“We got a nice ghetto continental breakfast here, Baby,” says Private Eye Dick Shaft (Nat Turnher) when Jessica Bangkok brings him cinnamon tarts, watermelon, and grape soda. Too sweet for me, but it is when Shaft samples Bangkok that I felt the racial divide between us evaporating
Studio: Black Ice
Director: Tony Flush
Starring: Jessica Bangkok, Porsha Carrera, Bella Moretti, Austin Taylor, Nyomi Banxxx, Jayden, Wesley Pipes, Nat Turnher, Dsnoop.
While it is difficult to understand much of the dialogue in Tony Flush’s “Official Shaft Parody” because of the murky sound and mumbled delivery, we do know that Nat Turnher’s private eye and his circle of friends and nemeses like the juicy ladies. And this comes through loud and clear.
Flush and company do their best to re-create a blaxploitation style with Turnher’s ‘fro and ‘stache, as well as the blonde afro of Naomi Banxxx as Lady Marmalade, but it seems like Flush ran out of gas when attempting to direct his script, which includes a lot of funny lines that get buried under poor editing and lackluster delivery.
Dick Shaft is tasked with rescuing the sister of his enemy, Cochise (Wesley Pipes) against a ticking clock of losing his private eye license at the hands of a corrupt cracker cop. DSnoop’s DJ Radio Rahim (wasn’t he in “Do the Right Thing”?) acts as a Greek chorus throughout the movie (whereas, in “Do the Right Thing,” the DJ character and Radio Rahim were separate guys).
It is this pervasive lack of attention to detail (don’t show clocks in your movie unless you plan to reset them for the view outside your window, or if the second hand is clearly not moving) that takes people out of the movie.
But there’s plenty to get you back into the movie, too. Naomi Banxx is always fun to watch, as is the phat Jessica Bangkok and a steamy tryst between Bella Moretti and Porsha Carrera. A bespectacled woman named Jayden finishes off DSnoop, whose Snoop-like delivery is the funniest in the movie, and there is, as in all of Flush’s movies, a good humor about the whole piece that makes it easy to forgive a lot of the flaws; his movies are never mean-spirited.
So you won’t see much in this parody that reminds you of the original (there wasn’t even an attempt at an Isaac Hayes-esque theme song), but it was great fun to watch these ladies when the stirrup pants came off.
Buy “Shaft XXX” here
Previously on Porn Valley Observed:
See also: Black Ice
Damn it, Jim, the world needs an enthusiastic and detail-oriented Blaxploitation porn parody, not a half-assed one!
I always notice the clocks. I don’t know if that says more about me or the porn I’m watching.
Als, @Duamuteffe: I agree wholeheartedly. Take Black Dynamite and porn it up, and you’d have perfection.
Now that I am a world-famous director, I know that some things are beyond the control of reasonable people. But in the hours that it would have taken to shoot those scenes, I can’t understand why no one looked at the clock.
I, too, always take note of clocks, watches, other timepieces in porn. When I was younger it was a source of disbelief and excitement: “Wow, this woman walked into a cheap hotel room at 4 in the afternoon and had sex with a stranger. Whoa, it’s still going on at 5:30. Whoa.” Still is, occasionally, but to a lesser extent as we all become too familiar with how the sausage is made.
Anyway, a couple questions:
1. How is this “Official”?
2. How can it possibly be more worth your time than 2009’s “Black Dynamite” in terms of entertainment, action, humor, and eroticism? (OK, scratch a couple of those)
‘1. How is this “Official”?’
I, too, have wondered this about all of the porn parodies tagged thus. I just don’t see non-porn movie studios giving any sort of OK to these projects.