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Exploitation Film
An exploitation film is a film that seeks commercial success by capitalizing on current trends, niche genres, or sensational content. Exploitation films often feature themes such as suggestive or explicit sex, sensational violence, drug use, nudity, gore, destruction, rebellion, mayhem, and the bizarre. While often associated with low-budget "B movies", some exploitation films have influenced popular culture, attracted critical attention, gained historical significance, and developed cult followings. History While their modern form first appeared in the early 1920s, the peak periods of exploitation films were mainly the 1960s through the early 1980s, with a few earlier and later outliers. Early exploitation of the 1930s and the 1940s were often disguised as "educational" but were really sensationalist. These were shown in traveling roadshows, skirting censorship under the guise of moral instruction. 1950s saw low-budget sci-fi, monster movies, and teen rebellion films. They were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
B Movie
A B movie, or B film, is a type of cheap, low-budget commercial motion picture. Originally, during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood, this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second half of a double feature, somewhat similar to A-side and B-side, B-sides in recorded music. However, the production of such films as "second features" in the United States largely declined by the end of the 1950s. This shift was due to the rise of commercial television, which prompted film studio B movie production departments to transition into television film production divisions. These divisions continued to create content similar to B movies, albeit in the form of low-budget films and series. Today, the term "B movie" is used in a broader sense. In post-Golden Age usage, B movies can encompass a wide spectrum of films, ranging from sensationalistic exploitation films to independent arthouse productions. In either usage, most B movies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portmanteau
In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.Garner's Modern American Usage p. 644. English examples include '' smog'', coined by blending ''smoke'' and ''fog'', and '''', from ''motor'' ('' motorist'') and ''hotel''. A blend is similar to a [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gordon Parks
Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was an American photographer, composer, author, poet, and filmmaker, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s—particularly in issues of civil rights, poverty and African Americans—and in glamour photography. He is best remembered for his iconic photos of poor Americans during the 1940s (taken for a federal government project), for his photographic essays for ''Life'' magazine, and as the director of the films '' Shaft, Shaft's Big Score'' and the semiautobiographical '' The Learning Tree''. Parks was one of the first black American filmmakers to direct films within the Hollywood system, developing films relating the experience of slaves and struggling black Americans, and helping create the "blaxploitation" genre. The National Film Registry cites ''The Learning Tree'' as "the first feature film by a black director to be financed by a major Hollywood studio. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shaft (1971 Film)
''Shaft'' is a 1971 American blaxploitation crime action thriller film directed by Gordon Parks and written by Ernest Tidyman and John D. F. Black. It is an adaptation of Tidyman's novel of the same name and is the first entry in the ''Shaft'' film series. The plot revolves around a private detective named John Shaft who is hired by a Harlem mobster to rescue his daughter from the Italian mobsters who kidnapped her. The film stars Richard Roundtree as Shaft, alongside Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John, and Lawrence Pressman. The film explores themes including masculinity and sexuality, with a specific emphasis on Black Power. It was filmed in Harlem, Greenwich Village, and Times Square within the Manhattan borough of New York City. The ''Shaft'' soundtrack album, recorded by Isaac Hayes, was also a success, winning a Grammy Award for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture and a second Grammy (shared with Johnny Allen) for Best Instrument ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soul Music
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in African-American culture, African-American African-American neighborhood, communities throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and extemporaneous body movements, are an important hallmark of soul. Other characteristics are a Call and response (music), call and response between the lead and Backing vocalist, backing vocalists, an especially tense vocal sound, and occasional Musical improvisation, improvisational additions, twirls, and auxiliary sounds. Soul music is known for reflecting African-American identity and stressing the importance of African-American culture. Soul has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues, and primarily combines elements of gospel, R&B and jazz. The genre emerged from the power struggle to increase black Americans' awareness of their African ancestry, as a newfound consciousness led to the creation of music ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the mid-20th century. It deemphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a percussionist, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Funk typically consists of a complex percussive groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that create a "hypnotic" and "danceable" feel. It uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, and dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths. Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown's development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with a heavy emphasis on the first be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soundtrack
