Tag: Pam Grier

Pam Grier And David Duchovny Star In Trailer For Paramount+’s PET SEMATARY: BLOODLINES Premiering on Friday, October 6

Official Key Art for Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Cr: Philippe Bosse/Paramount Players

Paramount+ today released the official trailer and key art for its upcoming original horror film PET SEMATARY: BLOODLINES, based on the terrifying and untold chapter from Stephen King’s novel Pet Sematary. A spine-chilling prequel that explores the origins of how death became different in the small town of Ludlow, Maine, PET SEMATARY: BLOODLINES will premiere Friday, October 6, exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., Canada, Latin America and Brazil, and Saturday, October 7, in all other Paramount+ international markets.

The highly anticipated film will hold its world premiere at this year’s Fantastic Fest, the world’s largest genre and horror festival based in Austin, Texas, and will be featured in the Paramount+ Peak Screaming, a curated collection of fan-favorite horror movies and iconic Halloween episodes from beloved series.

PET SEMATARY: BLOODLINES stars Jackson White (Tell Me Lies, Mrs. Fletcher) Forrest Goodluck (LAWMEN: BASS REEVES, The Revenant), Jack Mulhern (The Boys in the Boat, Mare of Easttown), Henry Thomas (The Fall of the House of Usher, Gangs of New York), Natalie Alyn Lind (The Goldbergs, The Gifted), Isabella Star LaBlanc (True Detective: Night Country, Long Slow Exhale), Samantha Mathis (BILLIONS), with Pam Grier (Cinnamon, Jackie Brown) and David Duchovny (Bucky F*cking Dent and CALIFORNICATION).

In 1969, a young Jud Crandall has dreams of leaving his hometown of Ludlow, Maine behind, but soon discovers sinister secrets buried within and is forced to confront a dark family history that will forever keep him connected to Ludlow. Banding together, Jud and his childhood friends must fight an ancient evil that has gripped Ludlow since its founding, and once unearthed has the power to destroy everything in its path. Based on the untold chapter from Pet Sematary, Stephen King’s chilling novel, PET SEMATARY: BLOODLINES is a terrifying prequel and the story of why sometimes dead is better…

Pam Grier as Majorie appearing in Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Cr: Philippe Bosse/Paramount Players

On the set of Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Cr: Philippe Bosse/Paramount Players

PET SEMATARY: BLOODLINES, a Paramount+ original movie, in association with Paramount Pictures’ Players Label, is a di Bonaventura Pictures Production and based on the novel Pet Sematary by Stephen King. The film is directed by Lindsey Anderson Beer, in her directorial debut, with a script written by Beer and Jeff Buhler, and produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian.

Pam Grier in JACKIE BROWN Starts Friday at The Galleria in St. Louis! Tarantino’s Masterpiece!

” My ass may be dumb, but I ain’t no dumbass. “

This Friday, July 10th, Tarantino’s JACKIE BROWN will play for a week at The Galleria Cinema in St. Louis (30 St Louis Galleria St, Richmond Heights, MO 63117) For more info and showtimes, go HERE

When JACKIE BROWN was released 23 years ago expectations were off the charts. It had been three and a half long years since Quentin Tarantino had rocked the movie world with the one-two punch of RESERVOIR DOGS (1992) and PULP FICTION (1994). Since then he had laid relatively low, directing a segment of the anthology FOUR ROOMS, writing the vampire hybrid FROM DUSK TIL DAWN, and performing several forgettable “acting” roles (remember DESTINY TURNS ON THE RADIO? ……didn’t think so.) I remember my own expectations and anticipation for JACKIE BROWN when I first heard that Tarantino had cast ebony action icon Pam Grier in the lead.  I assumed that he was going to take a crack at the Blaxploitation genre that he was a such a fan of and was honestly expecting afros, pimps, and  bellbottoms but, with the exception of it’s lead and some funky music from those films, it turned out to be nothing of the sort. Instead JACKIE BROWN, based on the 1993 novel “Rum Punch” by Elmore Leonard, was a slow-paced mature film that proved Quentin Tarantino was a real storyteller capable of adapting another writer’s work and creating a confident, seasoned narrative while maintaining his own voice as a director. They were Elmore Leonard’s characters, but they lived in Quentin Tarantino’s world.  I think some viewers expecting more of the violence, pace, and tongue-in-cheek postmodernism of Tarantino’s first two films may have left theatres disappointed. There are only four deaths in the two and one half hours of JACKIE BROWN, all by gunshot, and take place more or less off-screen. The eager, in-your-face enthusiasm and energy of the director that defined RESERVOIR DOGS and even more so, PULP FICTION was subdued. The (mostly) straightforward chronology of JACKIE BROWN was a switch and there weren’t nearly as many offbeat conversations about pop culture this time around. Yet JACKIE BROWN is my favorite of Tarantino’s films, the one I’ve watched the most and twelve years on, it’s lost none of its breezy hipness and it’s the rare movie that gets more satisfying with repeated viewings.

The deliberate pace of JACKIE BROWN is established early as Tarantino’s script takes plenty of time establishing all of the characters. The plot, which switches the action from Leonard’s Miami to LA, is elaborate; black forty-ish stewardess Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) finds herself the pawn of several schemes as her sideline as a money courier for weapons dealer Ordell Robey (Samuel L. Jackson) gets her in trouble with federal agents (Michael Keaton and Michael Bowman) dedicated to bringing him down and in contact with aging Bail Bondsman Max Cherry (Robert Forster) who fears for her personal safety. She responds by coming up with an elaborate counterattack of her own and plots with Max to deprive Ordell and his ex-con henchman Louis (Robert DeNiro) of half a million dollars of ill-gotten cash while convincing the feds that she is not a target worth pursuing. JACKIE BROWN is engrossing, character-driven drama and it is evidence to Tarantino’s skill as director and writer that the unfolding crime plot becomes important to an audience that cares about Jackie Brown because the dangers he has placed her into are so convincing.

Tarantino had the clout in 1997 to cast anyone he wanted for JACKIE BROWN and I’m sure most of Hollywood wanted to work with him, and he put together his usual imaginative ensemble of major players, 70’s comeback stars, and fresh blood. Pam Grier was the now-mature siren of  blaxploitation, the star of many 70’s urban classics such as COFFY (1973), BLACK MAMMA WHITE MAMMA (1973), FOXY BROWN (1974) and BUCKTOWN (1975, all available on MGM’s “Soul Cinema” DVD series). With her distinctive mega-fro, Grier was a statuesque, articulate ass-kicker in these films and Tarantino was a huge fan and she’s mentioned in his scripts for both RESERVOIR DOGS and TRUE ROMANCE.  He’d originally considered Grier for PULP FICTION in the role ultimately played by Roseanne Arquette (which would have made her the mate of Eric Stoltz, an actor I can see Pam Grier breaking in half with two fingers), and changed the lead character in Leonard’s novel from a blonde caucasian to an African-American in order to accommodate Grier (in the novel, her name is Jackie Burke. Tarantino renamed her Brown after her character from FOXY BROWN). Pam Grier was 48 when she starred in JACKIE BROWN (though her character claims to be 44) and she gives a strong world-weary performance and is tough and believable when standing up to Jackson’s Ordell. It’s been noted that JACKIE BROWN did not do for Grier’s career what PULP FICTION did for John Travolta but then, how many parts are there in Hollywood for black women pushing 50? Pam Grier did receive some choice roles after JACKIE BROWN and since 2004 has been costarring on TV’s “The L-Word”.

For the tough but sympathetic, bail bondsman Max Cherry ,Tarantino cast 56 year-old Robert Forster. Forster had briefly been a major player in Hollywood, acting alongside Brando and Liz Taylor in REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE (1967) and had the lead in the cult films THE STALKING MOON (1968), and MEDIUM COOL (1969) followed by the TV detective show “Banyon”. In the 80’s he was toiling in exploitation films like ALLIGATOR (1980) and DELTA FORCE (1985) and by 1997 Forster must have considered his best roles behind him and was working as an acting teacher. But Tarantino remembered him and, after considering Gene Hackman and John Saxon, gave Forster the part and he was an inspired choice. Forster plays the tricky role rarely changing his expression, a tough feat for any actor. Forster’s performance is the most believable in the film and it’s no surprise that, even in a movie with the likes of Robert DeNiro and Samuel L. Jackson, it was Forster who received the movie’s only Oscar nomination. The heart of JACKIE BROWN is the affection that grows between Max and Jackie. It’s a romance that never quite turns romantic (they became lovers in the novel) and their attraction is always implied, which makes it all the more interesting.

At first, Samuel L. Jackson’s confident Ordell seems a pony-tailed retread a of his Jules character from PULP FICTION, but Ordell is a much darker sociopath than Jules and he gets scarier as the story progresses. DeNiro’s dryly plays Louis as a sloppy underachiever with a hang dog expression but a fatally short fuse and to me his character just gets funnier every time I watch JACKIE BROWN.

