Tag: Quentin Tarantino

Check Out This First Look At Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL: THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR 

Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL: THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR unites Volume 1 and Volume 2 into a single, unrated epic – presented exactly as he intended, complete with a new, never-before-seen anime sequence. Uma Thurman stars as The Bride, left for dead after her former boss and lover Bill ambushes her wedding rehearsal, shooting her in the head and stealing her unborn child. To exact her vengeance, she must first hunt down the four remaining members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad before confronting Bill himself. With its operatic scope, relentless action, and iconic style, THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR stands as one of cinema’s definitive revenge sagas – rarely shown in its complete form, and now presented with a classic intermission.

KILL BILL: THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR stars Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Gordon Liu, Michael Parks, and David Carradine as “Bill.” The film is produced by Lawrence Bender, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, based on the character of “The Bride” created by Q&U.

Releasing on December 5, 2025, the runtime is 281 minutes (including a 15-minute intermission).

Quentin Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Available For the First Time on 4K, Blu-ray and Digital October 12th

“You probably heard we ain’t in the prisoner-takin’ business; we in the killin’ Nazi business. And cousin, business is a-boomin’.”

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS – BRING HOME THE STAR-STUDDED, ACTION-PACKED WAR THRILLER IN ULTRA HIGH DEFINITION QUALITY, AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE SEEN – AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME ON 4K, BLU-RAY™ AND DIGITAL ON OCTOBER 12, 2021 – FROM UNIVERSAL PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT

Brad Pitt takes no prisoners in Quentin Tarantino’s high-octane WWII revenge fantasy Inglourious Basterds. As war rages in Europe, a Nazi-scalping squad of American soldiers, known to their enemy as “The Basterds,” is on a daring mission to take down the leaders of the Third Reich.

OVER TWO HOURS OF BONUS CONTENT, INCLUDING:

  1. Extended & Alternate Scenes
  2. Roundtable Discussion with Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt and Elvis Mitchell
  3. The New York Times Talk
  4. Nation’s Pride – Original Short
  5. The Making of Nation’s Pride
  6. The Original Inglourious Basterds
  7. A Conversation with Rod Taylor

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.

WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL Screens at Webster University February 21st-23rd

WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL screens at Webster University ‘s Moor Auditorium (470 E Lockwood Ave) screens Friday February 21st, Saturday February 22nd, and Sunday February 23rd. The film begins each evening at at 7:00pm. A Facebook event can be found HERE

Regarded by Roger Ebert as having “a more positive influence on the climate for film in America than any other single person over the last three decades,” film critic Pauline Kael reigned, from the late 60s to the early 90s, as one of the most well-known, clever, and controversial figures in the industry. Having been one of the few female critics in a sea of men, unapologetic about her (often scathing) opinions, and underpaid for the influential work she did, Kael fought endlessly to preserve her title.

Pauline Kael, the New Yorker film critic for 25 years until the early 1990s, was a lightning rod of American culture. She waged a battle to be recognized and her opinions made her readers hate or love her. Her distinctive voice pioneered the art form, and was largely a result of stubborn determination, huge confidence, and a deep love of the arts. The movie also shows 20th-century movies through Pauline’s eye, and shows Pauline’s own life through moments of other movies. The filmmakers had complete access to the subject — through Gina James, Pauline’s only child and the executor of her estate; friends and colleagues; and Pauline’s personal archives. With over 30 new interviews, including David O. Russell, Quentin Tarantino, Camille Paglia, Molly Haskell, Alec Baldwin Greil Marcus, Paul Schrader, John Guare and Joe Morgenstern. Sarah Jessica Parker voices Pauline through her writing and letters.

Admission is:

$7 for the general public
$6 for seniors, Webster alumni and students from other schools
$5 for Webster University staff and faculty

Free for Webster students with proper I.D.

ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD – Review

As the Summer film season begins to wind down, moviegoers get to do a little “universe-jumping” once again. That sounds a touch out there, doesn’t it? Well, over this year we’ve had three trips to the “Marvel movie universe” (we’re not going to count the dud that was DARK PHOENIX). And three trips to the “Disney classics universe (I’m speaking of the live-action/CGI hybrid remakes DUMBO, ALADDIN, and current box office beast THE LION KING). Now it’s time for a long-overdue (nearly four years) trek into the “Tarantino movie universe”. Aside from springing from the mind (and on to the page and camera lense) of Quentin, the now nine films (sidebar controversies: Is KILL BILL really just one film? Do we count his half of GRINDHOUSE? What about his single scene in the first SIN CITY?) share many actors, some fictional “products”, and a love of different film genres (plus that often “off-kilter” dialogue). Well with this current project, QT gets to indulge his love of a motion picture “era”, LA history/scandals, and (shocking) his admiration for (wha-?) television! These diverse ingredients are mixed together by master chef Quentin in a frothy, tart, but tasty concoction he’s dubbed ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD. Let’s chow down!

