...You'll Never Go Back

By chicago_chris in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 10, 2004 5:24PM

Shut yo mouth! For those of you caught up in the current Blaxploitation revival – from the making-of drama Baadasssss! to the IFC documentary Baadasssss Cinema to several other films with the word "Baadasssss" in the title – you need to head down to the Gene Siskel Film Center tomorrow night. On the bill is a 90-minute collection of trailers for Blaxploitation films. The Film Center's website says,

The movie trailer is an art form all its own. A 1970s Blaxploitation trailer is a shot of visual adrenaline -- raunchy, crude, violent, and often hilarious. The excessive twists and turns of these trailers have the spirit of rivalry, as if each trailer were trying to outdo the previous ones.

Chicagoist loves our movie trailers. We can spend hours of work-time on the Quicktime website watching all the latest previews. But, white as we are, we love these movies even more, from the classics like Foxy Brown and Shaft to all the (pre-Phone Booth) work of Larry Cohen to that pinnacle of the genre, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. We even like the Wayans brothers' parody I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and Quentin Tarantino's loving homage Jackie Brown. (Chicagoist admires QT's noble, if not entirely successful, attempt to revitalize Pam Grier's career.) And who can forget O.D.B.'s video to "Hey Dirty... Baby I Got Your Money"?

The show starts at 8:15, but get there at 6 to see Robert Altman's brilliant but overlooked Brewster McCloud (complete with a typically weird Bud Cort performance) and stay for all the A.D.D. "visual adrenaline."