted Out By A Sex Addicted Nurse (Apocalypse Zero (1996))

The Female Breasts As A Method of Eliminating A Person's Karmic Energy (Ninja In The Dragon's Den (1982))

Time Manipulation As A Non- Sequitur (Star Crash (1978))

Tracking On A Video As A Method of Detecting An Invisible Enemy (V/H/S (2012))

Transitions Through The Same Multi-Coloured, Paint Splattered Wall (Night of the Bloody Apes (1969))

Honorary Members of the Region Incognito Hall of Fame

Nicolas Cage

Jan Svankmajer

Jess Franco

Akio Sugino [Character Designer of The Professional: Golgo 13 (1983) and Sword For Truth (1990)]

Hopefully these awards will be brought back for next year...

From http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/8283/shot00029za.jpg

They Won't Bleed Me (Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971))

[Technically, I started this blog in 2010, but in terms of consistently adding material to it, I have been continually expanding the content of this hobby since this day, August 5th, from last year on. Hopefully I will be continuing this blog for another year like this too. To celebrate, its befitting to choose a really interesting film. Bear in mind that the version viewed was the British BFI DVD release that was partially censored because of its infamous pre-credit sequence. It doesn't affect the film after it, although believing that a second could drastically affect a work, I wonder what the movie would be like in its uncut version even if I'm going to stick with the British release.]

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From http://image.toutlecine.com/photos/s/w/e/sweet-sweetback-s--aff--g.jpg

Dir. Melvin Van Peebles

Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song is a raw film. Raw in how it was made, Van Peebles having to make the film by himself with funds from himself and donations from the likes of Bill Cosby, and raw in content. Sweetback is a male prostitute, played by Van Peebles himself, who goes on the lam after brutalising two white, racists cops to save a young Black Panther member during a unjustified assault by them. The police after him, their bigotry made even more uncomfortable when they have African American officers on their squad, Sweetback's only means of safety is to get over the US-Mexican border before they can get him. It's not long into the film when Sweetback is on the run, making the chase, with him hiding amongst friends and eventually going for the border, the most of the narrative.

From http://www.umbc.edu/cadvc/foralltheworld/images/film/Sweet-Sweetbacks-Baadasssss.jpg

Sweet Sweetback... was the film that created the Blaxploitation movement - that it leads to Quentin Tarantino leads to a strange pair of bedfellows viewing this film again, Sweet Sweetback... the least expected origin to the commercial/exploitation movement it led to. Its justifiable to say that the film is an exploitation film, using the trappings of a genre narrative to explore a politically incendiary topic of the time. A simple, A-to-B narrative, with a clear goal to the end, sex and nudity, although not as much as I thought there was the first time, and a couple of really chaotic and messy brawls where Sweetback has to protect his skin from police officers who have truncheons and guns on their side. Unlike a film like Shaft (1971) however, there are some radical differences. The first is Van Peebles' experimental style - superimpositions, image manipulation, multi-layering, cinéma vérité inserts - which is pushed to an extreme, far more so than the other film of his I've seen, his debut The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1968) which is a richly textured drama that jumps into passages of playing with the images. The other radical change is how politically aggravating it is in its message, the director clearly expressing so much bile as the white cops, stereotypes on purpose, are shown to willingly assault any black male to get Sweetback, confusing them for him and even saying that they are all the same in their eyes. Against such odds, Van Peebles using prolonged scenes of himself running, we're given a protagonist who we want to see succeed as he has to endure the physical travel and strain to his body of his goal as well as avoiding the law, from eating a lizard to sustaining himself when he deals with an infected wound. The music, by Van Peebles himself with contributions by Earth, Wind and Fire, add to this, the final mantra for the last half of the film, male and female voices chanting "They bled your momma..." etc. and cheering Sweetback onward, really causes one's heart to rise. Even if it's stereotypes being depicted, the fact that it's using a genre narrative makes it able to use these caricatures to push the emotional core rather than sour it.