The title “time ” is the swinging 1960s. The first stop is 62 as we watch a promotional spot for NBC’s newest hit, “Bounty Law” a 30 minute black and white Western starring rising star Rick Dalton (Leonardo Di Caprio) as a wandering bounty hunter. During that same year, a TV “entertainment” reporter does a “puff piece” on set interview with Rick and his stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Spring ahead to February 1969 (and color, of course). “Bounty Law” is in rerun/syndication heaven, but Rick and Cliff are still a team. Cliff is driver, house “handyman” and al around “go-fer” to Rick as he hustles around LA for work. Part of that hustle this particular evening is meeting with talent agent Marvin Schwarzs (Al Pacino) at industry eatery Musso and Frank’s. Rick’s career anxiety has him chainsmoking and he’s developing a pronounced stammer (nearly a stutter). He’s not put at ease as Marvin delivers a devasting “wake up call” telling him that his film career has stalled since playing the ‘heavy of the week” on countless TV shows, while also trying to sell him on the idea of headlining some films shot and produced in Italy. This notion pains Rick as he and Cliff head back to his Hollywood Hills home. There they see the arrival of his neighbors (they bought the gated mansion a good ways down the road), new movie royalty director Roman Polanski and his gorgeous movie star bride Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). The next morning Rick has to report to the set of the new CBS Western called “Lancer” where he’s playing another “baddie” (ringleader of an outlaw gang). It’s a long day as he deals with an arty flamboyant director, a precocious child star, and his ego-crushing “flubs”. Cliff, as he reflects on his checkered past, cruises the city in Rick’s sporty set of wheels. After a couple of near encounters, he decides to give a ride to a young “hippie chick” named “Pussycat” (Margaret Qualley). He takes her to her “family” dwelling at an old movie Western set locale, the Spahn Ranch. There Cliff is told about the family’s leader “Charlie” from two of the several young ladies, as he gets a general “weird vibe” from the familiar old place and its new young “occupants”. Meanwhile, Tate is seen around LA, dancing at the Playboy mansion, and even sneaking into a matinee of her latest flick. Six months later, she’s nearly ready to give birth as Rick and Cliff enjoy one last night on the town. But later that evening, sinister long-haired invaders make their way through the exclusive private neighborhood. What could they be plotting on this warm August night?

What gives this “epic’ tale a most human touch is the friendship of the two main characters. Tarantino, in an inspired bit of casting, paired two veterans of previous films, creating a male duo (or “bromance”) that rivals another started in 69 (the first Redford/Newman, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID). DiCaprio (DJANGO UNCHAINED) and Pitt (INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS) have a believable compelling chemistry though their characters and acting styles are quite different. Dalton is a climber losing his grip on “fame mountain” and DiCaprio shows us the sweaty panic as he seems to be slowly sliding below the “summit”. He gives us that veneer of confidence slowly eroding in a great scene as DiCaprio has Rick gives himself a scorching pep talk. And in those faux film and TV clips, Rick’s is every inch a star (even stiffly crooning an old pop tune as a trio of Hullaballoo dancers manically gyrate around him). The opposite of that anxious actor is Pitt’s charismatic, colossally cool stunt man Cliff. He seems to have that West Coast surfer attitude (he sports a loose Hawaiian shirt in most scenes), just letting the universe’s “waves” take him on a “life ride”. Still, Pitt lets us see a bit of the darkness beneath the “dude-ness”, trying to get ahead of a past that the “business” still talks about in whispers behind his back. And while Rick is the on-screen action hero, Cliff strolls into deadly danger in one of the film’s most tension-filled sequences (we see Pitt “scoping” his surrounding with his eyes, slowly “casing’ the rooms, spotting possible weapons and escape routes). Here’s hoping another savvy director will come up with another project for this talented twosome (unless Quentin does a follow-up).

