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Dolemite
''Dolemite'' is a 1975 American blaxploitation crime comedy film and is also the name of its principal character, played by Rudy Ray Moore, who co-wrote the film and its soundtrack. Moore, who started his career as a stand-up comedy, stand-up comedian in the late 1960s, heard a rhymed Deejay (Jamaican), toast about an urban hero named Dolemite from a regular at the record store where he worked, and decided to adopt the persona as an alter ego in his act. The film focuses on a professional comedian, pimp, and nightclub owner. He serves a prison sentence after being framed by dirty cops, but he is released by the governor and tasked with dealing with his hometown's illegal drug trade. He uses his prostitutes as a private army, since they are kung fu-trained martial artists. Plot Dolemite is a pimp, comedian, and nightclub owner who is serving twenty years in prison after being set up by a rival, Willie Green (D'Urville Martin), and framed by detectives Mitchell and White, at t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudy Ray Moore
Rudolph Frank Moore (March 17, 1927October 19, 2008), known as Rudy Ray Moore, was an American comedian, singer, actor, and film producer. Retrieved February 23, 2014 He created the character Dolemite, the pimp from the 1975 film ''Dolemite'' and its sequels, ''The Human Tornado'' and ''The Dolemite Explosion'' (aka ''The Return of Dolemite''). The persona was developed during his early comedy records.[ Allmusic Biography by Cub Koda]. Retrieved February 23, 2014Soren Baker, "`Dolemite' star explores music", ''The Chicago Tribune'', 10 May 2002 Retrieved February 23, 2014 The recordin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blaxploitation
In American cinema, Blaxploitation is the film subgenre of action movie derived from the exploitation film genre in the early 1970s, consequent to the combined cultural momentum of the black civil rights movement, the black power movement, and the Black Panther Party, political and sociological circumstances that facilitated black artists reclaiming their power of the representation of the black ethnic identity in the arts. The term ''blaxploitation'' is a portmanteau of the words ''Black'' and ''exploitation'', coined by Junius Griffin, president of the Beverly Hills–Hollywood branch of the NAACP in 1972. In criticizing the Hollywood portrayal of the multiracial society of the US, Griffin said that the ''blaxploitation'' genre was "proliferating offenses" to and against the black community, by perpetuating racist stereotypes of inherent criminality. After the cultural misrepresentation of black people in the race films of the 1940s, the 1950s, and the 1960s, the Blaxploi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Human Tornado
''The Human Tornado'' is a 1976 American blaxploitation film directed by Cliff Roquemore. The film is a sequel to ''Dolemite''. In the film, a sheriff's wife has an extramarital affair with Dolemite. Her husband orders one of his subordinates to murder her, and then frames Dolemite for her murder. Dolemite flees to California, and the sheriff follows him there. Plot After coming off a successful comedy tour, Dolemite throws a get-together at his mansion. The party is crashed by racist police officers and they find out that the sheriff's wife is offering Dolemite money for sexual services. When the sheriff catches them red-handed, he orders his deputy to shoot them both. The deputy shoots the sheriff's wife, but is shot and killed by Dolemite, who escapes. Dolemite and his friends kidnap a young man and decide to head to California to meet Queen Bee. There, they find out that the local mob boss, Joe Cavaletti, has kidnapped two of Queen Bee's girls, forcing her to close her bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D'Urville Martin
D'Urville Martin (February 11, 1939 – May 28, 1984) was an American actor in both film and television. He appeared in numerous 1970s movies in the blaxploitation genre. He also appeared in two unaired pilots of what would become ''All in the Family'' as Lionel Jefferson. Born in New York City, Martin began his career in the mid-1960s and soon appeared in prominent films such as ''Black Like Me'', ''Guess Who's Coming to Dinner'', and '' Rosemary's Baby''. Martin also directed films in his career, including ''Dolemite'', starring Rudy Ray Moore. Personal life D'Urville Martin was born in New York City in 1939. He had a daughter, Debra, with his first wife, Frances L. Johnson. After their divorce, he married Lillian Ferguson in 1966 and had two more children. Martin died of a massive heart attack in Los Angeles in 1984 at the age of 45. Career Martin's first film role was as a speaking-line extra in ''Black Like Me'' (1964). He then had small roles in ''Guess Who's Coming to Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hy Pyke
Hy Pyke (born Monty Pike, December 2, 1935 – October 26, 2006) was an American character actor. Biography Pyke was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of vaudevillian David Pike and his wife Pauline. Pyke majored in theatre at UCLA in the 1960s, appearing in numerous student films, including one for Ray Manzarek, keyboard player of The Doors, called ''Induction'' (1965), which also featured the Doors' vocalist Jim Morrison in a brief role. During that time period, Pyke was also associated with actor Del Close. Career After graduating from UCLA, Pyke began his career as a character actor in low-budget and independent films. Pyke also has a small part in the John Milius film '' Dillinger'' (1973). Although many of his better known films are in the horror genre, Pyke acted in everything from blaxploitation to musical comedies. He had a uniquely manic acting style, with a penchant for exaggerated physical comedy, marked by a distinctive, raspy voice. Besides his film work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dimension Pictures (1970s Company)
Dimension Pictures Incorporated (DPI) was an American film studio founded in 1971, which primarily released exploitation and horror films. The studio underwent liquidation in 1981, after which many of its films were acquired by 21st Century Film Corporation. History Dimension was founded by Lawrence Woolner, an exhibitor who had made a number of films, including several with Roger Corman. He hired the husband and wife team of Stephanie Rothman and Charles S. Swartz to run the filmmaking division. Funds came from Sam Pulitzer, head of the Wembley Neckware Company who wanted to invest in movies. Rothman and Swartz left in 1975. She says that Pulitzer pulled out of the company by then and Wolmer did not want to renew his contract with the filmmakers. Rothman: That was just as well, in our opinion, because we could see that, the way he was managing the company, it wasn’t likely to be very successful, and that what was happening is that a few pictures made money and the rest di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boom Mic
