Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song | 
| Actors: John Amos, Michael Augustus, Simon Chuckster, Steve Cole, John Dullaghan
Studio: Cinemation Industries
List Price: $9.98
Buy New: $3.00
You Save: $6.98 (70%)
New (3) Used (6) from $2.25
Rating:  51 reviews
Sales Rank: 27073
Format: Color, Ep, Hifi Sound, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: X (Mature Audiences Only)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 6304195400
UPC: 000799116432
EAN: 9786304195406
ASIN: 6304195400
Release Date: February 5, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: CHARITY SALE!! Brand new, excellent condition. Still shrink wrapped! 100% of the proceeds benefit literacy efforts of Books for America.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Raw, jagged, and explosively angry, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a landmark in American independent cinema. Melvin Van Peebles directed, wrote, produced, edited, scored, and stars as Sweetback, a passive bouncer raised in a brothel. Shot guerrilla style on a starvation budget on the streets of Los Angeles, it's a violent tale of Sweetback's journey from passive acceptance to political awareness and active defiance. He becomes the target of a manhunt when he kills two cops who beat up a young black activist, and he bounces from hideout to hideout before running for the border, all the while getting more booty than Shaft and Superfly put together. The movie was so inflammatory by conservative industry standards that it was "Rated X by an All White Jury," which the ads proudly touted. The unusual mix of agitprop and exploitation is directed in a jagged style that recalls Godard and set to a funky score performed by Earth, Wind & Fire, which Van Peebles intercuts with chanting Greek chorus-like slogans. Released independently, it was a huge hit and effectively spawned the blaxploitation genre, but none of the films that followed ever recaptured the energy, the anger, and the social politics of this breakthrough in independent cinema. --Sean Axmaker
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| Customer Reviews: Read 46 more reviews...
 Breaking the mold... literally ! December 25, 2004
Eddie Landsberg (Tokyo, Japan)
31 out of 36 found this review helpful
The most important thing to understand about this film is that if you're getting it just because you expect to live up the expectations of its genre... you better not... in fact, that was the debate over Sweetback for years : what was it ? the world's first blaxsploitation film or the world's first black social empowerment movie, a black porno flick or deep social satire ??? B-move trash or a brilliantly inspired art movie... - - The truth is, the strength and weakness of SWEETBACK is that its really all of this, but if you're expecting it to meet the mold of any one of these genre's you'll be disappointed... and that's part of the fun of the film... getting past the shock to see the message, and the message to dig the shock... and just riding along with Sweetback (EWF's soundtrack definitely makes that part easy !) With its gritty, funky tale and soundtrack, ample booty, controversial story no doubt that there's something in it to both appease and offend just about anyone that watches it... so the best thing to do is put it like this : SWEETBACK is a genre all of its own... just sit and watch it in suspended judgement and disbelief... watch it, again and again and again... Depending upon who you are you'll either find it tasty and addictive... or... well, revolting and disgusting... whatever... the fact is when you watch it there's one thing you won't come away seeing, "Man this film reminds me of a film I've seen 100 times before..." Nope... no one really did it before Peebles, and no one (despite all the films it inspired) did it after and that's why you should see it... but again... don't expect Shaft, Rudy Ray Moore or Superfly... that's not what the film is about... and whatever you do DO NOT WATCH IF EASILY OFFENDED... Now, on with the *****ing contest ! ! !
 Only Serves To Nauseate April 21, 2000
Robert I. Hedges
25 out of 62 found this review helpful
This may be the least watchable film I have ever seen. This was recommended to a friend by Amazon because of our purchases of the comparatively enlightening and morally uplifting Dolemite videos. This movie begins by condoning the statutory rape of a ten year old boy, and descends to new depths of film depravity. The one recurring theme in this film is: RUNNING! YES! How exciting can in get watching Sweet run for what seems like hours. This belongs exactly where we put our copy:in the garbage.
Sweet Sweetback's Just Plain Bad Song. June 8, 2005
"Church of The Flaming Sword"
22 out of 60 found this review helpful
I have to give Melvin Van Peebles credit for one thing. He managed to achieve something that the creators of megahits like _Star Wars_, _Spiderman_, _E.T._, _Jaws_, and _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ could not accomplish. He filmed _Sweet Sweetback's Baaaada*** Song_ with right around $50,000 and wound up grossing over $10 million. That's 20,000% profit. Pretty impressive. However, many things that create a huge profit within the entertainment industry aren't necessarily that great. Look at reality shows, gangsta rap, and Americanized J-horror for further proof. Yet _Sweet Sweetback_ isn't just bad, it's downright repugnant. These are several reasons why I think - I take that back, why I know it does not deserve it's lofty reputation.