This “dream team” is supported by a great cast of QT vets, established stars, and newcomers. Squarely in that middle category is the radiant Robbie who literally lights up the screen as Hollywood’s new “golden girl” Sharon Tate. Robbie plays her as a graceful diety, gliding through tinsel town, combining old studio glamour and the free-spirited changing late 60s era. Though she’s in a most unusual relationship (she lives in a home with her hubby and ex-boyfriend), Robbie gives her a sweet youthful innocence, particularly in the movie theatre scenes. Eschewing a familiar cliche’ (“I can’t watch myself on-screen”), Tate is filled with joy, viewing her screen persona (QT uses real footage of Tate) and drinking in the audience reactions. Plus Robbie looks completely natural in the period fashions (no “playing dress-up” ). The often bombastic Pacino finds just the right tone for the brutally honest agent, Schwarzs going smoothly from compliments to dire predictions of career doom (“Ya’ gonna’ be a Batman villain next? Pow…zip…zoom”). He can schmooze with the best, but he’s not stuck in the past. Kurt Russell is terrific as a studio stunt director who likes Rick, but can’t abide Cliff (his character may be connected to a previous QT work). Damian Lewis and Mike Moh have memorable cameos as real movie icons, while Timothy Olyphant and the late Luke Perry have great scenes as the stars of “Lancer”. On that same TV show setting, Julia Butters is a real scene-stealer as Rick’s unlikely muse/advisor. Actually, many of the screen newcomers are second-generation actors. Bruce Willis’ daughter Rumer is one of Tate’s actress pals, while several others are part of the hippie “family”. Qualley (really becomes a “flower child”) is the daughter of Andie MacDowell, along with Maya Hawke, daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, and both are ‘supervised” by “family elders” Lena Dunham and Dakota Fanning, pure dead-eyed evil as ‘Squeaky’ Fromme (not to mention the always wonderful Bruce Dern as another member of the “group”).

As mentioned earlier, this flick comes four years after Tarantino’s last one, THE HATEFUL EIGHT. I’m most happy to report that it is well worth the wait. This is his love letter to that crazy time when the torch was passed from the “old” Hollywoods moguls to the wild young rebels, and QT’s passion burns through nearly every frame. Leaning into the fairytale-like title, he shows us a magical kingdom of both hopes and desperation, sweet dreams and dark nightmares. We’re taken back to a time where TV was the “ugly stepchild” of the celebrated motion picture. But Tarantino shows us the art and charm of both. He loves the “ground out” TV “oaters” as much as the action “potboilers’ and the studio showcases. His script takes us from hilarity (Cliff panics as Rick can’t suppress a sob in a parking lot) to nail-biting suspense (during one sequence I wanted to jump into the screen to tell a beloved character to “get outta’ Dodge”). Plus the time is recreated in unbelievable detail. Actual AM radio cues and commercials fill the car cruising scenes, while Hollywood Boulevard becomes a blazing neon Asgard, with Pitt as a golden-haired hero guiding a sleek motorized chariot. Nearly every shot includes a nod to the year, with bus stop benches tauting reruns of “I Spy” along with LA newscasters (George Putnam!), even an early version of Taco Bell. What was considered junk is filmed with love by Tarantino turning into glorious antiquities: issues of “digest-sized” TV Guides, grocery items, and those shimmering vintage autos (and a couple of new “phony” products join the QT staple along with Big Kahuna Burger and Red Apple Cigarettes). Sure, some of the scenes could uses a good trim, especially some long “Lancer” exchanges, and Tarantino indulges his love of history twisting (recall the ending of BASTERDS) and excessive, nearly cartoon violence, but that doesn’t take away from the whole immersive experience as we feel as though a time machine (or that era’s TV show “Time Tunnel”) has whisked us back to a simpler, though unpredictable and often dangerous time. I can hardly wait for the disc in order to savor the art direction secrets and delectable deleted scenes (some interesting actors are in the end credits with a “cut” next to their listings, so…). Quentin Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD is one truly fantastic, fabulous film (and TV) fable. And the moviegoers all lived happily ever after…

4 Out of 4 Stars

Win Free Passes To The St. Louis Advance Screening Of ONCE UPON A TIME IN… HOLLYWOOD Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie And Al Pacino

Quentin Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN… HOLLYWOOD visits 1969 Los Angeles, where everything is changing, as TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) make their way around an industry they hardly recognize anymore. The ninth film from the writer-director features a large ensemble cast and multiple storylines in a tribute to the final moments of Hollywood’s golden age.

The film opens in theaters July 26.

Get tickets:
https://www.onceuponatimeinhollywood.movie/tickets/

Margot Robbie stars in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD.

Enter for your chance to win two free passes to the St. Louis advance screening of ONCE UPON A TIME IN… HOLLYWOOD. The theatrical sneak preview will be on July 24 at 7pm.