Bridget Fonda is droll as Melanie Ralston, Ordell’s nymphet beach bunny girlfriend who contemptuously fixes his drinks and answers his phone. Ordell warns Melanie that watching TV and doing drugs all day will rob her of her ambition. “”Not if your ambition is to get high and watch TV”,” she quickly replies. Tarantino claims to have modeled Melanie after 70’s exploitation queen Candice Rialson, the sexy blonde star of drive-in classics such as CANDY STRIPE NURSES and MAMA’S DIRTY GIRLS (both 1974). In one scene in JACKIE BROWN Melanie is watching DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY on TV, a 1974 film that starred Fonda’s father Peter and was one of the films Tarantino claims inspired his later DEATHPROOF. Sid Haig, who co-starred in five of Pam Grier’s best 70’ s films, has a cameo as a judge in JACKIE BROWN and would achieve cult status as Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie’s HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES (2003), and it’s sequel THE DEVILS REJECTS (2005).

Tarantino claims that in developing the script for JACKIE BROWN, he decided on most of the songs during the writing stage. He’s a firm believer that much of the personality a movie has is developed by the music that is going to be in it and he’s never hired a composer to score one of his films. His movies are filled with songs (mostly from the 60’s and 70’s) and musical cues lifted from other films reused creatively. JACKIE BROWN is filled with soul and funk music lifted from Blaxploitation film scores and some of it’s surprising highlights are “Longtime Woman” sung by Pam Grier when she starred in the 1971 women’s prison pic THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, and a cue from Manfred Hubler’s psychedelic score for Jess Franco’s VAMPYROS LESBOS (1971). Bobby Womack’s moving title song from the 1972 crime drama ACROSS 110th STREET plays over the opening and closing credits and a whole generation of film fans must now think of it as the theme from JACKIE BROWN (emotionally perfect, but technically 110th Street is an informal boundary line of Harlem and JACKIE BROWN is set in L.A.). Coincidentally, Pam Grier sang back-up for Bobby Womack before she began her career in film.

It would be six more years before Quentin Tarantino would return to feature film directing with KILL BILL VOL. 1, a bloody and stylish return to form. Both KILL BILLs and DEATHPROOF are great films but JACKIE BROWN, despite its straightforward plot and traditional delivery, remains my favorite Tarantino film. To me it’s the perfect mix of pulp fiction, Blaxploitation aesthetic, and film noir.

Happy Birthday to PAM GRIER – Here Are Her Ten Best Films

Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, Sam Moffitt, and Tom Stockman

Happy Birthday to one of WAMG’s favorite movie stars! Pam’s iconic movie career began when she moved to Los Angeles in the late ‘60s from her native North Carolina at age 18. After a tiny role in Russ Meyer’s BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970), she landed a job as a receptionist for American International Pictures where she was discovered by Jack Hill, an AIP director who cast her in a pair of women’s prison films: THE BIG DOLL HOUSE (1971) and THE BIG BIRD CAGE (1972). Soon she was known as the “Queen of Blaxploitation” at a time when film roles for African-American women were, as Grier puts it, “practically invisible, or painfully stereotypical”.

Here, according to We Are Movie Geeks, are Pam Grier’s ten best films.

Honorable Mention: GREASED LIGHTNING

GREASED LIGHTNING is a biographical film about Wendell Scott (Richard Pryor) the first African American to drive in Nascar races.   As you would expect, especially in a 1970s movie, the Anglo Americans are not too happy about Scott’s ambitions and do everything possible to stop him.   Pryor is excellent in a rare dramatic role and Beau Bridges is good as a white mechanic who is open minded enough to help him out.  Pam Grier does quite a lot with a role that could have been by the numbers, Scott’s wife Mary.   She is nothing less than a tower of strength for Scott when the odds seem impossibly stacked against him.   Greased Lightening was not a bit hit when it was released and it is pretty much forgotten these days.  I saw it in a theater during my tour of duty in the Navy and showed it on my tv station, it was quite popular with the crew, black and white. It deserves to be better known.

10. MARS ATTACKS

Bouncing back from the lukewarm box office return of ED WOOD, Tim Burton decided to bring another beloved childhood icon to the big screen. But rather than grabbing up another character from comic books, as with his pair of BATMAN films, he turned to trading cards. These adored (by kids) “bubblegum” cards told the grisly story of alien invasion in MARS ATTACKS! Burton filled the movie with well-known names, an all-star cast in the tradition of Irwin Allen’s 70’s disaster epics. The main story locales were Washington D.C. and Las Vegas, and Pam Grier’s character was connected to both. In “sin city” we meet former prizefighter turned greeter/ entertainer Byron Williams (Jim Brown) at an Egyptian-themed casino. As his boss glares, Byron makes a call to DC, where his ex-wife Louise (Grier) is trying to pry their pre-teen boys Cedric and Neville away from a “shooter” video game. He assures her that he will be visiting them soon (still a lot of affection between these two). We next see Louise on the job, driving a public transit bus through the busy streets of the capitol. She spies her sons at a video arcade, and slams on the brakes. She will not tolerate them skipping school, so she drags them out of the arcade and loads them on to the bus as the very understanding passengers applaud and cheer. In this film, the glamorous action icon
gets to show her maternal side. She’s a concerned loving parent, and that love can be of the “tough” variety when crossed. The no-nonsense matriarch will set those two back on the “straight and narrow’, no doubt about it. Unfortunately she’s sidelined during the Martian attack on DC, pleading with Byron long distance while admonishing their sons to take cover (I’m sure she could wipe out a platoon of those bulbous-headed bums). When the invaders are vanquished, Louise enlists the boys in trying to tidy up their apartment (though the building’s missing a wall), just as Byron returns. Later that year Grier and Brown would share the screen more in ORIGINAL GANGSTAS (a nostalgic return to their screen roots), but both are a welcome addition to this sci-fi satire extravaganza.

9. FORT APACHE THE BRONX

As the 1970’s came to a close, Pam Grier entered a new phase of her prolific career. Using an academic metaphor, she graduated from Grindhouse High to Big Budget University. Perhaps the 1980’s was closer to baseball as Ms. Grier was called up to the big leagues AKA major movie studios from the quickie, but very entertaining, exploitation minor leagues. 1981’s FORT APACHE: THE BRONX was an “A-list” prestige picture from Twentieth Century Fox headline by a major movie star, Paul Newman, and a very hot TV star Ed Asner, grabbing big ratings as the lead of “Lou Grant”. Though she shared no scenes with either, Grier was an essential part of Daniel Petrie’s gritty modern-day police drama. She truly sets the tone for the story in the first scene, as drug-addled working girl Charlotte emerges like a tawdry phoenix from the rubble and filth of the Bronx. Sporting a cheap blonde wig and nearly bursting through a fluorescent print cocktail dress, she elicits chuckles from two cops having lunch in a patrol car, as she staggers toward them. Their laughter is soon cut short when their banter (she slurs, “Ahm’ on the job, too”) prompts her to unload her pistol into them. She stumbles back into the city’s squalor while human vultures descend on the squad car. We catch a brief glimpse of her later during a street riot. She returns in the dark of night when a middle-aged “joe’s” car has a flat . Appearing out of the shadows, Charlotte is a modern siren, luring the man to the rocks, actually a nearby rotting tenement, with the promise of free fleshy delights. In one of the film’s most memorable sequences, she begins a teasing dance of temptation, one that ends not in pleasure, but in slashing bloody horror from a razor blade, clenched behind her teeth, glistening as she smiles. Things backfire with her next prey, as Charlotte become yet another discard piled upon the urban trash heap. Grier’s screen time is far too brief, but her “angel of death” is a most compelling, charismatic presence.

8. SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM

SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM (1973) was a funky and fun, if rushed, sequel to the hit BLACULA, which brought Vampires into Blaxploitation cinema for the first time the year before. The success of BLACULA  spawned a bunch of other Blaxploitation/Horror hybrids, such as BLACKENSTEIN, DR. BLACK AND MR. HYDE, and ABBY – THE BLACK EXORCIST. SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM once again delivered a groovy 70s vibe, and the distinguished William Marshall was more than cool in the eponymous role. What makes this film especially worthwhile was the casting of  the wonderful Pam Grier as Lisa Fortier who becomes the new voodoo priestess after her elderly predecessor dies, though not before using her skills to resurrect Prince Mamuwalde  (aka Blacula). As in the first film, Mamuwalde is not really a villain, but merely a tormented soul who cannot help but satisfy his thirst for human blood in order to survive. Soon after his resurrection, he runs into Lisa, a beautiful young woman who has particularly powerful Voodoo-skills. The whole thing is strange and ridiculous and stupid and clever and terrible and wonderful, a movie that richly deserves its place on a list of Pam Grier’s best.

7.  SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES 

The writing of Ray Bradbury is notoriously hard to capture on film. Some adaptations are almost complete disasters, Illustrated Man anyone?   Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 is one exception and Something Wicked this Way Comes (1983) is another.   Bradbury was one of the first authors to realize the basic creepiness of carnivals and circus’s.  Along with Jack Finney’s brilliant Circus of Dr Lao, Something Wicked This Way Comes tells of a carnival coming to a small town where in something sinister is happening.  Among the attractions at Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show  (I love that name!) is the Dust Witch, played with such elegance and grace by Pam Grier I found it hard to believe this was the same woman who made whupping ass an everyday activity.  The Dust Witch has very dark magic at her command, but Something Wicked is the rare horror movie, especially from the 1980s, where good wins out over evil.