1. The opening scene - As some of you know, our "hero" Sweetback (you wouldn't believe how loosely I'm using that term) was raised in a brothel. Within the first 10 minutes, you see Melvin's son Mario engaged in sexual congress with an older lady. Mario was 13 years old at the time. Using a child for such a scene is beyond disgusting, but your own child is - well , I can't think of a word for it.
2. The police beating scene - I in no way condone police brutality of any sort. Any police officer(s) who brutalize anyone in the way that the young black man is in the film deserve(s) to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Then again, there is also the way in which Sweetback takes out his anger on the abusive cops. He doesn't seem to be worried about the welfare of the victim so much as he wants to beat the cops to a bloody pulp. By doing this, he becomes as immoral as The Man whom he claims is victimizing him.
3. It's racist - The target isn't really The Man per se, it's The White Man. Peebles is one of those misguided souls who believe that the answer to racism is to attack every member of the other race, regardless of guilt or innocence. White men are either portrayed as burly hippy bikers or abusive,racist cops. And white women are shown as mindless cretins who swoon at the promise of sexual delight from a black man.
4. The editing - _Sweet Sweetback_ has 15 minutes worth of story stretched in at least 90 minutes of pure nothingness. 95% of the movie is cops brutalizing black people, Sweetback running, Sweetback having sex, or Sweetback running while having sex - just joking about that last one. But seriously, go watch a kindergarten play, or just about anything else except _The Real Cancun_, if you want see something better produced.
And finally...
5. The tagline - "Rated X by an ALL White jury". Peebles can sure talk some crap. Doesn't he realize that "white-bread" films like _A Clockwork Orange_ and _Midnight Cowboy_ were also given the kiss-of-death X rating? But unlike _Sweetback_, those films were full of artistic merit. It think the primary reason for it's X rating was to save filmgoers from this cinematic weapon of brain cell destruction.
Avoid as if your life depended on it. It just may.
 On the run from an all-white jury... June 12, 2001
Piers (Melbourne, Australia)
19 out of 26 found this review helpful
In 1971, Melvin Van Peebles managed to get this little gem released by Cinemation Industries, a low-budget exploitation distributor and launched into theatres, consequently launching what would come to be known as Blaxpoitation at the same time. True, there were other black films before this one, but never one like it, and really, there never would be again.Melvin van plays Sweetback, a professional stud who works live sex shows, who is picked up by the cops to help them look as though they are working on a murder case. But when, the cops stop to rough up a revolutionary, Sweetback suddenly develops revolutionary ideas of his own and beats up the cops with his own handcuffs and goes on the run. That's essentially it, and what may seem boring, dated, disgusting and/or silly to most people, was some radical stuff back in 71. [...] It's radical enough now, you ain't ever seen a film like this! During his travels, Sweetback encounters all kinds of opposition (cops, biker gangs, posses etc), sees all kinds of places in the ghetto (baptist churches, rat-infested tenements, and finally the dessert)and is subjected to all kinds of experimental film making (colour tints, subjective shots, weird angles, freeze-frames etc.) What makes this film so different and exciting for me, is that having obviously been made with private money and many, many miles away froma studio, it can and does push the politics and revolutionary rhetoric right in your face and believe me it does! It is little wonder that Huey Newton (supposedly) made this required viewing for the Black Panther Party and that within a short time films like Shaft, Superfly and their clones were filling the cinemas on 42nd Street. Unlike the legions of films that followed this, which became more and more watered down copies of the central idea of this film (that a black man can take on his oppressors and actually win), this film is the REAL DEAL and power to van Peebles for having the guts and wherewithall to get his vision splashed across the screens.
One of the Worst! February 5, 2001
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
This movie stinks. There is little, if any, story. Most of the time is spent watching Van Peebles running down streets, running down alleys, running across roof tops, running on/under/over/across lots of other things. The rest of it is spent with him stopping long enough to screw (not really have sex or make love; screw is the better term) women or kill white men. If a white man had made this movie, there would have been a lot of outrage expressed about how simplistic and low life the bulk of the African Americans portrayed in this poor excuse for a movie were. The only ones who can enjoy this flick are people who need a way to vent their rage, especially anti-white rage.
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