Review of Space Is the Place (1974) by Vince K — 20 Jan 2010
I never understood the term "Blaxploitation", since many of the films made in the '70s that were slapped with this label were made by blacks themselves. I don't think that they were "exploiting" themselves.
And this was long before someone came up with that ridiculous P.C. term "African-American". I heard a black comedian joke recently that one day he woke up and he wasn't black anymore, he was "African-American" - which was like 6 more fucking syllables.
If you have to go out of your way to say "African-American", you quite possibly ARE racist. One thing for sure though, Space is the Place has got to be the very defination of a "cult classic".
Love it or hate it, it definitely is one. And one of the better ones at that. The premise here is just great. Sun-Ra, an outer-space prophet has discovered a lush and beautiful planet (where even the flowers blossom into glasses full of wine), and decides to go to earth and transport its people there before the planet's destruction.
The effect of seeing his breast-shaped ship fly over the land shooting pulsating energy beams out of its nipples makes this the perfect film to watch on acid. Sun-Ra was a real life musician, basically playing himself in the movie, and believes he can move our people to this other world simply through music.
The film actually inspired a mid-'80s Jonzun song with the same title (Jonzun was the band whose big hit was "Jam-on-it"). Of course, the offer isn't just open to blacks, but people of all races.
But meanwhile Sun-Ra is playing a cosmic game with "The Overseer", a devilish entity who wishes to see him fail. I loved the scene where they are playing with tarot cards and The Chariot card is a picture of a big Cadillac.
The word nigger is thrown around a lot in the film, making it seem like this has ALWAYS been black people's absolute favorite word to say. This is also a lot of white people's favorite word to say as well, which is bad, but then hey - stop saying it all the time black people.
This review of Space Is the Place (1974) was written by Vince K on 20 Jan 2010.
Space Is the Place has generally received positive reviews.
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