I’ve seen SUPER FLY a bunch of times, but I guess not since the VHS days. It’s a good looking movie on DVD, a nice document of extravagant ’70s clothing, small but fancy apartments, a white Rolls Royce rolling around dirty New York streets, its shiny hood ornaments leading the charge like a figurehead on a boat headed to the new world. It’s not a plot-heavy movie, it’s full of long scenes showing off the Curtis Mayfield soundtrack, for my money probly the greatest song soundtrack ever made for a movie (though the blaxploitation genre’s got several classics: SHAFT, BLACK CAESAR and COFFY come to mind. And you can’t front on TRUCK TURNER.)
Speaking of SHAFT, it’s weird that SHAFT and SUPER FLY are the two most famous blaxploitation movies, and they’re directed by father and son. Gordon Parks Sr. did SHAFT in ’71, Junior did SUPER FLY in ’72. I don’t know anything about the relationship between father and son, but I noticed Junior gets an opening credit for the still photo sequence. I wonder if that was to make sure nobody thought it was by his famous photographer father? (read the rest of this shit…)
Today in the U.S. we celebrate a national holiday for our great hero of the civil rights movement and pacifism, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Of course, like most holidays, only about a third of employers give their workers a day off, so (ironically considering Dr. King’s activism) the working poor get kinda screwed.
Father Geek here, a true genius is gone, too soon, CURTIS MAYFIELD has died. The man who penned one of my favorite soundtracks and in so doing influenced an entire genre of film music is no longer with us. I was just about to sit down and write a tribute to the man when the following arrived at Geek Headquarters and it is soooo complete that, well here’s what Vern has to say about the man who did as much as anyone to bring soul out of the getto and on to our motion picture screens…
