I caught up with the 2009 blaxploitation spoof, Black Dynamite.
Actually I saw this several months ago and I put a note in my “blog ideas list” to write about it. Then I didn’t have the enthusiasm to write about it.
The truth is that although I loved the film in principle—and laughed at many of the gags (send-ups of terrible 1970s exploitation films, like when one of the characters accidentally reads his stage direction as dialogue)—I found it so un-involving, I had to watch it in 15-minute chunks.
That’s basically what happens when you have a feature film out of an idea that is better suited as a Saturday Night Live sketch.
There is definitely a lot of hilarious stuff, though!
In contrast, the spoof of those “women’s thrillers,” The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window, which I loved, was so narratively engaging, my wife and I happily watched the entire eight-episode series.
Even though the series features a relative handful of jokes compared to the classic Airplane!/Naked Gun parodies, the story was so involving (albeit ludicrous), we actually wanted to find out the solution to the mystery!
I guess the lesson is simple: it’s all about the storytelling. Give us somebody to care about, who wants something relatable and is trying to get it—and we’re interested.
Black Dynamite definitely wins in the theme song department: