Baadasssss!

Ever wonder what it would be like to make your own film without a studio to support you and no money in the bank to fund it. Well, thankfully Mario Van Peebles' father forged ahead in the 70s with a dream and passion like no other. While Hollywood was content with making pictures that negatively depicted African Americans, Melvin Van Peebles decided to break this cultural norm and change the face of cinema.

With no budget, money from friends and drug dealers, and a non-union crew, Melvin created the impossible. He grabbed a hold of an idea and let nothing get in the way from accomplishing it. Melvin had a dream of making an African American the center of the film, one that took no sass from anyone and criticized the modern white Government. While big studios backed away from this project, Melvin jumped forward made Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. There were trial and tribulations to get it done, but thanks to a very surprising source the film became a success. It was the first independent film to become the number one film in America.

Similar to the passion seen in Melvin's eyes when he is making his low-budget film, Mario portrays that exact same involvement when making this low-budget film. What I loved about this film is that there is so much raw, unbridled emotion behind Mario's eyes that you can tell that he 1) loves his Dad and 2) wanted to show America the truth behind this innovator's life. This is Mario's past, and he superbly reenacts it on screen. He carries this film, showing us the many facets of his father. He shows the angry American, the independent talent, the powerful leader, and even the emotional parent. Through all of this Mario continues to keep this film focused and interesting. We cannot keep our eyes off his portrayal of his father. I would not be surprised if he is nominated for an Oscar this year.

Finally, this is a very powerful film that speaks about a side of Hollywood that is less known. It shows how the boundaries of racism can be broken with imagination and persistence. It shows that 'all men are created equal' and that if you have a dream you should pursue it. If you are in the process of making your own film and need a movie that will inspire and motivate, this would be the film to watch. From the moment I put this film in my DVD player, I was glued. What a powerful story coupled with interesting actors (Adam West and Sally Struthers) and told with a very realistic voice.

I highly recommend this film.

Grade: **** out of *****

Baadasssss (2003)

**** (out of 4)

When I first heard Mario Van Peebles was going to be playing his father in a film about the making of a film his father made, my first thoughts were an actor down on his luck who was going to try and pay homage to his father and make his father out to be some sort of icon. I expected a film that showed how great Melvin Van Peebles was at black power and we'd see a film showing what a wonderful man he was. Some of that is true in Baadasssss! but make no mistake—this is far from being a picture just to show how great someone is.

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was a revolutionary film for its day and I can't help but feel the same way about Baadasssss!. I believe you should wait at least ten years before calling a film a classic so I won't do that here but I will say Mario Van Peebles has created a masterpiece that works wonders throughout its running time. I've seen many films that deal with the making of movies and they usually show the high points and a few low points. Tim Burton's Ed Wood is the perfect example of this but Mario's film takes a different look at things. For once, we get an accurate account of a film being made by someone who was actually there.

The basic concept of the film works out like a documentary because Van Peebles takes us from the pre-production all the way up to the premiere and in between we're taking for one hell of an exciting ride. We've seen this type of stuff in countless films but here we are seeing it for the first time because we actually get to see the director not only dealing with losing his film but also losing his family, friends and possibly his life. Low budget film-making has always been a dream of many but I'm sure several of those dreamers might think twice after seeing this film because it doesn't paint movie-making as some beautiful, sexy job. Instead, we see the movie-making as something that eats into your soul.

However, the film's greatest aspect is the relationship between the father Melvin and his son Mario. Once again, there have been many films that dealt with the relationship between father and son but this is a rather unique one because the relationship is rather ugly in many ways. Director Mario doesn't sugar coat some very serious issues dealing with his father's anger, cheating and other cruel things. If you've seen Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song then you remember a shocking scene where a young boy loses his virginity to a woman. This young 13-year-old actor was Mario Van Peebles and it's interesting to see Mario, as the director of this film, look back at his father's incredible stupidity of forcing his young son to get naked and force him into a sex scene at an young age.