Answer the Following: True or False – Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio have never done a movie together until now.

Add your name, answer and email in our comments section below. You will be notified if you are a winner.

NO PURCHASE REQUIRED. A pass does not guarantee a seat at a screening. Seating is on a first-come, first served basis. The theater is overbooked to assure a full house.

Rated R for Language throughout, some strong graphic violence, drug use, and sexual references.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Al Pacino in Columbia Pictures “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD – Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Quentin Tarantino and Margot Robbie Attend Cannes Premiere

CANNES, FRANCE – MAY 21: Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio attends the screening of “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” during the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2019 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD had it’s world premiere at the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival. Check out the highlights below.

Quentin Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD visits 1969 Los Angeles, where everything is changing, as TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) make their way around an industry they hardly recognize anymore. The ninth film from the writer-director features a large ensemble cast and multiple storylines in a tribute to the final moments of Hollywood’s golden age.

Variety says the film has officially entered the upcoming Oscar race:

“Leonardo DiCaprio seems sure to be nominated for his starring work as a fading 1950s Western star as will Brad Pitt as DiCaprio’s longtime stuntman. There’s no reason why Tarantino couldn’t once again pick up noms for best picture, director and original screenplay.

The director is no stranger to nominations, with his films having earned more than two dozen over the years.

Winning is another story. Only a handful of the noms have turned into Oscar wins.

Could “Once Upon a Time” be Tarantino’s ticket to sweeping the Oscars? It’s too soon to tell. It’s only May and we have a lot of time between now and the end of awards season.”

https://variety.com/2019/film/awards/quentin-tarantinos-once-upon-a-time-oscars-cannes-premiere-1203222137/
CANNES, FRANCE – MAY 21: Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Quentin Tarantino and Margot Robbie attend the screening of “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” during the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2019 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Dominique Charriau/WireImage)
CANNES, FRANCE – MAY 21: Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt attend the screening of “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” during the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2019 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
CANNES, FRANCE – MAY 21: Margot Robbie ttends the screening of “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” during the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2019 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Daniele Venturelli/WireImage)
CANNES, FRANCE – MAY 21: Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio attend the screening of “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” during the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2019 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Daniele Venturelli/WireImage)

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.

Quentin Tarantino’s RESERVOIR DOGS Screening This Saturday Night at Webster University


“Now listen up, Mr. Pink. There’s two ways we can do this job. My way… or the highway!”


RESERVOIR DOGS will screen at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium Saturday September 16th at 7:30pm


Quentin Tarantino’s feature-length directorial debut, RESERVOIR DOGS (1992) depicts the events before and after a botched diamond heist. The film features Harvey Keitel (Mr. White), Michael Madsen (Mr. Blonde), Steve Buscemi (Mr. Pink), Chris Penn (Nice Guy Eddie Cabot), Lawrence Tierney (Joe Cabot), Tim Roth (Mr. Orange), and Tarantino (Mr. Brown). Tarantino displays many themes that have become his style and influenced a generation of filmmakers: choreographed violent crime, pop culture references, nonlinear storytelling, dialogue punctuated with profanity.


Somewhere along the way, opinions on Quentin Tarantino have become divided – some still loving his work, others calling it bloated and unnecessarily inflated. However, those are two criticisms that cannot be levelled at his first film. It’s the very definition of ‘minimalist,’ focusing on the aftermath of a bank robbery gone wrong, shot (in some places) in real time. The story is simple: a gang of bank robbers thinks that one of their number is a ‘rat’ and has tipped off the police. How do they deal with this? If you’ve never seen RESERVOIR DOGS, watch it this weekend at Webster University and find out.

RESERVOIR DOGS will screen at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium Saturday September 16th at 7:30pm (470 E. Lockwood in Webster Groves).

Unless otherwise noted, admission is:

$6 for the general public
$5 for seniors, Webster alumni and students from other schools
$4 for Webster University staff and faculty

Free for Webster students with proper I.D.

Advance tickets are available from the cashier before each screening or contact the Film Series office (314-246-7525) for more options. The Film Series can only accept cash or check.

Winifred Moore Auditorium (470 E. Lockwood, Webster Groves, MO 63119) :

Directions: Taking Highway 44 East, exit left on Elm Ave. Make a right on East Lockwood Ave. Immediately after passing Plymouth Ave., there will be a parking lot entrance to your right (lot B). Winifred Moore Auditorium is behind Webster Hall (Building 2 on map).