Chewers' 100 Best Cult Classic Films! - Page 5

There is a whole army of brown coats that would agree with this pick.

140.

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[According to Fat Elvis' count, Serenity should be #140]

141.

1971, dir. Jacopetti & Prosperi

Imagining themselves as time-travelling investigative reporters, the directors Jacopetti & Prosperi witness the recreated horrors of the American Slave Trade first hand, camera in tow. Reenacting the phenomenon entirely using the historical records & letters of the slave owners, masters, slaves, & politicians of the time, the film is a Schindler's List  by way of Holy Mountain "documentary" that details slavery in a vast, horrifyingly realistic, & crucially important way. Giving life to a viscerally shocking period of American history that should be shown in every High School in the country. The film is also framed by footage & treatises by several black leaders of the time like Eldridge Cleaver, LeRoi Jones, & Dick Gregory while documenting the state of race in America in the late 60s.

Watching "Goodbye Uncle Tom" right now and for the 20th time I'm thinking "How the fuck did this movie get made?".     Mind boggling.

Yeah, it's one hell of a feat, ain't it?. I can't stop thinking about it. Goodbye Uncle Tom is firmly in my all-time Top 20 now.

They filmed it in Haiti, apparently. God knows what the cast of hundreds (maybe thousands) were paid but you've got to admire everyone who participated in this thing. I bet a documentary on the making of THIS would've been just as incredible as the movie itself,

Glancing at the trailer, one would assume that this was solely an exploitation film meant to shock but the fact that almost every scene is a reenactment of historical records & letters makes the whole enterprise that much more impressive & really seals the deal on it's crucial importance. It's the closest thing to a visual record of slavery that we'll ever see. It also really puts the romantic mythologizing of slavery & the South in films like Gone With The Wind in rigid perspective. Fuck that movie & everyone who likes it. Fuck the Confederate flag. Fuck those that seek to uphold "Southern values". And fuck those politicians that call homosexuality (of all things) "barbarism". They don't even know what the word means.

Yeah it's one of those films that really sticks with you.   A few random thoughts....

1.  It feels like the movie wants it both ways.   On the one hand, it wants you to see how brutal slavery was but on the other hand, it's pretty exploitative in parts.

2.  I'm pretty sure a good amount of what the filmmakers shot in Haiti would be illegal over here.   That one scene in the whorehouse (you know the one) almost made me turn it off. 

3.  The last 10 minutes or so set in the present.  Every. Racists. Worst. Nightmare.   My jaw hung open at

What am I supposed to take away from that?   Is it a warning to white folks that black people are pissed and be prepared for a race war?   Is it supposed to say, violence is the only acceptable answer to 400 years of oppression?   It feels like the message gets a little muddled here.   Whatever the case, it feels a little racist.

4.  The way the slaves were presented is so far off from how they are usually portrayed on film.   I was shocked by how they are presented as more animal than man.   No clue on how accurate that is but    I'm    sure it's closer to the truth than say "Song of the South".

Seeing this movie does make me want to see what a film maker like Spike Lee or the Hughes Brothers would do with this type of no holds barred approach to slavery.   It would be fascinating.   What we have though is a flawed classic in my opinion.

The "baby against the wall" bit is there because that actually happened during Nat Turner's slave revolt. The contemporary "rampage" stuff at the end is an extended dream sequence where a black "militant" is reading the Nat Turner Diaries & imagining what the rampage would look like if it happened in 1970. It's really fascinating because it represents a mainline to the visceral anger felt by young black people in the late 60s. I mean, the movie was made a couple years after King & Bobby Kennedy were killed, after all.

Much like the riots that occurred after the assassination of King, the violent ending of the film doesn't offer any answers, excuses, or resolutions, it's just an explosion of anger. Here the filmmakers capture, in no uncertain terms, the "this means war" feeling that existed in black America post-King & recreate it through the historical lens of the Nat Turner diaries. Only one thing is being illustrated in Goodbye Uncle Tom's final 20 minutes and that's anger.

