Downtown 81 (1981) Directed by Edo Bertoglio From Wikipedia: Downtown 81 (a.k.a New York Beat Movie) is a fictional film that was shot in 1980-1981. This film, directed by Edo Bertoglio, written by Glenn O'Brien and produced by Maripol, is a rare re…

Downtown 81 (1981) Directed by Edo Bertoglio

From Wikipedia: Downtown 81 (a.k.a New York Beat Movie) is a fictional film that was shot in 1980-1981.

This film, directed by Edo Bertoglio, written by Glenn O'Brien and produced by Maripol, is a rare real-life snapshot of ultra-hip subculture of post-punk era Manhattan. Starring renowned artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and featuring such early Village artists as James Chance, Amos Poe, Walter Steding, and Tav Falco, the film is a bizarre elliptical urban fairytale.

Shaft (1971) Directed by Gordon Parks From Wikipedia: Shaft is a 1971 American blaxploitation film directed by Gordon Parks, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. An action film with elements of film noir, Shaft tells the story of a black private detecti…

Shaft (1971) Directed by Gordon Parks

From Wikipedia: Shaft is a 1971 American blaxploitation film directed by Gordon Parks, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. An action film with elements of film noir, Shaft tells the story of a black private detective, John Shaft, who travels through Harlem and to the Italian mob neighborhoods in order to find the missing daughter of a black mobster. It stars Richard Roundtree as Shaft, Moses Gunn as Bumpy Jonas, Charles Cioffi as Lt. Vic Androzzi, Christopher St. John as Ben Buford, and Gwenn Mitchell and Lawrence Pressman in smaller roles. The movie was adapted by Ernest Tidyman and John D. F. Black from Tidyman’s 1971 novel of the same name.

The movie is widely considered a prime example of the blaxploitation genre. The Shaft soundtrack album, recorded by Isaac Hayes, was also a success, with the “Theme from Shaft” winning the 1971 Academy Award for Best Original Song, and according to the American Film Institute is the 38th best song from a movie of all time.

In 2000, Shaft was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) Directed by Stanley Kramer From Wikipedia: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American drama film starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, and featuring Hepburn’s niece K…

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) Directed by Stanley Kramer

From Wikipedia: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American drama film starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, and featuring Hepburn’s niece Katharine Houghton. The film was groundbreaking for its positive representation of the controversial subject of interracial marriage, which historically had been illegal in most of the United States, and was still illegal in seventeen southern American states up until June 12 of the year of the film’s release, when it was legalized by the Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia. It was produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, and written by William Rose. The movie’s Oscar-nominated score was composed by Frank DeVol.

The film tells the story of Joanna “Joey” Drayton, a young White American woman who has had a whirlwind romance with Dr. John Prentice, an African American man she met while on vacation in Hawaii. The plot centers on Joanna’s return to her liberal upper class American home in San Francisco, bringing her new fiancé to dinner to meet her parents, and the reaction of family and friends. The film depicts the discomfort of her parents as they try to accept their daughter’s choice. It also touches on black-on-black racism when John is taken to task by his father and the household cook (played by Isabel Sanford) for his perceived presumption.

The film is also notable for being the ninth and final on-screen pairing of Tracy and Hepburn (Tracy died seventeen days after filming ended). In Tracy’s final speech of the film, Hepburn’s tears were real—they both knew that this would be the last line of his last film, that he had not much longer to live. Hepburn never saw the completed film; she said the memories of Tracy were too painful. The film was released in December 1967, six months after his death.