From http://cineawesome.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/332392796_8bcb997055.jpg

In terms of how the film has aged, it hasn't done badly. Sweetback gets his name from his ability to leave women in lapsing orgasms during sex, and admittedly Van Peebles willingness to depict this in every sexual encounter means the film is entirely on the side of a protagonist who is inherently the stronger in physical existence just because he is. It's strange to see this though considering Van Peebles method of lovemaking is just to lay on a woman and writhe around, and it begs questions about these depictions, even if the money was used to finish the film, that this is the only case to my knowledge where a director was paid accident compensation from the Directors Guild of America because he got STDs while shooting these scenes.  But it's not a celebration of male, heterosexual prowess that is centre of the film, and moments offset it. A scene after the credits, even though it introduces Sweetback proper and his sexual prowess, is still a public sex show involving a woman wearing a beard and men's clothes, having sex with another woman with a strap-on, and a man dressed up as a fairy godmother for "dykes". Amongst the many quasi-cinéma vérité moments introduced later in the film, where people stare directly at the screen and say whether they've seen Sweetback or not for an unseen interrogator, one that stands out as the best is a trio of "militant queers" enjoying themselves immensely and allowed complete control of the spotlight in a brief moment, staring the viewer down with smiles and a clear bond together. Women as well, particularly one old women whose words are repeated and repeated for aural effect, are allowed to speak for themselves as well in centre frames. Even if this film can be compared to heterosexual softcore which makes women background characters to be naked and fondled, it says something, even if its minor and their duel is through "fucking", that the strongest and toughest member of a Hell's Angels group Sweetback encounters, throwing knives with accuracy and called on to challenge Sweetback, is a red haired woman rather than a man. Such details undermine a simple view of a film even if they're minor. The one thing that is going to universally controversial, and more so now, is the infamous pre-credit scene where a young, underage Sweetback, played by the director's own son Mario Van Peebles, has sex with an adult woman. It's uncomfortable, but it also brings up the issue of what we the film viewer,  part of filmic history, do with Seventies cinema, where this kind of trangressive and boundary pushing material seemed more common and is something we still have to deal with when expanding that's period's canon. Because this sequence is censored for the British DVD release, shots completely black with the soundtrack still playing, I cannot believe I can give a proper view on this issue, and to be honest, I'm perfectly fine with the censored British release. I am a believer in the lack of censorship, but I'm not comfortable with even  considering the issues with this case, especially when it doesn't affect the meaning of the sequence and the film after the opening credits. It's a potentially hypocritical statement, but I realised, sensibly, that there will always be cases which challenge on-paper concepts like it; even if the actual, uncut sequence turned out to be completely tame and merely provocative because of the idea it was depicting, I will openly admit my lack of ability to be able to judge whether the scene was right to do or not, and if it has artistic merit, especially when the censorship does effect the tone and meaning of the question before I could consider answering it.

From http://historyofcinema.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2011/02/carfire.png

It's a messy work, dark and dirty in visual look and the product of someone who had to scrape by to make it and had the determination to see it through. It's surprising to think how well this did on its original release and in ushering in a sub-genre by itself alongside Shaft; it makes no sense that Blaxploitation led to Tarantino's very geeky cribbing of this kind of cinema considering that Sweet Sweetback... is still an edgy channelling of the anger an entire minority must have felt in a period of severe racism and flayed relationships with the (usually white) police. A film depicting Black Panthers with complete sincerity, who went to change their communities' situations even in non-violent ways through a militancy, feels so out of place against a white director, whether he is right to do so or not, using Afro-American cultural iconography as a tribute to grindhouse cinema. This is an oversimplification of the argument, but even with a film like Jackie Brown (1997), about a strong black female character, the through line from such politically antagonistic filmmaking to the references to the sub-genre is such an erratic one in hindsight. Sweet Sweetback... itself clearly hit its underserved, target audience at the right time and place, making itself a cultural phenomenon and an important film in independent, cult and black American cinema. As a white male myself, I cannot expect to understand what it would have been like for a black American to have seen this film upon its release, feeling the sensations of seeing such unspeakable violence from the police officers and the liberating feeling of a black male outpacing them by his own tenacity and toughness. But it still causes the blood to pump in even my body, decades later, to see this protagonist, more so when you realise some of the risky things Van Peebles had to do for real to get the images, and how he had to make this film all by himself outside the American studio system, stand tall above these racists and be charismatic while doing it. One man is able to take on an entire law enforcement community, and one man was willing, with his production team, with help from Bill Cosby, to make a film by himself, with a risky production method and risky material,  and succeeded completely to the point it's in cinema's historical tomes as a victory even if it's just by itself. Like its just as famous tagline - Rated X By An All-White Jury - its caustic and feels liberated in its willingness to speak its mind as bluntly as it is, and I cannot help but feel swept away by someone able to do this.

From http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yoZniy4fpv8/TeXk5ENXOQI/AAAAAAAAAKQ/AVaNZDLUGzU
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