6. THE BIG DOLL HOUSE 

In 1971, cinematic history was made with the release of THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, directed by Jack Hill and co-starring Pam Grier in her first feature role.  Hill had been recommended to producer Roger Corman by Francis Ford Coppola, Corman’s first choice to direct the film and a friend of Hill’s from UCLA film school.   Corman had just formed his New World Pictures studio and wanted proven types of stories with guaranteed box office.  He got more than he bargained for with DOLL HOUSE, which not only was a huge financial success, but also established the blueprint for “women in prison” exploitation films for decades to come.  Dispensing with the previous melodramatic storylines in such big studio product as CAGED and SNAKE PIT, Hill instead opted for more realistic, sometimes graphic situations.  He also determined to put his women characters in roles of power, just as if the film starred Cagney or Bogart.  These were real females who swore profusely, had a healthy regard for sex, and weren’t afraid of automatic weapons.  Hill also gathered a memorable ensemble of young actresses to surround Pam:  Roberta Collins (CAGED HEAT, DEATH RACE 2000), Judy Brown (WILLIE DYNAMITE, SLAUGHTER’S BIG RIPOFF), Brooke Mills (DREAM NO EVIL), and Pat Woodell (miles away from her role as the original Bobbie Jo on TVs PETTICOAT JUNCTION).   The film hits all the obligatory exploitation marks (shower scene, torture scenes, girlfights, etc.) and Pam even gets to sing the main title song  “Long-time Woman” for the movie.  When Corman asked Hill to do a sequel to DOLL HOUSE the following year, there were already cheap imitators and rip-offs flooding the drive-in market (Grier herself had made WOMEN IN CAGES right after DOLL HOUSE), so Hill decided to create a semi-spoof of the genre and wrote THE BIG BIRD CAGE with a starring role for Grier (fun fact:  the “cage” of the title was a working sugar mill designed by Hill’s father, who also designed the castle at Disneyland!).  Whether seen as feminist manifesto (“All men are filthy!”) or no-holds-barred cult film with kick-ass women, BIG DOLL HOUSE is a blast from start to finish and required viewing of 1970s cinema.

5.  DRUM 

Any movie that finds Pam Grier in bed with Warren Oates has to be considered a must-see 70’s classic. MANDINGO, a 1975 movie about sexual shenanigans between masters and slaves on the Falconhurst slave-breeding plantation, was savaged by critics who saw it as nothing but degrading, big-budget exploitation. Roger Ebert called it “racist trash” and MANDINGO certainly had it all; brutal violence, interracial sex, rape, infanticide, lynchings, and abundant nudity.  But of course it was a huge hit and inspired a brief run of “slaverysploitation” films such as PASSION PLANTATION (1976) and SLAVERS (1978). MANDINGO was overwrought melodrama to be sure, but it’s a model of subtlety compared to its official sequel, the more lascivious DRUM, a mean-spirited trash epic from 1976 that would never fly in today’s politically correct climate. DRUM’s tawdry story picks up about 20 years after MANDINGO. Hammond Maxwell (Warren Oates), the son of the late Falconhurst patriarch Warren Maxwell purchases a slave named Drum from bordello hostess Marianna (Isela Vega). Drum turns out to be the son of Mede (killed at the end of MANDIGO), the slave who had murdered Hammond’s father. Hammond uses Mede and his friend Blaise (Yaphet Kotto) to fight in ridiculous gladiator battles as entertainment for the ‘white folk’. Slave Regine (Pam Grier) is Hammond’s favorite ‘bed wench’ but develops a romance with Drum. Hammond’s bratty slut daughter Sophie (Rainbeaux Smith) stirs up trouble between Drum and Blaise by trying to have sex with both of them and then lying to her father that Blaise tried to rape her and a campy gay French slave trader (John Colicos) wants to bed black stud Drum as well. Tensions build, emotions erupt and by the end of the movie, a mansion is on fire, the black slaves have revolted    against the ‘mastas’ wielding scythes and knives, while the white men battle it out with their muskets and rifles. Where MANDINGO was at least pretentious and literary (and had a dignified performance by James Mason as Warren Maxwell), DRUM makes no pretense at being anything except cheap thrills exploitation and ups the sleaze quotient by adding lesbianism, incest, castration, and a swishy gay villain to the mix. DRUM is more fast-paced and entertaining than its predecessor.

4.  BLACK MAMA WHITE MAMA

Inspired by Stanley Kramer’s THE DEFIANT ONES (starring Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis), BLACK MAMA WHITE MAMA (1973) has no thematic pretensions concerning racism and social inequality.  This is first and foremost a women’s prison exploitation film, and contains all the required elements that sub-genre is known for.  The first third of the film takes place in the prison, where hot-tempered prostitute Lee (Grier) meets idealistic activist Karen (Margaret Markov), and the women take an immediate dislike to each other.  So of course, they end up chained together for most of the film.  However, they first have to deal with the usual women’s prison indignities including the wonderful Lynn Borden as a predatory lesbian guard.  Soon, the jailbreak is on, and most of the film is Lee and Karen on the run from gangsters, dogs, revolutionaries, corrupt cops, and vile locals.  Pam has some wonderful dialogue that she delivers with angry and bitter sassiness, and Markov balances the tone with her luminous political fervor.  The inevitable fight between the two is a highlight of the movie, as Pam found with Markov another statuesque and strong woman who could match her physicality (the two actresses would work together again a few years later in THE ARENA, another ‘70s classic).  Directed by Eddie Romero (the cult films SAVAGE SISTERS, BEAST OF BLOOD, TWILIGHT PEOPLE), the movie is a lean action treat with a darkly cynical ending.

3.  FOXY BROWN

FOXY BROWN (1974) is a wild story of sex, drugs, and vengeance featuring Pam Grier in probably her most iconic role. When drug pusher Link Brown (Antonio Fargas) loses half a kilo of cocaine worth $20k, his suppliers become irate and send two thugs to work him over. Desperately needing help, he calls his sister Foxy (Pam Grier) to rescue him from the two goons. She manages to get to him before they can grab him and puts him up at her place for a few days completely unaware of the exact nature of his predicament. In addition to that, her boyfriend (Terry Carter) is an undercover cop who has just undergone a face-lift and assumed a new identity because the same suppliers have a contract out on his head. Things begin to take a turn for the worse and Foxy Brown suddenly has a score or two to settle with some major league drug dealers. FOXY BROWN was written and shot to be a sequel to director Jack Hill’s previous film, COFFY where Grier played a nurse with a bad attitude and a penchant for taking her aggression out on mother**kers who wronged her. For some reason, the studio forced Hill to make Foxy Brown stand-alone at the last minute, changing… well, nothing really. The opening credits to FOXY BROWN are like a funked-out version of a 007 intro with Foxy dancing around in front of multi-colored backgrounds, all the while rocking her outfits from the film. The title sequence employs almost every trick in the title design book, from image rotoscoping and solarization to multi-layered optical animation and colorization. One of the best scenes in FOXY BROWN has to do with one of Foxy’s friends, who, though she is supposed to be laying low (people need to “lay low” often in Foxy’s world), wanders into a lesbian bar and Foxy has to get her out. This lesbian bar needs to be seen to be believed. All of the women dress like teamsters, only more macho. And in a wonderful endorsement of equal rights, these female bar patrons are just as violent, rude, and prone to fight over nothing as any beer-belching men.

2.  COFFY

When director Jack Hill was asked by American International Pictures to direct a “black woman’s revenge movie,” he immediately insisted on casting his favorite actress Pam Grier.  The resulting cult classic was COFFY (1973), which was a huge hit and helped launch the “blaxploitation” films of the 1970s.  It also contains one of Grier’s finest performances.  Grier portrays “Coffy” Coffin, nurse by day and angel of vengeance by night.  She is out to get anyone who was involved in turning her younger sister into a “smack addict at 11…..her whole life is gone!”  And Coffy doesn’t care how high up the junkie food chain she has to go – even to the top dog himself.  Along the way, she shoots, stabs, and fights her way on a one-woman rampage to rid the world of drug pushers and avenge her sister.  Hill wisely created the role of a woman with no special skills—she’s not a martial arts expert or professional assassin.  She is a strong, smart woman who relies on her wiles, intelligence, and, yes, her sexuality to help her achieve her goals.  However, she’s not just a killing machine; she wonders throughout the movie if she’s in some kind of dream—an allusion to the “dream state” that ancient warriors achieved before they went into battle.  In this early film, as she has her entire career, Grier shows why she’s a true star:   her unique blend of physically imposing power with a natural ability to show vulnerability and raw emotion.  At the end of the film, when she declares, “I loved you!  I loved you so much!” your heart breaks a little bit.