You mention that the anti-white Nat Turner sequence comes off racist & I think it's placement at the end of the film is a mistake because anti-white sentiment comes across as being the filmmakers' entire point. I think it would've been better placed at the beginning of the film because then it'd clearer that "anti-white sentiment" is only a piece of the puzzle. Overall, I think the film is very well-rounded with regard to showing the multiple opinions of black leaders post-King. Early in the movie, they quote the decidedly non-militant Dick Gregory & Eldridge Cleaver & contrast that with the harder edged thoughts of Leroi Jones. The flimmakers actually go out of there way to represent a wide scope of racial & political thought. 

The magic of this movie is that it doesn't represent one point of view. Yes, it ends with a violent, irrational anti-white point of view but don't make the mistake of overlooking the virtual buffet of contrasting opinions that populate the film's contemporary sequences throughout.

142. American Pimp (1999) d. The Hughes Brothers

You know who's in this cult? Hustlers and playas.

143. Dolemite (1975)

The blaxploitation movie as right of passage. It's reputation is legendary, and it lives up to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dynamotv 

4.  The way the slaves were presented is so far off from how they are usually portrayed on film.   I was shocked by how they are presented as more animal than man.   No clue on how accurate that is but    I'm    sure it's closer to the truth than say "Song of the South".

Yep, black people were considered 3/5 human & were treated as such. No surprise there. As I was watching the film, my mind was constantly going back & forth between what I was seeing & what I'd already known about the phenomenon of slavery & nothing in the film struck me as exploitative or hyperbolic. The mundane dehumanization of the Negro & the records made of the event are well-documented in the average high school history book as well as your local history museum. Most of what I saw in the movie, I'd already known about & actually seeing it is what made that previously inert knowledge palpably real & one can only imagine that this would be the same for any student of history.

Understanding the dehumanizing brutality of institutionalized slavery is key to understanding racism in this country & the sensitivities that fuel so much of our present political discourse.

You mention the mundane dehumanization of slaves in the movie and it brings up one of the most haunting shots in the movie.   It's that scene where a black boy is running alongside a white girl and it looks innocent until you realize he's naked and on a leash.   There's so many shots like that in here.   Also, the cinematography is exquisite.   It reminded me a little of Kubrick in a funny way.   Another scene that freaked me out?   The amputee scene.   When you realize that ain't CGI, and then realize the extras were probably culled from the local sugar cane plantation, it's downright freaky.

That's the most horrifying thing about great evil, the mundanity of it. Like the scene where slaves were being hunted down & piled. The filmmakers didn't just pull that out of their ass to shock people, they're reenacting the actual journal of one of the hunters while reading passages from written by him that basically said "Yep, I was a slave hunter. We mowed 'em down & piled them up".

Spielberg made this really great Holocaust doc a few years after Schindler's List & in it he set up a meeting between a survivor & an ex-Nazi clerk (maybe doctor). The survivor was politely talking to the clerk like a human being & asked him about his time & part in Auschwitz assisting in mass exterminations. She showed the clerk a piece of paper & asked him about it & his only response was an unemotional, "Yes. Everything seems to be in order".

144. Truck Turner (1974) d, Jonathan Kaplan

There's dignity here, in what could be just another silly or offensive (lookin' at you DOLEMITE) blaxploitation film, thanks to Isaac Hayes. The humor is hilarious, but it's never laughing at the main character. The soundtrack is amazing. A great midnight movie film.

145. Used Cars (1980)

Up to and including BACK TO THE FUTURE, there was no one quite like Robert Zemeckis. His films partnered with Bob Gale had a manic energy to them, with a Screwball influence, and an at times wildly black comic heart. The slapstick was funny and the satire sharp. Kurt Russell has an underrated comic timing, and here he's hilariously amoral and sleazy, yet his natural charm keeps us rooting for him. A bomb at the time, this movie has slowly built up a loyal cult audience.

146 Anchorman: . You can the a silhouette of Ron Burgendy on ESPN all the time

!47 Six String Samaurai. I remember this have such a buzz about it 1998. I remember this being the best out of the blue movie.