Baaddasssss!

Blaxploitation brought us Afros, soul music, and Eddie Griffin's movie career. Mario Van Peebles' Baadasssss! pays tribute to the man who made it all possible. Lucky for him, it was his dad, Melvin, whose independently produced 1971 classic Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song broke open the door for black filmmakers, giving Mario unprecedented insight into how it was assembled on virtually no budget and amid a flurry of setbacks. The DVD digs up even more history on the film's impact, including a commentary track on which Pops still shows who's boss, chuckling at all of the original clips from Sweetback that he charged his son to use in Baadasssss! "The Birth of Black Cinema" studies how blacks were portrayed on screen before Peebles' effort—basically, in suits or in the fields—setting the stage for Sweetback's take-no-shit hero. Extensive interview footage from the film's premiere in L.A. and a half-hour Q&A with Melvin wrap up this badass history lesson.