1.  JACKIE BROWN

When JACKIE BROWN was released in 1997, expectations were off the charts. It had been three and a half long years since Quentin Tarantino had rocked the movie world with the one-two punch of RESERVOIR DOGS (1992) and PULP FICTION (1994). Tarantino had the clout to cast anyone he wanted for JACKIE BROWN (1997), the film he adapted from Elmore Leonard’s novel Rum Punch, and I’m sure most of Hollywood wanted to work with him, and he put together his usual imaginative ensemble of major players, 70’s comeback stars, and fresh blood. Pam Grier was the now-mature siren of Blaxploitation, the star of many wonderful 70’s urban classics such as COFFY (1973), BLACK MAMMA WHITE MAMMA (1973), FOXY BROWN (1974) and BUCKTOWN (1975). With her distinctive mega-fro, Grier was a statuesque, articulate ass-kicker in these films and Tarantino was a huge fan (she’s mentioned by name in his scripts for both RESERVOIR DOGS and TRUE ROMANCE). He’d originally considered Grier for PULP FICTION in the role ultimately played by Roseanne Arquette (which would have made her the mate of Eric Stoltz, an actor I can see Pam Grier breaking in half with two fingers), and changed the lead character in Leonard’s novel from a blonde Caucasian to an African-American in order to accommodate Grier (in the novel, her name is Jackie Burke. Tarantino renamed her Brown after her character from FOXY BROWN). Pam Grier was 48 when she starred in JACKIE BROWN (though her character claims to be 44) and she gives a strong world-weary performance, tough and believable especially when standing up to Samuel L. Jackson’s Ordell Robey. It’s been noted that JACKIE BROWN did not do for Grier’s career what PULP FICTION did for John Travolta but then, how many parts were there in Hollywood for black women pushing 50? Pam Grier did receive some choice roles after JACKIE BROWN including parts in John Carpenter’s GHOST OF MARS (2001), LARRY CROWNE (2011) as well as roles in the TV shows The L-Word and Smallville. JACKIE BROWN was the perfect mix of pulp fiction, Blaxploitation aesthetic, and film noir.

TIME WARP: THE GREATEST CULT FILMS OF ALL-TIME VOL 1 – “MIDNIGHT MADNESS” Available On Demand and On Digital April 21st

“Watch as Divine proves that not only is she the filthiest person in the world, she’s also the filthiest actress in the world! What you are about to see is THE REAL THING! “

The greatest cult horror and science fiction films of all-time are studied in vivid detail in TIME WARP: THE GREATEST CULT FILMS OF ALL-TIME, a 3-volume series. Volume 1: “MIDNIGHT MADNESS” is available ON DEMAND AND DIGITAL: April 21. Check out Volume 1’s Trailer:

From “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” to “The Big Lebowski” and everything in between, this fascinating deep-dive documentary begins its celebration of the greatest cult movies of all-time discussing the birth of the midnight movie.  Volume 1 features such cult luminaries as Jeff Bridges, Pam Grier, Rob Reiner, Barry Bostwick, Michael McKean, John Turturro, Gary Busey, Jeff Goldblum, Fran Drescher, Penelope Spheeris and Peter Bogdanovich and is hosted by Joe Dante, John Waters, Ileana Douglas and Kevin Pollak.

VOLUME 2 HORROR AND SCIFI – will be available May 19

VOLUME 3 COMEDY AND CAMP – will be available June 23

Look for continud coverage here at We Are Movie Geeks.

POMS -Review

Ready?! Begin (I think that may be how they still start cheers)! Time to take a little detour from the Summer blockbuster super-highway, down that little rundown side street that leads to the “grindhouse”, just a few miles before the drive-in. A staple of those “low rent” movie outlets were those slightly naughty little flicks, usually featuring a bevy of young beauties often fresh from Hef’s grotto (and magazine, of course). Now, the settings and titles of these flicks usually sprung from a profession like nursing (THE STUDENT NURSES and CANDY STRIP NURSES), even TV “spokeswomen” (GAME SHOW MODELS). Then there were the “cheer” flicks like CHEERLEADERS’ BEACH PARTY and the 76 classic THE POM POM GIRLS. And in that spirit comes this new film starring…hold on. These are more mature actresses, a couple of them are 70s screen icons (in their 70s). Let’s see if this still has lots of pep as they dazzle us with their POMS.

The story starts with the “estate sale” of Martha (Diane Keaton), her life’s belongings scattered about (with price “post-it” notes) on the sidewalk in front of an alley in “Urban City USA”. Since she has no husband or kids, everything “gotta’ go”. Once that’s done, she loads her one travel bag and a small beaten-up cardboard box into her SUV and hits the road. At a rest/gas stop she takes a call from her doctor’s office. No, she won’t reschedule her chemo treatments, rather she cancels them. Her “final” destination is a retirement community in Georgia to, in her words, “wait to die”. Ah, but everybody’s enjoying their “golden years”, chugging around on small electric golf carts. After checking in with the private security supervisor (Bruce McGill), Martha is overwhelmed by the welcoming committee, headed by “queen bee” Vicki (Celia Weston) who extolls their activities and tells her, “If you don’t find a club to join, start one”. At her new home, Martha meets her frisky, free-spirited neighbor Sheryl (Jackie Weaver) who likes to break the rules by crashing funerals (free food) and housing her teenage grandson Ben (Charlie Tahan). One night Sheryl finds Martha’s old cheerleading sweater popping out of that battered moving box. She asks to borrow it in order to “spice up” a future “date”. But this inspires Martha to start a cheerleading squad/club. But Vicki’s not keen on it and insists they have 8 members. Auditions are held, and thanks to Olive (Pam Grier), Alice (Rhea Perlman) and another feisty foursome, they reach their goal. But will Vicki put a stop to it? And what happens when a disastrous public performance is put online? Will Martha (who’s secretly fighting cancer) and the ladies give up when they become a viral video laughing stock?

This “cheer club” boasts a veteran actress “dream team”. Keaton has the most compelling “story arc’ as Martha goes from being sour and sullen to revitalized as she finds a reason to keep going, to just get up in the morning. And as with many of her recent characters, her Martha is a focused force of nature who meets all of the film’s “villains” (at least three) head on. As Sheryl, Weaver has an infectious “naughty girl” grin (in classic TV terms, she’s the “Blanche”) as she tosses off tart retorts, hatches bits of mischief, and becomes the lil’ devil on Martha’s right shoulder (whispering new schemes into her ear). Perlman’s Alice goes through her own transformation as subservient housekeeper to a spirited extrovert who delights in standing up for herself and her new “sisters”. Grier projects an earthy charm as Olive, though she’s given little to, other than “jump-starting” her stable but staid marriage (turns out that hubby always dreamed of bedding a cheerleader). Weston spews mint julep-flavored venom as the smiling Southern-bell barracuda. McGill is a great flustered comic foil as the ineffectual “lawman”. Tahan is very good as the nerdy misfit who’s also taken under Martha’s wing and taught to fly. Mainly her soars about the lovely Alisha Boe as the captain of the local high school cheer team who becomes an unlikely ally to Martha’s club.

Documentarian Zara Hayes makes her narrative film debut with this “by the numbers” “feel good’ inspirational comedy, giving the cast a nice, polished sheen, but pacing the story like a beefed up basic cable film. That’s dictated by the episodic screenplay she co-wrote with Shane Atkinson. Truly it plays almost like the first three or four episodes of a sitcom for Lifetime or the Hallmark Channel. There are loads of “bonding” montages mixed in with the practice sessions sequences. Every ten or twelve minutes a sneering cardboard villain pops up (as in those target ranges) be it Vicki or a member’s “square’ son or a trite teen “bad girl”, they’re easily overcome by the squad’s smiles and “positive vibes”. One character goes from antagonist to promoter so quickly that the viewer may be in danger of whiplash. Several subplots never really “pay off” (the youngsters’ romance goest flat), while some tepid slapstick (an uninspired car chase grinds everything to a halt) invoke more tedium than hilarity (that viral video). The story stumbles about for its 90 minutes toward the most predictable triumphant underdog ending that jumps from maudlin sentimentality to a ridiculous “YouTube’-styled sensation (worldwide, eh, sure…). The release date weekend is cued to the big holiday, but this turgid trek would be a most mediocre dessert at the end of a nice brunch (despite the many mimosas). This cast deserves better because they’re just as “Marvel-ous’ as the women in the still big blockbuster. There’s little pep (or originality) in these POMS.

1.5 Out of 5

JAWBREAKER Screens at Schlafly Bottleworks March 7th – ‘Strange Brew’


” I killed Liz. I killed the teen dream. Deal with it.”


JAWBREAKER (1999) screens Wednesday, February 7th at 8pm at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, MO 63143) as part of Webster University’s Award-Winning Strange Brew Film Series. Admission is $5.


What happens when you take the movie HEATHERS, sprinkle on some CLUELESS, add a pinch of CARRIE, and throw in Pam Grier for good measure? Well, you get the movie JAWBREAKER, a forgotten movie from 1999 ripe for rediscovery.


Courtney(Rose Mcgowan), Julie (Rebecca Gayheart),Marcie(Julie Benz) and Liz(Charlotte Ayanna) were the most popular girls at school. But on Liz’s 17th birthday, her friends want to surprise her and kidnap her. But that plan goes wrong, when accidently, Liz chokes on the jawbreaker that her friends stuffed in her mouth to keep her from screaming. Everyone is totally shocked, except cold-hearted Courtney, who just doesn’t give a crap about anybody but herself. Julie wants to go to the police right away and tell them what happened but Courtney calms her down and tries to cover the crime and make it look like somebody raped Liz. After a geeky outcast named Fern (Judy Greer) finds out the truth about what happened to Liz, ringleader Courtney offers the social outcast a makeover and popularity beyond her wildest dreams–in exchange for her silence. Its derivative nature aside, Jawbreaker is a darkly fun romp, thanks to Darren Stein’s witty script and stylishly energetic direction (Fern’s Frankenstein-like transformation into alpha queen Vylette is a nicely surreal touch) and, especially, McGowan’s deliciously wicked turn as the ruthless ice queen Courtney.

