The mission of The Department of Afro-American Research Arts and Culture to identify the global significance of the creative contributions pioneered by an international diaspora of Blackness
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Showing posts with label 1970. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1970. Show all posts

Monday, January 2, 2017

The Grasshopper (1970)














Starring:


Storyline
Wide-eyed nineteen year old Christine Adams decides on a whim to leave her broken family life in small town British Columbia to move to Los Angeles to be with her boyfriend Eddie Molina, who doesn't know she's coming. Christine hopes to start a family with Eddie immediately. But Christine finds that she is restless in her life with Eddie and moves on. From move to move which are always done on a whim, Christine has a similar restless attitude, always dreaming of something better. But she has no real marketable job skills - although she is always thinking about continuing with her schooling in some trade to make a better life for herself - or sense of what working in a traditional type job means. She is able to get by on her looks, which lands her a job as a Las Vegas showgirl. She also goes in and out of relationships - including with Vegas comic Danny Raymond, ex-football player Tommy Marcott (Jim Brown) who too is trying to find his meaningful niche in life, older businessman Richard Morgan who... 

Sunday, January 1, 2017

End of the Road (1970)












Starring:


Storyline
After a catatonic episode on a railway station platform, Jacob Horner is taken to "The Farm", a bizarre insane asylum run by Doctor D. After being cured, Jacob takes a job as an English lecturer and begins a disastrous affair with Rennie, the wife of a colleague.  

Sunday, March 10, 2013

They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! (1970)


















Starring:
  • Sidney Poitier
  • Martin Landau
  • Barbara McNair
IMDB.com
This sequel to "In the Heat of the Night" will suffer in inevitable comparisons to its infinitely better predecessor. Instead of looking like a theatrical movie edited for television, "Mister Tibbs" looks suspiciously like a TV movie edited for theatrical release, with grainy photography, cheesy opening titles, and sets that look like they're made of plywood. The murder sequence has a glaring continuity error: the camera shows two hands choking the girl, then a shot of a hand reaching for a statuette, then a shot of the girl being choked with two hands again, and finally the statuette coming down for the fatal blow. Solving the case should be easy: find the only guy with three hands! But the shoddy production values can't completely obscure this film's considerable merits: namely, Sidney Poitier's performance as the cool detective determined to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, even if it implicates a friend. Martin Landau is also convincing as the do-gooder preacher-activist suspected of brutally murdering his prostitute girlfriend. In addition to being haunted by the case, Tibbs is conflicted about his home life, but the issues of race and Tibbs' barely concealed sense of social outrage are absent here. So is the complex murder mystery that made "In the Heat of the Night" so compelling.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974)













Starring:
  • Cicely Tyson
  • Eric Brown
  • Richard Dysart
Storyline
In February, 1962, as the civil rights movement reaches Bayonne, Louisiana, a New York journalist arrives to interview Jane Pittman, who has just turned 110. She tells him her story dating back to her earliest memories before slavery ended, a long walk toward freedom, marriage to Joe Pittman, her adopted son Ned's work as an educator, helping to raise Jimmy, who returns as a civil rights worker, and her own decision to become involved in contemporary issues. In between the chapters of her life, the present-day struggles of Blacks in Bayonne, urged on by Jimmy, are dramatized.