Those scenes between the father and son are very touching, honest and interesting to view because we know they're real and it's all the more interesting seeing the director of this film work out problems on camera that he had with his father. Another interesting thing the film tackles is why Melvin wanted to create an independent film when he had offers from major studios. Black people in American movies were always used as comic relief, usually appearing on screen bug eyed and telling silly one-liners followed up by "yesss sir". The film has some wonderful flashback scenes where we see these stereotypes being played out in a theater with the white children laughing at them and the black children hiding their head in shame because they know what they're seeing on screen isn't how black people really act.

Mario Van Peebles, the actor, turns in the greatest performance of his career and easily one of the greatest performances I've seen in quite some time. I'm sure he knows his father inside and out but I'm one who believes it's not easy playing someone you know or playing yourself. Van Peebles does a brilliant job at showing off various emotions and the scenes where he has to rally his crew is full of such monumental force that you can help but get pumped up. The best scene in the movie involves the father falling on the ground only to have his young son come to his help. The way Van Peebles plays this scene is quite unforgettable and should certainly earn him an Oscar nomination.

Baadasssss! is a beautiful love story from a son to his father but thankfully Mario doesn't sugar coat anything and instead delivers a film, which certainly looks and feels like the truth. In the film Melvin is shown as a hero for starting the blaxploitation genre but the film never hides the fact that he did a lot of bad things and certainly shows the bad things he did to his kids. This movie took a lot of guts to make and it took more guts by showing things how they really were. Every singe frame of this film is shot and told with loving detail and if the Academy doesn't recognize this film then that should be the nail in the coffin on their credibility. Baadasssss! is a one-on-a-kind film that should be viewed by any fan of cinema.

This is now just being shown in select theaters across the country and I got the chance to see this film just the other night,and it is a welcome sigh of relief from the outcome of summer rubbish that is clogging the nearby multiplexes. But with "Baadasssss!",co-writer and director Mario Van Peebles has offered a stunning tribute to his father,Melvin Van Peebles,whose groundbreaking 1971 classic film became one of the highest-grossing independent films of that year,and also opened the floodgates for a string of blaxploitation movies to come throughout the decade of the 1970's. The film is also a case of cinematic one-upsmanship in which Mario Van Peebles,himself,plays his father Melvin,warts and all,during the course of the older man's production of his greatest claim to fame,the cult sensation independent film of 1971,"Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song",which was in fact a film that didn't get much hearsay when it first came out,but by word of mouth became the surprise hit of that year since the 1971 film was "X" rated by an all-white jury for some outlandish content and shocking scenes.

For those individuals who have never seen this blaxploitation classic,or who have managed to see it in its entirely in the video store or in college film courses or during midnight screenings on college campuses(where it is shown during Black History Month)or most recently during Black Film Festivals where panel discussions are formed regarding this landmark cinematic piece of African-American film-making. The picture "Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song",stars Melvin Van Peebles himself as a bordello stud performer in Los Angeles who gets arrested and beaten by racist White cops,kills two of them,and manages to escape(the movie concluded with Van Peebles running endlessly over hill and dale)while he stays on the lam,while the chants throughout blasts out: "You killed my momma!","You killed my poppa!","You killed my brother!", "You killed my sister!"......."But you won't killed me!"............. The picture was very low budget making it grainy and hallucinogenic in the fashion of that era and it featured a throbbing,Greek chorus style accompaniment from an unknown band at the time...Earth,Wind,and Fire who would go on to become one of the most successful funk/R&B bands of the 1970's. "Sweetback" is credited with being the first film to have a black man taking charge of his own production and his own financing of the film and his own representations through his own independent film company,which was a bold and prosperous move at the time. "Sweetback" introduce to the world black street language and attitudes plus it wa also a winner to celebrate a lawless hero who stood up to the wrongful doings of the Man and came up a bonafide winner.