A Facebook invite for the screening can be found HERE
https://www.facebook.com/events/166177730682249

 

 

Top Ten: The Best of PAM GRIER – With Foxy New Comments From Pam

Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, Sam Moffitt, and Tom Stockman

After We Are Movie Geeks chose our ten favorite Pam Grier films, we called Pam and asked her for a favorite memory or to reflect on those films. Her responses are included here.

Pam Grier will be honored by Cinema St. Louis with a ‘Women in Film Award’ when she’s in town for this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Pam’s iconic movie career began when she moved to Los Angeles in the late ‘60s from her native North Carolina at age 18. After a tiny role in Russ Meyer’s BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970), she landed a job as a receptionist for American International Pictures where she was discovered by Jack Hill, an AIP director who cast her in a pair of women’s prison films: THE BIG DOLL HOUSE (1971) and THE BIG BIRD CAGE (1972). Soon she was known as the “Queen of Blaxploitation” at a time when film roles for African-American women were, as Grier puts it, “practically invisible, or painfully stereotypical”.

Pam Grier’s newest film BAD GRANDMAS will screen at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar, in ‘The Loop’) on Thursday November 2nd at 8pm. Tickets include a SLIFF opening night reception. THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT! Director/writer Srikant Chellappa, Pam Grier, producer Dan Byington, and two of the film’s co-stars, Sally Eaton and Jilanne Klaus, will all be in attendance. 

Then, Friday November 3rd at the Tivoli, Pam Grier will attend a screening of Quentin Tarantino’s JACKIE BROWN at 8pm at The Tivoli. This will be preceded by a Pam Grier highlight reel and an on-stage, career-spanning interview and Q&A with Pam. Tickets are still available for this Friday night event. More information can be found HERE

Here, according to We Are Movie Geeks, are Pam Grier’s ten best films and some comments from Pam Grier as she reflects on our choices.


Honorable Mention: GREASED LIGHTNING

Pam: “GREASED LIGHTNING was an historically precious film. Richard Pryor was just so wonderful in that.”

GREASED LIGHTNING is a biographical film about Wendell Scott (Richard Pryor) the first African American to drive in Nascar races.   As you would expect, especially in a 1970s movie, the Anglo Americans are not too happy about Scott’s ambitions and do everything possible to stop him.   Pryor is excellent in a rare dramatic role and Beau Bridges is good as a white mechanic who is open minded enough to help him out.  Pam Grier does quite a lot with a role that could have been by the numbers, Scott’s wife Mary.   She is nothing less than a tower of strength for Scott when the odds seem impossibly stacked against him.   Greased Lightening was not a bit hit when it was released and it is pretty much forgotten these days.  I saw it in a theater during my tour of duty in the Navy and showed it on my tv station, it was quite popular with the crew, black and white. It deserves to be better known.


10. MARS ATTACKS

Pam: “I had dreams of being in that comic book when I was a little kid. To work with Jim Brown as my husband, and to work with Tim Burton, It was the greatest gift that I could have received.”

Bouncing back from the lukewarm box office return of ED WOOD, Tim Burton decided to bring another beloved childhood icon to the big screen. But rather than grabbing up another character from comic books, as with his pair of BATMAN films, he turned to trading cards. These adored (by kids) “bubblegum” cards told the grisly story of alien invasion in MARS ATTACKS! Burton filled the movie with well-known names, an all-star cast in the tradition of Irwin Allen’s 70’s disaster epics. The main story locales were Washington D.C. and Las Vegas, and Pam Grier’s character was connected to both. In “sin city” we meet former prizefighter turned greeter/ entertainer Byron Williams (Jim Brown) at an Egyptian-themed casino. As his boss glares, Byron makes a call to DC, where his ex-wife Louise (Grier) is trying to pry their pre-teen boys Cedric and Neville away from a “shooter” video game. He assures her that he will be visiting them soon (still a lot of affection between these two). We next see Louise on the job, driving a public transit bus through the busy streets of the capitol. She spies her sons at a video arcade, and slams on the brakes. She will not tolerate them skipping school, so she drags them out of the arcade and loads them on to the bus as the very understanding passengers applaud and cheer. In this film, the glamorous action icon
gets to show her maternal side. She’s a concerned loving parent, and that love can be of the “tough” variety when crossed. The no-nonsense matriarch will set those two back on the “straight and narrow’, no doubt about it. Unfortunately she’s sidelined during the Martian attack on DC, pleading with Byron long distance while admonishing their sons to take cover (I’m sure she could wipe out a platoon of those bulbous-headed bums). When the invaders are vanquished, Louise enlists the boys in trying to tidy up their apartment (though the building’s missing a wall), just as Byron returns. Later that year Grier and Brown would share the screen more in ORIGINAL GANGSTAS (a nostalgic return to their screen roots), but both are a welcome addition to this sci-fi satire extravaganza.


9. FORT APACHE THE BRONX

Pam: “Working with Paul Newman! How could you not Love that experience?! Playing a psychotic, drug-addicted killer. Brilliant! It was Theater!”

As the 1970’s came to a close, Pam Grier entered a new phase of her prolific career. Using an academic metaphor, she graduated from Grindhouse High to Big Budget University. Perhaps the 1980’s was closer to baseball as Ms. Grier was called up to the big leagues AKA major movie studios from the quickie, but very entertaining, exploitation minor leagues. 1981’s FORT APACHE: THE BRONX was an “A-list” prestige picture from Twentieth Century Fox headline by a major movie star, Paul Newman, and a very hot TV star Ed Asner, grabbing big ratings as the lead of “Lou Grant”. Though she shared no scenes with either, Grier was an essential part of Daniel Petrie’s gritty modern-day police drama. She truly sets the tone for the story in the first scene, as drug-addled working girl Charlotte emerges like a tawdry phoenix from the rubble and filth of the Bronx. Sporting a cheap blonde wig and nearly bursting through a fluorescent print cocktail dress, she elicits chuckles from two cops having lunch in a patrol car, as she staggers toward them. Their laughter is soon cut short when their banter (she slurs, “Ahm’ on the job, too”) prompts her to unload her pistol into them. She stumbles back into the city’s squalor while human vultures descend on the squad car. We catch a brief glimpse of her later during a street riot. She returns in the dark of night when a middle-aged “joe’s” car has a flat . Appearing out of the shadows, Charlotte is a modern siren, luring the man to the rocks, actually a nearby rotting tenement, with the promise of free fleshy delights. In one of the film’s most memorable sequences, she begins a teasing dance of temptation, one that ends not in pleasure, but in slashing bloody horror from a razor blade, clenched behind her teeth, glistening as she smiles. Things backfire with her next prey, as Charlotte become yet another discard piled upon the urban trash heap. Grier’s screen time is far too brief, but her “angel of death” is a most compelling, charismatic presence.


8. SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM

Pam: “I love horror! To work with  William Marshall was like taking a wonderful master class in acting.”

SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM (1973) was a funky and fun, if rushed, sequel to the hit BLACULA, which brought Vampires into Blaxploitation cinema for the first time the year before. The success of BLACULA  spawned a bunch of other Blaxploitation/Horror hybrids, such as BLACKENSTEIN, DR. BLACK AND MR. HYDE, and ABBY – THE BLACK EXORCIST. SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM once again delivered a groovy 70s vibe, and the distinguished William Marshall was more than cool in the eponymous role. What makes this film especially worthwhile was the casting of  the wonderful Pam Grier as Lisa Fortier who becomes the new voodoo priestess after her elderly predecessor dies, though not before using her skills to resurrect Prince Mamuwalde  (aka Blacula). As in the first film, Mamuwalde is not really a villain, but merely a tormented soul who cannot help but satisfy his thirst for human blood in order to survive. Soon after his resurrection, he runs into Lisa, a beautiful young woman who has particularly powerful Voodoo-skills. The whole thing is strange and ridiculous and stupid and clever and terrible and wonderful, a movie that richly deserves its place on a list of Pam Grier’s best.


7.  SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES 

Pam: “Disney! Ray Bradbury chose me to play not only one character, but four. Bradbury spent a lot of time on the set. He was such a genius. I’d love to have been in his head”

The writing of Ray Bradbury is notoriously hard to capture on film. Some adaptations are almost complete disasters, Illustrated Man anyone?   Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 is one exception and Something Wicked this Way Comes (1983) is another.   Bradbury was one of the first authors to realize the basic creepiness of carnivals and circus’s.  Along with Jack Finney’s brilliant Circus of Dr Lao, Something Wicked This Way Comes tells of a carnival coming to a small town where in something sinister is happening.  Among the attractions at Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show  (I love that name!) is the Dust Witch, played with such elegance and grace by Pam Grier I found it hard to believe this was the same woman who made whupping ass an everyday activity.  The Dust Witch has very dark magic at her command, but Something Wicked is the rare horror movie, especially from the 1980s, where good wins out over evil.


