George Armitage: 1942-2025
On February 15, 2025, one of America’s most individual, and least known, filmmakers left us
DARKTOWN STRUTTERS
A blaxploitation movie parody that’s funny, illuminating and often downright ugly
THE BLACK GESTAPO
If not for some misguided elements this would be a classic of the blaxploitaiton genre. Maybe it is anyway.
BITCH
A sexier, druggier variant on THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR
Welcome Home to the Faustian Penitentiary, Away from Emma Mae and the Street Wars
About the late blaxploitaiton auteur Jamaa Fanaka, who combined urban grit and sheer weirdness
THE BIG DOLL HOUSE
Among women in prison movies THE BIG DOLL HOUSE is one of the biggies
WHOREDAUGHTER
A depraved blast of deviant behavior and street-level reality from a protege of the late Donald Goines
AU HASARD BALTHAZAR vs. EO
Two donkey-headlined films, one from 1966 and one from 2022, one an enduring classic and the other not quite
THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME BE MYSELF
Here’s something that’s been a long time coming: a fully authorized biography of the late African American actor/comedian/filmmaker Rudy Ray Moore
On SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG
In the lexicon of “revolutionary” black cinema SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG exists in a category of its own