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The blaxploitation genre is sprawling and comprehensive. It embraced various film styles and fostered entire careers for actors and directors like Larry Cohen, Gordon Parks, Fred Williamson, and of course, Kelly. Not every example of the canon is worthwhile—rampant amateurism renders much of blaxploitation nearly unwatchable—but the best examples constitute some of the most nimble and entertaining, but also serious and socially aware, American cinema to date. My five favorites are after the jump.
- Three the Hard Way (Gordon Parks, Jr., 1974) Action filmmaking at its most frenetic, extravagant, and technically proficient. Parks, Jr. calibrates the persona of his trio of stars—Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, and, of course, Jim Kelly—perfectly, and executes a number of thrilling sequences that blend aspects of kung-fu and car chase films. In his review of Superfly, Dave Kehr calls Parks, Jr. “a director with a distinctive, tightly packed visual style.” Indeed, his precise mis-en-scene and elegant editing techniques made him a downright classy filmmaker, a fascinating counterpoint to his pulpy sensibilities as a storyteller.