6. THE BIG DOLL HOUSE 

Pam: “It was something I was not sure that I could do and act well in. I worked so hard just to make sure I wasn’t fired. I learned a lot from all the other cast members, especially the great Sid Haig. I would sing gospel on the set and I don’t think anyone else had heard true gospel songs. I think that helped me to be a better actor.”

In 1971, cinematic history was made with the release of THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, directed by Jack Hill and co-starring Pam Grier in her first feature role.  Hill had been recommended to producer Roger Corman by Francis Ford Coppola, Corman’s first choice to direct the film and a friend of Hill’s from UCLA film school.   Corman had just formed his New World Pictures studio and wanted proven types of stories with guaranteed box office.  He got more than he bargained for with DOLL HOUSE, which not only was a huge financial success, but also established the blueprint for “women in prison” exploitation films for decades to come.  Dispensing with the previous melodramatic storylines in such big studio product as CAGED and SNAKE PIT, Hill instead opted for more realistic, sometimes graphic situations.  He also determined to put his women characters in roles of power, just as if the film starred Cagney or Bogart.  These were real females who swore profusely, had a healthy regard for sex, and weren’t afraid of automatic weapons.  Hill also gathered a memorable ensemble of young actresses to surround Pam:  Roberta Collins (CAGED HEAT, DEATH RACE 2000), Judy Brown (WILLIE DYNAMITE, SLAUGHTER’S BIG RIPOFF), Brooke Mills (DREAM NO EVIL), and Pat Woodell (miles away from her role as the original Bobbie Jo on TVs PETTICOAT JUNCTION).   The film hits all the obligatory exploitation marks (shower scene, torture scenes, girlfights, etc.) and Pam even gets to sing the main title song  “Long-time Woman” for the movie.  When Corman asked Hill to do a sequel to DOLL HOUSE the following year, there were already cheap imitators and rip-offs flooding the drive-in market (Grier herself had made WOMEN IN CAGES right after DOLL HOUSE), so Hill decided to create a semi-spoof of the genre and wrote THE BIG BIRD CAGE with a starring role for Grier (fun fact:  the “cage” of the title was a working sugar mill designed by Hill’s father, who also designed the castle at Disneyland!).  Whether seen as feminist manifesto (“All men are filthy!”) or no-holds-barred cult film with kick-ass women, BIG DOLL HOUSE is a blast from start to finish and required viewing of 1970s cinema.


5.  DRUM 

Pam: “I wish we could remake DRUM today with the intensity of someone like Quentin Tarantino or the courageousness of Ava DuVernay. It would certainly be a different film”

Any movie that finds Pam Grier in bed with Warren Oates has to be considered a must-see 70’s classic. MANDINGO, a 1975 movie about sexual shenanigans between masters and slaves on the Falconhurst slave-breeding plantation, was savaged by critics who saw it as nothing but degrading, big-budget exploitation. Roger Ebert called it “racist trash” and MANDINGO certainly had it all; brutal violence, interracial sex, rape, infanticide, lynchings, and abundant nudity.  But of course it was a huge hit and inspired a brief run of “slaverysploitation” films such as PASSION PLANTATION (1976) and SLAVERS (1978). MANDINGO was overwrought melodrama to be sure, but it’s a model of subtlety compared to its official sequel, the more lascivious DRUM, a mean-spirited trash epic from 1976 that would never fly in today’s politically correct climate. DRUM’s tawdry story picks up about 20 years after MANDINGO. Hammond Maxwell (Warren Oates), the son of the late Falconhurst patriarch Warren Maxwell purchases a slave named Drum from bordello hostess Marianna (Isela Vega). Drum turns out to be the son of Mede (killed at the end of MANDIGO), the slave who had murdered Hammond’s father. Hammond uses Mede and his friend Blaise (Yaphet Kotto) to fight in ridiculous gladiator battles as entertainment for the ‘white folk’. Slave Regine (Pam Grier) is Hammond’s favorite ‘bed wench’ but develops a romance with Drum. Hammond’s bratty slut daughter Sophie (Rainbeaux Smith) stirs up trouble between Drum and Blaise by trying to have sex with both of them and then lying to her father that Blaise tried to rape her and a campy gay French slave trader (John Colicos) wants to bed black stud Drum as well. Tensions build, emotions erupt and by the end of the movie, a mansion is on fire, the black slaves have revolted    against the ‘mastas’ wielding scythes and knives, while the white men battle it out with their muskets and rifles. Where MANDINGO was at least pretentious and literary (and had a dignified performance by James Mason as Warren Maxwell), DRUM makes no pretense at being anything except cheap thrills exploitation and ups the sleaze quotient by adding lesbianism, incest, castration, and a swishy gay villain to the mix. DRUM is more fast-paced and entertaining than its predecessor.


4.  BLACK MAMA WHITE MAMA

Pam: “That was a take-off of the Tony Curtis film THE DEFIANT ONES. I wanted it to be more comical, I wanted to be sort of a funny sidekick. That was my first experience with being my silly self.”

Inspired by Stanley Kramer’s THE DEFIANT ONES (starring Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis), BLACK MAMA WHITE MAMA (1973) has no thematic pretensions concerning racism and social inequality.  This is first and foremost a women’s prison exploitation film, and contains all the required elements that sub-genre is known for.  The first third of the film takes place in the prison, where hot-tempered prostitute Lee (Grier) meets idealistic activist Karen (Margaret Markov), and the women take an immediate dislike to each other.  So of course, they end up chained together for most of the film.  However, they first have to deal with the usual women’s prison indignities including the wonderful Lynn Borden as a predatory lesbian guard.  Soon, the jailbreak is on, and most of the film is Lee and Karen on the run from gangsters, dogs, revolutionaries, corrupt cops, and vile locals.  Pam has some wonderful dialogue that she delivers with angry and bitter sassiness, and Markov balances the tone with her luminous political fervor.  The inevitable fight between the two is a highlight of the movie, as Pam found with Markov another statuesque and strong woman who could match her physicality (the two actresses would work together again a few years later in THE ARENA, another ‘70s classic).  Directed by Eddie Romero (the cult films SAVAGE SISTERS, BEAST OF BLOOD, TWILIGHT PEOPLE), the movie is a lean action treat with a darkly cynical ending.


3.  FOXY BROWN

Pam: “Foxy Brown was my aunt. She was serious. In my family, all of the women were equal to men. My grandfather taught all of us girls to shoot and hunt and fish, drive the tractor, bring the boat in, everything a man could do. And that was Foxy Brown.”

FOXY BROWN (1974) is a wild story of sex, drugs, and vengeance featuring Pam Grier in probably her most iconic role. When drug pusher Link Brown (Antonio Fargas) loses half a kilo of cocaine worth $20k, his suppliers become irate and send two thugs to work him over. Desperately needing help, he calls his sister Foxy (Pam Grier) to rescue him from the two goons. She manages to get to him before they can grab him and puts him up at her place for a few days completely unaware of the exact nature of his predicament. In addition to that, her boyfriend (Terry Carter) is an undercover cop who has just undergone a face-lift and assumed a new identity because the same suppliers have a contract out on his head. Things begin to take a turn for the worse and Foxy Brown suddenly has a score or two to settle with some major league drug dealers. FOXY BROWN was written and shot to be a sequel to director Jack Hill’s previous film, COFFY where Grier played a nurse with a bad attitude and a penchant for taking her aggression out on mother**kers who wronged her. For some reason, the studio forced Hill to make Foxy Brown stand-alone at the last minute, changing… well, nothing really. The opening credits to FOXY BROWN are like a funked-out version of a 007 intro with Foxy dancing around in front of multi-colored backgrounds, all the while rocking her outfits from the film. The title sequence employs almost every trick in the title design book, from image rotoscoping and solarization to multi-layered optical animation and colorization. One of the best scenes in FOXY BROWN has to do with one of Foxy’s friends, who, though she is supposed to be laying low (people need to “lay low” often in Foxy’s world), wanders into a lesbian bar and Foxy has to get her out. This lesbian bar needs to be seen to be believed. All of the women dress like teamsters, only more macho. And in a wonderful endorsement of equal rights, these female bar patrons are just as violent, rude, and prone to fight over nothing as any beer-belching men.


2.  COFFY

Pam: “Coffy was my mom. She was a nurse. She was always tending to someone, helping someone, standing up to the negative forces.”

When director Jack Hill was asked by American International Pictures to direct a “black woman’s revenge movie,” he immediately insisted on casting his favorite actress Pam Grier.  The resulting cult classic was COFFY (1973), which was a huge hit and helped launch the “blaxploitation” films of the 1970s.  It also contains one of Grier’s finest performances.  Grier portrays “Coffy” Coffin, nurse by day and angel of vengeance by night.  She is out to get anyone who was involved in turning her younger sister into a “smack addict at 11…..her whole life is gone!”  And Coffy doesn’t care how high up the junkie food chain she has to go – even to the top dog himself.  Along the way, she shoots, stabs, and fights her way on a one-woman rampage to rid the world of drug pushers and avenge her sister.  Hill wisely created the role of a woman with no special skills—she’s not a martial arts expert or professional assassin.  She is a strong, smart woman who relies on her wiles, intelligence, and, yes, her sexuality to help her achieve her goals.  However, she’s not just a killing machine; she wonders throughout the movie if she’s in some kind of dream—an allusion to the “dream state” that ancient warriors achieved before they went into battle.  In this early film, as she has her entire career, Grier shows why she’s a true star:   her unique blend of physically imposing power with a natural ability to show vulnerability and raw emotion.  At the end of the film, when she declares, “I loved you!  I loved you so much!” your heart breaks a little bit.


