Dante’s Weekend Double: Justice For Juneteenth Rolls On With ‘Bones’ and ‘I’m Gonna Git You Sucka’
Week Two: Keeping with the theme, let’s “git” on with it, you jive turkeys.
Bones (New Line Cinema)
Rap icon, Snoop D-O-double-G/Snoop “Doggy” Dogg, ‘Crip Walks‘ into his first starring role in this 2001 horror joint by director Ernest Dickerson (Juice, Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight).
To quote the late/great rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard, “Let’s take it back to ’79!” The Doggfather plays Jimmy Bones, a numbers runner who was a beloved figure in his neighborhood of an unnamed American city (played by Vancouver, British Columbia), and he was the only one keeping drugs from flooding the streets.
That’s until a local pusherman (Ricky Harris) rolls up on Jimmy’s huge brownstone house with a corrupt cop to remove him from the picture. They force his two associates to take turns stabbing him with his girl, Pearl (played by the forever “Foxy” Pam Grier), being the only one who refused to commit the act.
After pulling a Julius Cesar, they bury his body in the basement to lay undisturbed for all time. Twenty-two years pass by, and the neighborhood has turned into a drug-infested cesspool. The conspirators all went their separate ways but stuck around the area. This includes Pearl with her beautiful 22-year-old daughter, and it should be pretty obvious who’s her father.
Jimmy’s house (aka tomb) still stands but is abandoned… Well, aside from a hungry black dog who is ready to greet anyone foolish enough to trespass on the property. Naturally, four teens purchase it to turn it into a nightclub – apparently without considering how many patrons will get robbed on the way in, and/or out of the club.
This turns out to be irrelevant because the place is jumping so hard on opening night that it wakes the dead. With the help of the pitch-coated pooch, Jimmy returns home and ends the fiesta in fiery style. Back from the dead, and imbued with dark supernatural powers, he sets out for the one who double-crossed him decades ago, and murder is the case that he gives them.
There’s blood, there’s guts, there’s a dead city, and of course, there’s Pam Grier. Snoop strolls into the role with a sinister smoothness that will chill the blood without his voice ever going above indoor levels. Bones borrows tropes from classic Blaxploitation movies while remaining an effective modern horror story, and it pairs quite well with some Snoop OG.
Bones can be exhumed over on TUBizzle, my dizzle.
I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (MGM/UA Communications Co.)
Keenan Ivory Wayans of the Wayans Family makes his directorial debut with the hilarious Blaxploitation parody I’m Gonna Git You Sucka from 1988.
Wayans (Keenan, that is!) also stars in the movie as Jack Spade, a squeaky-clean, milquetoast soldier who returns home to the town of Any Ghetto, USA, after his brother Junebug dies. After Jack left, Junebug started getting into drugs and stuff, but then things got really bad when he started wearing gold chains, and this led to a tragic overdose.
Jack resolves to avenge his brother and clean up the neighborhood by taking on its supplier of vice, Mr. Big (cult cinema favorite John Vernon). This leads into 89 minutes of over-the-top street justice featuring cameos by legends Bernie Casey, Isaac Hayes, Jim Brown, John Witherspoon, Clarence Williams III, and of course Antonio Fargas as “Pimp of the Year” Flyguy.
Along with bringing out the OGs, it introduced the world to talent that would go on to successful careers in comedy. Keep an eye out for a young Damon Wayans, Marlon Wayans, David Allen Grier, Kadeem Harrison, Robin Harris (RIP), Robert Townsend, and Chris Rock.
There is an unforgettable scene with Rock and his one rib that would return (along with most of the cast) in the classic 90s sketch comedy show In Living Color.
It spoofed a genre but went on to become a classic within it. The movie is loaded with action, laughs, and quotes for days. It also shows the risk of meeting someone at a bar, and whatever secrets they’re keeping, but most importantly…it shows what happens when someone messes with a woman who has “got cramps.”
I’m Gonna Git You Sucka is available on TUBI, and that ain’t no jive.
NEXT: Dante’s Double Feature: The Summer Is Off To A Hot Start With ‘Sugar Hill’ And ‘Coffy’
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