A boom operator (or First Assistant Sound) is a core role in the sound department of a film production, who works with the production sound mixer and utility sound technician. The principal responsibility of the boom operator is microphone placement, usually using a boom pole (or "fishpole") with a microphone attached to the end (called a boom mic), their aim being to hold the microphone as close to the actors or action as possible without allowing the microphone or boom pole to enter the camera's frame. Invention of the boom mic The first noted instance of a prototype boom mic was on '' The Wild Party'' (1929). To allow Clara Bow to move freely on the set, director Dorothy Arzner had technicians rig a microphone onto a fishing rod. Another instance of a boom mic was on the set of ''Beggars of Life'' (1928) when director William A. Wellman wanted a tracking shot of two actors walking down a street, and the sound man refused, telling the director that the actors had to be static ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Nationalist
Black nationalism is a nationalist movement which seeks representation for Black people as a distinct national identity, especially in racialized, colonial and postcolonial societies. Its earliest proponents saw it as a way to advocate for democratic representation in culturally plural societies or to establish self-governing independent nation-states for Black people. Modern Black nationalism often aims for the social, political, and economic empowerment of Black communities within white majority societies, either as an alternative to assimilation or as a way to ensure greater representation and equality within predominantly Eurocentric cultures. As an ideology, Black nationalism encompasses a diverse range of beliefs which have variously included forms of economic, political and cultural nationalism, or pan-nationalism. It often overlaps with, but is distinguished from, similar concepts and movements such as Pan-Africanism, Ethiopianism, the back-to-Africa movement ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open Matte
Open matte is a filming technique that involves matting out the top and bottom of the film frame in the movie projector (known as a ''soft matte'') for the widescreen theatrical release and then scanning the film without a matte (at Academy ratio) for a full screen home video release, thus not only providing a much better full frame presentation than cropping, but considerably more convenient than pan and scan. It is roughly equivalent to an uncropped version of the film. Open matte can be used with non-anamorphic films presented in 2.20:1 or 2.39:1, but it is not used as often, mainly because it adds too much additional headroom, depending upon how well the framing was protected or for aesthetic purposes. Instead, those films will employ either pan and scan or reframing using either the well-protected areas or the areas of interest. Films shot anamorphically use the entire 35 mm frame (except for the soundtrack area), so they must use pan and scan as a result. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vinegar Syndrome (company)
Vinegar Syndrome is an American home video distribution company which specializes in "protecting and preserving Film genre, genre films". The company was founded in 2012 in Bridgeport, Connecticut by Joe Rubin and Ryan Emerson, who created it to restore and distribute old X-rated films that were lost or otherwise unavailable. Their catalog has since expanded to include other types of Cult film, cult and exploitation films, including horror films and action films. Vinegar Syndrome has been compared to the Criterion Collection for its importance to "physical media and film preservation," as well as similarly garnering praise for high-quality home video offerings. Like the Criterion Collection, Vinegar Syndrome is considered a boutique Blu-ray label. In September 2021, Vinegar Syndrome announced the establishment of Vinegar Syndrome Pictures (VSP), a sub-branding dedicated to the production and distribution of films. The first film released under the VSP banner was ''New York Nin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-definition video ( HDTV 720p and 1080p). The main application of Blu-ray is as a medium for video material such as feature films and for the physical distribution of video games for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The name refers to the blue laser used to read the disc, which allows information to be stored at a greater density than is possible with the longer-wavelength red laser used for DVDs, resulting in an increased capacity. The polycarbonate disc is in diameter and thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Conventional (or "pre-BDXL") Blu-ray discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual-layer discs (50GB) being the industry standard for feature-length video discs. Triple-layer discs (10 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High-definition Video
High-definition video (HD video) is video of higher resolution and quality than standard-definition. While there is no standardized meaning for ''high-definition'', generally any video image with considerably more than 480 vertical scan lines (North America) or 576 vertical lines (Europe) is considered high-definition. 480 scan lines is generally the minimum even though the majority of systems greatly exceed that. Images of standard resolution captured at rates faster than normal (60 frames/second North America, 50 fps Europe), by a high-speed camera may be considered high-definition in some contexts. Some television series shot on high-definition video are made to look as if they have been shot on film, a technique which is often known as filmizing. History The first electronic scanning format, 405 lines, was the first ''high definition'' television system, since the mechanical systems it replaced had far fewer. From 1939, Europe and the US tried 605 and 441 lines until, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