1.  JACKIE BROWN

Pam: “When Quentin said he wrote it for me, I didn’t believe him. When I first read the script, I thought my role was going to be Bridget Fonda’s role, which was a brilliant role. When he told me, no, that I was Jackie Brown, I was truly honored because I had seen his work since RESERVOIR DOGS. When he would shoot, his set direction was so timeless, you didn’t know what era it was in. You had old cars and wardrobe, he provided such detail that would take things to various levels of subtext. He would give you a lot to look at, a lot to do, a lot to respond to. That type of direction makes you a better actor.”

When JACKIE BROWN was released in 1997, expectations were off the charts. It had been three and a half long years since Quentin Tarantino had rocked the movie world with the one-two punch of RESERVOIR DOGS (1992) and PULP FICTION (1994). Tarantino had the clout to cast anyone he wanted for JACKIE BROWN (1997), the film he adapted from Elmore Leonard’s novel Rum Punch, and I’m sure most of Hollywood wanted to work with him, and he put together his usual imaginative ensemble of major players, 70’s comeback stars, and fresh blood. Pam Grier was the now-mature siren of Blaxploitation, the star of many wonderful 70’s urban classics such as COFFY (1973), BLACK MAMMA WHITE MAMMA (1973), FOXY BROWN (1974) and BUCKTOWN (1975). With her distinctive mega-fro, Grier was a statuesque, articulate ass-kicker in these films and Tarantino was a huge fan (she’s mentioned by name in his scripts for both RESERVOIR DOGS and TRUE ROMANCE). He’d originally considered Grier for PULP FICTION in the role ultimately played by Roseanne Arquette (which would have made her the mate of Eric Stoltz, an actor I can see Pam Grier breaking in half with two fingers), and changed the lead character in Leonard’s novel from a blonde Caucasian to an African-American in order to accommodate Grier (in the novel, her name is Jackie Burke. Tarantino renamed her Brown after her character from FOXY BROWN). Pam Grier was 48 when she starred in JACKIE BROWN (though her character claims to be 44) and she gives a strong world-weary performance, tough and believable especially when standing up to Samuel L. Jackson’s Ordell Robey. It’s been noted that JACKIE BROWN did not do for Grier’s career what PULP FICTION did for John Travolta but then, how many parts were there in Hollywood for black women pushing 50? Pam Grier did receive some choice roles after JACKIE BROWN including parts in John Carpenter’s GHOST OF MARS (2001), LARRY CROWNE (2011) as well as roles in the TV shows The L-Word and Smallville. JACKIE BROWN was the perfect mix of pulp fiction, Blaxploitation aesthetic, and film noir.

SLIFF 2017 Interview: Srikant Chellappa – Director and Writer of BAD GRANDMAS

BAD GRANDMAS will screen at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar, in ‘The Loop’) on Thursday November 2nd at 8pm. Tickets include a SLIFF opening night reception. Ticket information can be found HERE. Pam Grier, director/writer Srikant Chellappa, producer Dan Byington, and two of the film’s co-stars, Sally Eaton and Jilanne Klaus, will all be in attendance. 

SLIFF’s opening night features the world premiere of BAD GRANDMAS, a St. Louis-shot comedy by co-writer/director Srikant Chellappa and co-writer Jack Snyder, the team behind such polished productions as “Ghost Image” and “Fatal Call,” which were based locally but screened both nationally and internationally. Starring the late Florence Henderson (“The Brady Bunch”) in her final role and the legendary Pam Grier (“Jackie Brown”), “Bad Grandmas” recounts the misadventures of senior citizens Mimi (Henderson), Coralee (Grier), Bobbi (Susie Wall), and Virginia (Sally Eaton). The friends’ quiet life is upended when Bobbi’s son-in-law, Jim (David Wassilak), cons her and she loses her house. Mimi, the unofficial leader of the group, decides to take matters into her own hands, but things spin out of control, and Jim is inadvertently killed. It isn’t long before local detective Randy McLemore (Randall Batinkoff) begins to investigate. Adding further complication — and danger — is Jim’s criminal associate Harry Lovelace (Judge Reinhold of “Beverly Hills Cop”), who’s on the hunt to collect the money his partner owes him. The situation appears grim, but these bad grandmas are no ordinary women.

BAD GRANDMAS director and writer Srikant Chellappa took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks about his film before the screening at The ST. Louis International Film Festival.

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman October 24th 2017

Tom Stockman: How did the script for a BAD GRANDMAS come about and how long did it take you to write it?

Srikant Chellappa: I’ve written a few scripts in the past and I’ve always gravitated towards that Coen brothers-style of comedy,that type of genre. The idea for BAD GRANDMAS actually came one night when sitting in a house in St. Charles where my ex mother-in-law would get together with her friends to play cards on a Saturday night. My mind started wandering and I thought what if these ladies, who are all in their 60s and 70s, we’re actually murderers, Nobody would ever know. That’s a pretty high concept. So that’s basically how the story started, so I begin to write a plot that would work. I’d say it took me about a year to write. I was working on some other projects at the time, I actually wrote three scripts that year. I had Jack Snyder help me clean up the dialogue. Jack has a unique, quirky sense of humor in his writing and that really helped.

TS: How did Florence Henderson get involved in this project?

SC: We made a list of actresses that we wanted for the roles, and she was near the top. We started making offers to actresses but most of them live in LA or New York and a lot of them at that age just aren’t in the condition to travel.. But Florence loved the script and agreed to do it. This was a pleasant surprise to us.  She hadn’t really done anything like this before. This was really out of character for the Brady mom.


TS: Do you think she was eager to shed her all-American mom image?

SC: Oh yes, she was ready to come out. She had been doing a lot of different things, like dancing with the stars and she had had a small role in a movie called FIFTY SHADES OF BLACK with Marlon Wayans. She wanted to do something different.

TS: How did you go about casting Pam Grier in BAD GRANDMAS?

SC: ​I have been a huge fan of Pam Grier since I can remember. In fact, I wrote her part with her in mind. It is not usual to get a role casted with the actor in mind​. I had pictured her role as a man-hating bad ass, which is in some ways a version of her younger days in the Blaxsploitation films. She fits her part very nicely as someone who doesn’t make apologies for who she is and what men who cross her or her friends deserve.


TS: What was it like working with Pam Grier?

SC: ​Pam was more than gracious and friendly in working with her. She would greet me every day with a Namaste! She is a soul of the earth with no ego which we see a lot in working with hollywood actors specially icons like her. We would chat a lot about her life and her prior films. We also spent a lot of time talking about Quentin Tarantino and what his style of directing was. We talked a lot about her relationships and loves in the past including with Kareem Abdul Jabbar and how it shaped her to be who she is. Everybody on the set loved her as she was really approachable and spent a lot of her time chatting with all the crew members.

TS: Can you share an on-set story about Ms Grier on the set of BAD GRANDMAS?

​SC: So Pam was really funny and would make sure everybody around her was cheered up. Every once in while she would say “Flo-rida.. Low Rida” ​with a sexual innuendo between takes. We would all laugh because it was funny but it took me a couple of days to figure out she was really referring to Florence Henderson who was her partner in crime! They had a great working relationship and it was just a delight to work with both of them.


TS: Was the script pretty tight? Was there some improvisation during filming?

SC: The script was pretty tight. We had gone through 11 or 12 drafts. Jack did a couple of drafts, and then I kept revising it to give some more depth to the characters. But then my style of directing is to really put things into the hands of the actors and see what they do. I encourage them to improvise, which they did. I would say that a good 15% of the dialogue was actually improvised. The ladies had such a great camaraderie and such good rapport. Sometimes I wouldn’t even call ‘Cut’ and let them keep performing. Some interesting things would come out of that. Sometimes improvised dialogue can be very interesting and funny.

TS: I know you shot a lot of the film in Columbia Illinois. I haven’t seen the film yet. Is there some St. Louis color in it? Does the story take place here?

SC: No the film is actually set in a small town in South Georgia. The characters have southern accents, but not too deep of ones. We don’t actually call out the location but the cars all have Georgia license plates and there are things like peach pie in it and sort of a Christian rural setting. Columbia was a good place for that. We also shot in a house in Fenton, Missouri.


TS: What were some of the challenges in making BAD GRANDMAS?

