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Today, director Michael Campus is best remembered as an alum of Blaxploitation, thanks mostly to 1973’s The Mack, which featured an early role for Richard Pryor, and the more obscure cult item The Education of Sonny Carson (1974).

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When director Michael Campus’s The Mack was released in 1973, it played in only 22 theaters. Even though it did decent business in its limited run, the drama starring Max Julien, Don Gordon, and Richard Pryor about a man who returns from prison to become the king of the pimps in Oakland seemed destined to remain a cultural blip. It wasn’t even released on video.

But then people got hold of the wonderful soundtrack, Quentin Tarantino started touting it as one of his favorites and wrote it into Tony Scott’s True Romance, prolific rappers like Jay-z and Dr. Dre...

There is a fine line between stereo-typing and the honest portrayal of criminals in cinema. Films such as Public Enemy (1931), Goodfellas, and both versions of Scarface (1932 and 1983) are examples of films both under attack and praised for its portrayal of criminals. Brian De Palma’s version of Scarface especially divides audiences and critics as to whether the character of Cuban import Tony Montana is a racial caricature or an honest look at greed and corruption. Blaxploitation cinema’s portrayal of criminals is no different drawing criticism from the African-American community, especially Rev. Jesse Jackson and the NAACP. The pimps and drug pushers in Blaxploitation cinema are considered just the same, walking the line of stereo-type and being socially conscious.

#5 The Candy Tangerine Man (1975)

Written by Mikel Angel

Directed by Matt Cimber

“Your cash ain’t nothin’ but trash.”

The Baron is a Sunset Blvd pimp that pushes his women to...

Diane Cilento, a tall, voluptuous, sometimes blonde/sometimes brunette beauty best remembered for her Academy Award-nominated performance in the 1963 Oscar winner Tom Jones, died in Cairns, in the north of Queensland, according to an online report in the Australian publication The Newsport/Port Douglas Daily. The report says Cilento was 81; as per the IMDb, she had turned 78 yesterday. The cause of death, "after a long battle with illness," hasn't been disclosed. Born to a family of doctors on Oct. 5, 1933, in Brisbane, Queensland, Cilento began her film career in British and British-set Hollywood productions of the early 1950s. By mid-decade, Cilento was already getting cast in leads and semi-leads, in mid-level fare such as Roy Ward Baker's Passage Home (1955), opposite Anthony Steel and Peter Finch, and Alan Bromly's The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp (1956), in the title role as an angel who, in order to fulfill her mission on Earth,...

This week, we resurrect the perverted stepsister of Sound on Sight we call Sordid Cinema for a special occasion: Grindhouse Wednesdays is putting on a special screening of Jack Hill’s classic blaxploitation flick Coffy at the Rialto Theater, and organizer / programmer Ben Godin is joining us to talk about the movie, after which we’ll be reunited with Mike Waldman in Toronto to discuss two more blaxploitation flicks: Foxy Brown (also by Hill) and Michael Campus’s The Mack.

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Playlist:

Dr. Dre – Nothin’ but a ‘G’ Thang

Roy Ayers – Coffy Baby

Dr. Dre – Lil’ Ghetto Boy

The Jimmy Castor Bunch – It’s Just Begun

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Here’s a quick recommendation for sci-fi fans seeking a vintage fix: Z.P.G. (Zero Population Growth) is a seriously underrated gem directed by Michael Campus. Campus has precious few other helming credits, with The Mack and The Education of Sonny Carson among them, but in this 1972 shocker that channels classic Orwellian themes, Campus’ debut proves to be admirably assured, resulting in a picture of extremely deliberate pacing while also indulging in many unsettling and near-experimental flourishes.

This particular dystopian future is one in which the curing of diseases has resulted in a population explosion of globe-threatening proportions, while the environment has been thoroughly violated by smog so thick travelers must wear oxygen masks when venturing outdoors. At the outset of the film, childbearing is officially outlawed on punishment of death. “Legal” babies are branded with a mark that’s visible when scanned by authorities, and citizens are encouraged to fink...

Marcia Gay Harden will star in Lionsgate's The Christmas Cottage, based on the life of American painter Thomas Kinkade and his painting of the same name.

Harden will play Thomas Kinkade's mother, Maryanne. Also starring are Jared Padalecki, who will play Kinkade, and Peter O'Toole, who will play Glen Wessler, based on one of Kinkade's mentors. Michael Campus will direct the film, which goes into production this month in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C.

The film, planned for a holiday release, is part of an intended three-picture deal between Lionsgate and Kinkade. The next two films would be based on other paintings and reflect different points in Kinkade's life.

Cottage also will be produced by the Firm and Kinkade's Birch label. Producers are Thomas and Nanette Kinkade, the Firm's Julie Yorn, and Michael and Arla Dietz Campus.

Harden won an Academy Award in 2001 for her role in Pollock and earned a second nomination in 2004 for Mystic River. She will appear in the upcoming The Invisible, directed by David Goyer, and Paramount Vantage's Into the Wild, helmed by Sean Penn.