In "Baadassss!",Mario Van Peebles re-creates from start to finish the making of "Sweetback" and the convulsive life around the production. Now in his mid-forties,he plays his father at roughly the same age,and following his father,he wrote the screenplay for the movie(with Dennis Haggerty),co-produced,and directed it. He has not just stepped into his father's shoes,but captured every stanza and every body movement and it works very well here. The story of this famous tale of Melvin Van Peebles goes this way:in 1970,after directing the controversial successful comedical satire "Watermelon Man",starring Godfrey Cambridge,Van Peebles(who had a three-picture deal with Columbia Pictures at the time)turning his back on the glad-handing executives at Columbia,and the way Hollywood portrayed blacks on film,was thinking of explaining his vision to his agents whom turned him down so instead to make this film he had to be manipulative and devious enough to pull off the impossible,and he did. As far as the story goes,he did a lot of hustling to get this film made whatever the odds were against him which was a phenomenal amount of accomplishments he had to face to get this off the ground and running. Melvin passes the film off as a black "porn-movie" and shoots a scene to further that impression,but he had to enlists the help of a lot of people including a white stoner,a black porn producer,a reclusive gangbanger,and other social undesirables which includes a Bob Evans-style producer that turns out to be a gay-shooter too(and that is played by Adam West....yes,that Adam West. That's right boys and girls....Batman himself)not to mention using his own kids for this project as well. The movie captures some of the desperation and the easy pleasures of the period which turns out to be an exhausting,pleasurable,great piece of entertainment for a great summer escapism. However,"Baadassss!" is a celebration of sorts,which in turn reminds us that the political fervor that animated the films of Melvin Van Peebles and his contemporaries has largely disappeared from the American scene which there are notable exceptions such as Micheal Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11",and Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing". In an era where black entertainers are producing too many borderline minstrel entertainment like "Barbershop","White Chicks","Soul Plane",Mario Van Peebles' "Baadassss!" is a welcome call to arms,and its a grand honor to represent one of the great pioneers of Black Cimema. But it is also a mystery to this day for the son of Melvin Van Peebles,Mario whose greatest achievement as a film director,the 1991 crime-drama,"New Jack City",and the 1992 all-black western "Posse",and as an B-listed actor doesn't get the ultimate respect he greatly deserves. Let's hope he gets some respect here with this stunning tribute.

Mario Van Peebles gives us a biopic unlike any other bc unlike others he was there when his father written, acted, and directed his film 'Sweet Sweetback Badass song' and this film gives us a movie history lesson bout how that movie broke grounds cinematically. This is one of my favorite films by far bc how good Mario made this film and it is such an awesome and honest movie. This movie came out in 2003 and I'm surprised this film didn't get a Oscar nod at all. If the academy couldnt recognize this film, we are still in trouble today. If you love movies and black history, watch this film bc as a white man I'm happy to see a glimpse of a man who against all odds and traditional Hollywood, made his vision of a successful film and made history.

I had been putting off seeing this, and then was pleasantly surprised.

I didn't know much about Mario Van Peebles, nor of his father ("Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song" came out 2 years before I was born) but after seeing this homage to Mr. Van Peebles and seeing how much he risked - everything from finances to his family and his own health, for his dream of "the world" to really see life from the African American point of view, the way it really is, is well impressive to say the least.

The unimaginable struggle, the pressure and the sheer will that Mario portrays in his father is a touching tribute. Mario reveals his father's motives for making "Sweetback" in a moving and heartfelt way, documenting how Hollywood portrayed races other than white - if you are not white, then you are the white man's servant - how at that time - no one and no other film had film portrayed a Black Man as a hero or the struggles that he or any other race faces. It is a tale that is bigger than him and despite the risk and struggle, he fights to tell it. This is a fitting homage to a pioneer of a Genre and a Father.

"Baadasssss!" It also depicts the rugged world of guerrilla film-making and the rabid fight involved in making an indie film from inception to distribution. After seeing this I take a much greater heed of the Van Peebles Name, "Baadasssss!" is worthy film as a Drama in its own right, an Homage to a Pioneer and Father and as a Documenty Tribute to a Piece of Film History.