SC: Well the biggest challenge is always that there’s never enough money. Besides that though, I think a big challenge was finding the right locations. In my head, I had written it for South Georgia and St. Louis is more midwestern. Some of the locations I found that I liked we’re operating businesses, so we had to work around that. Another big challenge was that we wanted a house that looked like it had never changed from the 1970s. We used props like a teal-colored refrigerator. Gypsy Pate was the set decorator and she did a very good job of making it all looks retro. I guess we could’ve done things better with more money and resources but I think it all works. It was a very smooth production. We did not go over time and we stayed within our budget. When you’re working with for older ladies, you can’t push them too much. You can’t expect them to work 12 or 14 hour days, But we were actually able to film it on schedule even working less than 10 hours a day. That’s not common. I’ve done five films now and usually films require 12 our days. I think the performances and the way the film has come together has been very smooth and a big part of that was because we used such professional actors.

TS: Did you grow up in St. Louis?

SC: No I grew up in New Delhi. I moved to the states when I was 22. I went to grad school in Memphis, and I’ve lived now over half my life here. My job in the technology industry brought me to St. Louis.

TS: What do you think of the film scene here in St. Louis?

SC: It’s not bad. There’s a lot of talent here and a lot of good people to find for a film crew. I guess one issue with St. Louis is money. It’s not a big money-funding town. It doesn’t seem like there are as many bigger budget films being made here is there were five or six years ago.

TS: Yes, I believe our state has lost some of its tax credits for filmmakers. Did you grow up a movie buff?

SC: Yes, I think every Indian guy is a movie buff because of Bollywood.


TS: Do you go and see the Indian films that play here in town. There seems to be a lot of them.

SC: I do. Those do well at the box office. I don’t see them all but if one has a lot of buzz around it, I’ll definitely go and see it. I go to India every year, and I always try to see a movie at least one movie while I’m there.

TS: Who are some of your favorite film makers?

SC: There are quite a few. I think the biggest one for me would be Stanley Kubrick. I have been influenced by Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch. As for the modern era, I would say I really like Darren Aronofsky and P.T. Anderson. And of course the Coen brothers are one of my favorites. Their films are commercial but certainly quirky enough.


Srikant Chellappa with Florence Henderson

TS: How has been BAD GRANDMAS been received so far or will next week’s premiere at the St. Louis international Film Festival be the first time anyone has seen it?

SC: Next week’s screening will be a world premiere. I’ve not yet seen it on the big screen. I’m interested in seeing how the audience reacts but so far I’ve done a few private screenings and it’s been well received but it’s not the same.

TS: What’s your next project?

SC: Right now I’m taking a hiatus from filmmaking and focus on my technology start-up.  But I’m looking at some script that I wrote a couple of years ago. There’s a horror film I’d like to make at some point and there’s also a crossover Bollywood/Hollywood film that I’ve been working on. That one is set in both Chicago and New Delhi. That one would obviously cost more money. I do plan on making more movies but I’m just going to take a breather.

TS: And of course you have to go promote BAD GRANDMAS. That’s a big job right there! Good luck with BAD GRANDMAS and I look forward to seeing it when it opens the St. Louis International Film Festival next week.

SC: Thanks. I do too!

Pam Grier, the Foxy Siren of Blaxploitation, to be Honored at This Year’s St. Louis International Film Festival!

The one and only Pam Grier will be honored by Cinema St. Louis with a ‘Women in Film Award’ when she’s in town for this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Pam’s iconic movie career began when she moved to Los Angeles in the late ‘60s from her native North Carolina at age 18. After a tiny role in Russ Meyer’s BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970), she landed a job as a receptionist for American International Pictures where she was discovered by Jack Hill, an AIP director who cast her in a pair of women’s prison films: THE BIG DOLL HOUSE (1971) and THE BIG BIRD CAGE (1972). Soon she was known as the “Queen of Blaxploitation” at a time when film roles for African-American women were, as Grier puts it, “practically invisible, or painfully stereotypical”.

SLIFF, which runs  Nov. 2nd-12th will kick off with the world premiere of the dark comedy BAD GRANDMAS, directed by St. Louisan Srikant Chellappa and written by Chellappa and Jack Snyder, the team behind the St. Louis-lensed films FATAL CALL and GHOST IMAGE. Pam Grier stars in the film, which was shot across the river in Columbia, Illinois, alongside the late Florence Henderson (in her final role) as a pair of Grandmothers who accidentally kill a con man and have to act quickly when his partner shows up.


BAD GRANDMAS will screen at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar, in ‘The Loop’) on Thursday November 2nd at 8pm. Tickets include a SLIFF opening night reception. Ticket information can be found HERE. Pam Grier, director/writer Srikant Chellappa, and two of the film’s co-stars, Sally Eaton and Jilanne Klaus, will all be in attendance. 


BAD GRANDMAS director Srikant Chellappa with Florence Henderson

Srikant Chellappa is a long-time fan of Pam Grier and wrote the part of Coralee with the actress in mind. “I had pictured her role as a man-hating bad ass, which is in some ways a version of her younger days in the Blaxploitation films”, said Chellappa. “She fits her part very nicely as someone who doesn’t make apologies for who she is and what men who cross her or her friends deserve”. Chellappa describes BAD GRANDMAS as “…​a roller coaster ride of southern grandmas stuck in a bad situation and using their wits to get out of​ it. It is a movie that would be a laugh out loud dark comedy that does not take itself too seriously but leaves the audience gasping for more when it ends!​”. Chellappa found Ms. Grier gracious and friendly to work with. “She would greet me every day with a Namaste!”, he said “She is a soul of the earth with no ego which we see a lot in working with Hollywood actors specially icons like her. We would chat a lot about her life and her prior films. We also spent a lot of time talking about Quentin Tarantino and what his style of directing was. We talked a lot about her relationships and loves in the past including with Kareem Abdul Jabbar and how it shaped her to be who she is. Everybody on the set loved her as she was really approachable and spent a lot of her time chatting with all the crew members.”


Then, Friday November 3rd at the Tivoli, Pam Grier will attend a screening of Quentin Tarantino’s JACKIE BROWN at 8pm. This will be preceded by an on-stage, career-spanning interview and Q&A with Pam.


When JACKIE BROWN was released in 1997, expectations were off the charts. It had been three and a half long years since Quentin Tarantino had rocked the movie world with the one-two punch of RESERVOIR DOGS (1992) and PULP FICTION (1994). Tarantino had the clout to cast anyone he wanted for JACKIE BROWN (1997), the film he adapted from Elmore Leonard’s novel Rum Punch, and I’m sure most of Hollywood wanted to work with him, and he put together his usual imaginative ensemble of major players, 70’s comeback stars, and fresh blood. Pam Grier was the now-mature siren of Blaxploitation, the star of many wonderful 70’s urban classics such as COFFY (1973), BLACK MAMMA WHITE MAMMA (1973), FOXY BROWN (1974) and BUCKTOWN (1975). With her distinctive mega-fro, Grier was a statuesque, articulate ass-kicker in these films and Tarantino was a huge fan (she’s mentioned by name in his scripts for both RESERVOIR DOGS and TRUE ROMANCE). He’d originally considered Grier for PULP FICTION in the role ultimately played by Roseanne Arquette (which would have made her the mate of Eric Stoltz, an actor I can see Pam Grier breaking in half with two fingers), and changed the lead character in Leonard’s novel from a blonde Caucasian to an African-American in order to accommodate Grier (in the novel, her name is Jackie Burke. Tarantino renamed her Brown after her character from FOXY BROWN). Pam Grier was 48 when she starred in JACKIE BROWN (though her character claims to be 44) and she gives a strong world-weary performance, tough and believable especially when standing up to Samuel L. Jackson’s Ordell Robey.


It’s been noted that JACKIE BROWN did not do for Grier’s career what PULP FICTION did for John Travolta but then, how many parts were there in Hollywood for black women pushing 50? Pam Grier did receive some choice roles after JACKIE BROWN including parts in John Carpenter’s GHOST OF MARS (2001), LARRY CROWNE (2011) as well as roles in the TV shows The L-Word and Smallville.

And look for a Top Ten Tuesday – The Best of Pam Grier article here at We Are Movie Geeks later this month.

 

Cinema St. Louis Announces the Features for this Year’s ST. LOUIS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Cinema St. Louis  has unveiled the narrative and documentary features that comprise the 26th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival, to be held Nov. 2-12, Among the highlights are such St. Louis-related works as “Atomic Homefront,” opening-night film “Bad Grandmas,” and “For Ahkeem” and such festival buzz films as “Call Me by Your Name,” “Dahmer,” “Darkest Hour,” “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool,” “Last Flag Flying,” “The Leisure Seeker,” “Thoroughbreds,” and “Walking Out.”

For a complete list of the films, go HERE
http://www.cinemastlouis.org/films-preview

The fest will honor Pam Grier (“Bad Grandmas” and “Jackie Brown”) with a Women in Film Award; Sam Pollard (“Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me” and “ACORN and the Firestorm”) with a Lifetime Achievement Award; Marco Williams (“Tell Them We Are Rising”) with a Contemporary Cinema Award; and Washington U. grad Dan Mirvish (the Jules Feiffer-written “Bernard and Huey”) with a Charles Guggenheim Cinema St. Louis Award.

Full information on the fest, including special events, master classes, and shorts programs, will be announced the week of Oct. 9.

Look for more coverage in the coming weeks of the 26th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival here at We Are Movie Geeks.