A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film, video, or television presentation; or the physical area of a film that contains the Sound-on-film, synchronised recorded sound. In movie industry terminology usage, a sound film, sound track is an audio recording created or used in film production or post-production. Initially, the dialogue, sound effects, and music in a film each has its own separate track, and these are mixed together to make what is called the ''composite track,'' which is heard in the film. A ''dubbing track'' is often later created when films are dubbed into another language. This is also known as an M&E (music and effects) track. M&E tracks contain all sound elements minus dialogue, which is then supplied by the foreign ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African-American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. African Americans constitute the second largest ethno-racial group in the U.S. after White Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States. In 2023, an estimated 48.3 million people self-identified as Black, making up 14.4% of the country’s population. This marks a 33% increase since 2000, when there were 36.2 million Black people living in the U.S. African-American history began in the 16th century, with Africans being sold to European slave traders and transported across the Atlantic to the Western Hemisphere. They were sold as slaves to European colonists and put to work on plantations, particularly in the southern colonies. A few were able to achieve freedom through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cinema Of The United States
The cinema of the United States, primarily associated with major film studios collectively referred to as Hollywood, has significantly influenced the global film industry since the early 20th century. Classical Hollywood cinema, a filmmaking style developed in the 1910s, continues to shape many American films today. While French filmmakers Auguste and Louis Lumière are often credited with modern cinema's origins, American filmmaking quickly rose to global dominance. As of 2017, more than 600 English-language films were released annually in the U.S., making it the fourth-largest producer of films, trailing only India, Japan, and China. Although the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also produce English-language films, they are not directly part of the Hollywood system. Due to this global reach, Hollywood is frequently regarded as a transnational cinema with some films released in multiple language versions, such as Spanish and French. Contemporary Hollyw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the California State Normal School which later evolved into San José State University. The branch was transferred to the University of California to become the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, making it the second-oldest of the ten-campus University of California system after the University of California, Berkeley. UCLA offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a range of disciplines, enrolling about 31,600 undergraduate and 14,300 graduate and professional students annually. It received 174,914 undergraduate applications for Fall 2022, including transfers, the most of any university in the United States. The university is organized into the College of Letters and Science and twelve professional schoo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African-American Culture
African-American culture, also known as Black American culture or Black culture in American English, refers to the cultural expressions of African Americans, either as part of or distinct from mainstream American culture. African-American/Black-American culture has been influential on American and global worldwide culture as a whole. Black-American/African American culture primarily refers to the distinct cultural expressions, traditions, and contributions of people who are descendants of those enslaved in the United States, as well as free people of color who lived in the country before 1865. This culture is rooted in a specific ethnic group and is separate from the cultures of more recent melanated (dark-skinned) immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, or Afro-Latinos. African American culture is not simply defined by race or historical struggle but is deeply rooted in shared practices, identity, and community. African American culture encompasses many aspects, including Bla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magical Negro
The Magical Negro is a trope in American cinema, television, and literature. In the cinema of the United States, the Magical Negro is a supporting stock character who comes to the aid of the (usually white) protagonists in a film. Magical Negro characters, often possessing special insight or mystical powers, have long been a tradition in American fiction. The old-fashioned word "Negro" is used to imply that a "magical Black character" who devotes himself to selflessly helping whites is a throwback to racist stereotypes such as the " Sambo" or "noble savage". The term was popularized in 2001 by film director Spike Lee during a lecture tour of college campuses, in which he expressed his dismay that Hollywood continued to employ this premise. He specially noted the films '' The Green Mile'' and '' The Legend of Bagger Vance'', which featured "super-duper magical Negro" characters. Usage Fiction and film The Magical Negro is a trope in cinema, television, and literature: t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
