Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Friday Foster



Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: Arthur Marks

Starring: Pam Grier, Yaphet Kotto, Carl Weathers, Godfrey Cambridge, Scatman Crothers

From: AIP

First off, I decided to cancel the remaining few days of my free Hulu Plus trial month, so that I don't forget to do it and it was too late. Hopefully sometime later I'll just pay the 8 bucks and I'll pick a better 30 day time period where I can watch movies with little distraction and also hopefully not have computer issues with trying to watch something. In the meantime, I do have plenty to watch in theatres for the rest of 2013, along with what I own and rentals from Blockbuster.

Now, because I just finished watching this movie on MGMHD (which is why this is up late), here is Friday Foster, based upon a comic strip noted for being the first major one to have a black leading character. Of course, it was gone by the time this movie came out. Whoops! The plot, stolen directly from the IMDb:

“Friday Foster, an ex-model magazine photographer, goes to Los Angeles International Airport to photograph the arrival of Blake Tarr, the richest black man in America. Three men attempt to assassinate Tarr. Foster photographs the melee and is plunged into a web of conspiracy involving the murder of her childhood friend, a US senator, and a shadowy plan called "Black Widow".”

I heard a podcast episode devoted to this movie; it came out about this time last year and they explained that this was a minor film and not as awesome as you'd hope given the cast and the lead especially. Pam Grier isn't an awesome badass as she was in Coffy or Foxy Brown, both movies I've talked at least a little about in the past. 

As for this movie, it's standard fare where Pam is more a damsel in distress who has to be saved by others; usually it's Yaphet who does that. Everything about it (well, at least the important things; not the fashion, though... there are some hilarious outfits, especially the duds that Weathers has on for one scene, which is black pants, a red plaid coat, and a black and white tie which you never get a good look at but I swear it's of a boy looking at a starry sky!) is acceptable but not great or anything of that level. It's just a time-waster you'll probably watch once or maybe twice but you certainly would prefer to revisit Coffy or Foxy Brown more often.

At least there's other famous faces, such as Eartha Kitt (!) who refers to a character as “a f*ggot”! Wow, was I shocked to hear her utter such language. Of course, the character she insults actually is gay; there's a scene with him in a gay club that Pam and Yaphet visit and thankfully it's not as appallingly offensive as it could have been. Pam's boss is Julius Harris, probably best known as Tee Hee from Live and Let Die. Jim Backus-wearing a leisure suit!-has a one scene cameo and Isaac from The Love Boat (Ted Lange) plays a pimp who tries to woo Grier. Yes, you do get to see Pam topless, but there are other movies you can view if you are dying to see her bare breasts.

I'll be back Thursday night.

No comments:

Post a Comment