Word: hudlins
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...would become the Blaxploitation era of filmmaking. Since then, Black film has gone on to be characterized by mainstream stars such as Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy and more recently by independent filmmakers such as Charles Burnett, Spike Lee, Ernest Dickerson, Julie Dash, John Singleton and Reginald Hudlin...
There was another crucial factor. As a black star, Murphy was pigeonholed by the industry. "When it comes to black actors," says Reginald Hudlin, the (black) director of Boomerang, "many screenwriters find it difficult to get beyond race." Then, too, the zeitgeist was changing. For all his street sass and gutter gargle, Murphy is basically a middle-class star, closer to Bill Cosby than to the new wave of African-American filmmakers (Spike Lee, John Singleton) and rapmasters (all those hot Ices). Their marketable anger made Eddie look timid, irrelevant, a hipper but still compromised version of the old Negro...
First on the list is Boomerang, a bright comedy about a wealthy ad executive -- his Manhattan apartment isn't a duplex, it's a googolplex -- who discovers what it's like to be on the used end of a romance. Murphy, Hudlin (House Party) and scenarists Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield (who wrote many of Murphy's SNL bits, plus Coming to America) were inspired by Annie Hall (which Murphy has seen five times) and by the screwball love stories of '30s Hollywood. So the movie offers an Eddie role reversal: the famous ladies' man is a demure love slave...
...Black Cinema After Sweetback" recognizes this influence both in its title and in its format. The series began with Sweetback and will be moving to the blaxploitation films of the 70s and to the Black film renaissance of the 80s. Highlights include House Party (directed by Harvard graduate Reginald Hudlin) and several films...
HOUSE PARTY. On the night of the biggest party of the year, Kid (Christopher Reid) is grounded because of his bad report card. What's Kid to do? Sneak out, of course. Writer-director Reggie Hudlin gives zip and lots of laughs to this sharp, hip-hop comedy that blends a John Hughes-like ear for dialogue with the visual flair of Spike...