Bush Mama (1979)

Starring:

• Barbarao 
• Johnny Weathers
• Susan Williams

 

Storyline
Inspired after having seen a Black woman in Chicago evicted in winter, director Haile Gerima (Sankofa) developed Bush Mama as his UCLA thesis film.  Gerima blends narrative fiction, documentary, surrealism and political modernism in his unflinching story about a pregnant welfare recipient in Watts.  Featuring the magnetic Barbara O. Jones (Freedom Road) as Dorothy, Bush Mama is an unrelenting and powerfully moving look at the realities of inner city poverty and systemic disenfranchisement of African Americans.  The film explores the different forces that act on Dorothy in her daily dealings with the welfare office and social workers as she is subjected to the oppressive cacophony of state-sponsored terrorism against the poor.  Motivated by the incarceration of her partner T.C. (Johnny Weathers) and the protection of her daughter and unborn child, Dorothy undergoes an ideological transformation from apathy and passivity to empowered action.  Ultimately uplifting, the film chronicles Dorothy’s awakening political consciousness and her assumption of her own self-worth.  With Bush Mama, Gerima presents an unflinching critique of the surveillance state and unchecked police power.  The film opens with actual footage of the LAPD harassing Gerima and his crew during the shooting.  -UCLA: Film & Television Archive

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.

Baadasssss! (2003)

Starring:

• Mario Van Peebles
• Nia Long
• Joy Bryant

IMDB.com
Melvin Van Peebles stunned the world for the first time, with his debut feature, The Story of a Three Day Pass. Filmed in France and selected as the French entry in the San Francisco Film Festival, Melvin's film was awarded the top prize. Saying it was controversial would be an understatement. In 1968 for a black man to walk up to the podium and accept the top festival award for a film he had to go abroad to make--now that's how you make your mark. After his comedy, Watermelon Man, Melvin was determined to push the Hollywood boundaries with the groundbreaking, and even more controversial, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Turned down by every major studio including Columbia, where he had a three-picture deal, Melvin was forced to basically self-finance. Risking everything he had Melvin delivered to the world the first Black Ghetto hero on the big screen--whether they were ready or not...

Soundtrack Review
Various Artist - Baadasssss! (2003)