We are pleased to announce that the winner of our July film writing competition, run in connection with the Electric Sheep monthly film club at the Prince Charles Cinema is Adam Lowes. Our judge was blaxploitation specialist and Electric Sheep contributor Joel Karamath, who said: ‘The recognition of cinema’s existence before Tarantino is always reassuring and that the reprocessing of styles and themes, so central to his oeuvre, have always been an integral part of the reasonably short, inter-textual, history of what is arguably the first post-mordern art form. Great to see someone remembering The Rockford Files, could that be the next QT homage?’

Here’s Adam Lowes’s review:

Regardless of how you feel about Tarantino the filmmaker, his obsessive perseverance in bringing trash cinema to the masses (further enhanced by casting Blaxploitation queen and star of this film, Pam Grier, in Jackie Brown) has undeniably made a dent in many a cineaste’s subconscious. His reverence doesn’t end there either.

Like hip-hop producers who use obscure hooks and melodies (from sometimes equally obscure artists) to construct a song, watching Foxy Brown is like seeing the visual interpretation of this process, with Tarantino having ‘sampled’ themes and images from here, only to cut and paste them into his own oeuvre. Elements of Kill Bill Vol. 1‘s rape and revenge tale are instantly recognisable in this film, alongside more throwaway visual flourishes (Foxy Brown‘s psychedelic, low-rent Bond-esque opening credits are lovingly recreated for the training montage in Kill Bill Vol. 2).

Foxy Brown isn’t high art by any means (the aesthetic at times is akin to a souped-up episode of The Rockford Files, bathed in a 70s floral hue) but the real enjoyment derived from a film like this – similar to unearthing the source music behind the sample – is the opportunity to see the original article and not just some slick recreation of that era.