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2019 ERNIE LADD MEMORIAL BLACK HISTORY MONTH REVIEWS


RIPPA

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7 hours ago, J.T. said:

You mean that you would put Hoop Dreams at #2?

I haven't watched either in forever but without thinking hard about it those would be my top 2

This is gonna make me try and do that poll again and it will die as hard as the Horror one

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2 hours ago, RIPPA said:

I haven't watched either in forever but without thinking hard about it those would be my top 2

This is gonna make me try and do that poll again and it will die as hard as the Horror one

You should just do a Sports Movie one instead.

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24 minutes ago, Matt D said:

You should just do a Sports Movie one instead.

That one will just make me angry and I will have to ban everyone who puts Field of Dreams at #1

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ACROSS 110TH STREET (Shear, 1972)

 

IMDB

ROTTEN TOMATOES (80% C/79% A)

 

PICKED BY @driver

My reason for choosing this is because I think it's a cool movie and it has an awesome Bobby Womack soundtrack.

REVIEW BY @odessasteps

Across 110th Street is not quite a blaxploitation picture, although it has its fair share of gratuitous violence and partial nudity and is set almost entirely in Harlem. It is more a police drama and feels more like a super sized 70s cop show, starting with credits that would not be out of place in a Quinn Martin TV show. 

Three black crooks steal $300,000 from the Mob by robbing a safe house counting numbers money. This is complicated by a bunch of the gangsters (black and white) and two cops being killed in the course of the heist and getaway. This sets off a race between the Police and the Mob to catch the robbers before the other. 

On one side, you have a violence-loving Mobster (Tony Franciosa), and his Harlem underlings (Richard Ward and Gilbert Lewis). On the other, you have the aging white Captain (Anthony Quinn) and the young black Lieutenant (Yaphet Kotto).

The characters and plot dynamics are fairly familiar. The Mobsters are racist, many of the police are racist and on the take. The world weary old white cop and the new young black cop is a well-known trope, from In the Heat of the Night with Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger a few years earlier to The Guard with Don Cheadle and Brendan Gleason a. Few years ago.  One of the best parts of watching the film is recognizing all the various actors, many early in the careers. After this film, Yaphet Kotto would make Live and Let Die. One of the robbers, Ed Bernard, would go on co-star on The White Shadow. Gilbert Lewis, one of the Harlem gangsters, would later be the first King of Cartoons on Pee Wes’s Playhouse. And don’t miss Burt Young as one of the murdered mobsters, a couple years before making Rocky. 

The film is probably now best remembered for its soundtrack, notably the title track by Bobby Womack. In addition to populating compilations like the great Pimps, Players & Private Eyes album, the song was used by Quentin Tarantino in Jackie Brown.

Across 110th Street is a solid crime picture, but not a great one, but worth watching for some of the performances and the soundtrack.

 

 

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And to tie it all together (God I am good)

(Editor's note: No one got the name of the movie right. Not the person who reviewed it. Not the person who picked it.)

THE BINGO LONG TRAVELING ALL STARS & MOTOR KINGS (Badham 1976)

A70-1058

 

IMDB

ROTTEN TOMATES (87% C/66% A)

SELECTED BY: @odessasteps

REVIEWED BY: @Brian Fowler

The Bingo Long All Stars & Motor Kings

Dir. John Badham

I had never heard of this movie, so it's a completely new experience for me. It stars Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones, and Richard Pryor, so it comes with a quality cast.

A group of Negro League players leave their teams over their mistreatment by the owners, with star pitcher Bingo Long (Williams) leading the crew. The owners quickly try to squash the All Stars, which leads them to their only way out: playing small time white teams.

They quickly realize the danger of black men whipping a white team in front of a white crowd, and, to put it simply, they become essentially the baseball Harlem Globetrotters. Keeping the audience laughing prevents them from getting mad about the score, ya see? The Negro League owners continue to try to crush them, as the money rolls in.

It's got a light comedic tone that kinda undercuts the very real tension. Richard Pryor playing an All Star who pretends to be Cuban in hopes of making the white leagues is as entertaining as you could possibly ask for, in that "I don't think you could do that today" kind of way. It takes occasional really dark turns, but I won't spoil it further.

Williams and Jones are, unsurprisingly, excellent, with Williams being the coolest and Jones bringing a level of calm education to the group.

It's a really pleasant movie, if not something I'd personally watch a second time. But I don't regret the time spent.

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@odessasteps reviewed his own movie

The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings

1976, John Badham

Bingo Long might not be the best baseball movie, but it might be my favorite. You get the feeling the cast (particularly the ballplayers) probably had a lot of fun making the picture.

Admittedly, this is not a hard-hitting examination of the struggles and inequalities suffered by black ballplayers playing in the Negro Leagues. It’s more of a valentine to those players and their larger than life personas. It’s easily to see that Bingo is modeled after Satchel Paige and Leon is a stand-in for Josh Gibson and so on. 

It’s interesting that John Badham ended up as director (allegedly replacing a too-busy-with-Jaws Steven Spielberg). He grew up in Birmingham and attended Negro League games there as a kid, so was very familiar with the subject matter. 

Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones are both good starring in the picture, and Richard Pryor is relatively restrained as Charlie Snow aka Carlos Nevada aka Chief Nakahoma. Longtime character actor Ted Ross also gets plenty out of playing the draconian team owner and funeral parlor magnate Sally Potter.

While some choices okay in the 1970s probably are not today (particularly the treatment of Mabel King’s character), on the whole, the film holds up well.

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5 hours ago, Contentious C said:

I've heard of maybe 2 of these movies so far.  

Also, when the reference was made to the length of the title, I was really expecting Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood to be the pick in question.  

I thought it was gonna be Sweetback (I'm not trying to type out the title on my phone you know it)

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