Thursday, July 10, 2008

boom boom

Today I was beyond unproductive.

I did a teeny amount of sorting and organizing. My project list never gets shorter; I was trying to decide which 500 to work on next, and in what order.

Before long I gave up and put in Claudine. Remember Claudine? Diahann Carroll, James Earl Jones, Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington. Okay, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs. He'll always be Boom Boom to me. I don't know why I don't watch Claudine every few years. I really should. Diahann Carroll's performance earned her a rare Oscar nomination.
Who can forget the scene where Claudine goes bananas and beats her daughter with a hair brush when she finds out she's pregnant? Afterward, when they sit at the kitchen table, Claudine tells her daughter that the father of her baby is just another no-good brother, and her daughter tries some positivity.

Charlene: Mama, black men have made great contributions. George Washington Carver ... sniff, sniff ... W.E.B. DuBois ... sniff ... Frederick Douglass...

Claudine: Well ain't it just too damn bad you didn't get your ass knocked up by Frederick Douglass?

A classic. Complete with a Curtis Mayfield soundtrack performed by Gladys Knight and the Pips.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I'd never heard of that movie. What year did it come out? James Earl Jones looks so young on the cover!

Unknown said...

OMG! You've brought back so many memories. My mother and I first watched this movie on TV in the early '80s. My mother raised me as a single Mom in Harlem. She is an immigrant from the Dominican Republic. She has never learned English in the almost 32 years she's been in this country. However, she absolutely LOVES this movie. LOVES. I really must buy her the DVD . . . and a DVD player. Thanks for letting me reminisce.

Anonymous said...

i haven't seen that movie in a LONG time!!! good times...

Silver Bee said...

another movie for the list!

my mum actually went ballistic on me with a hair brush when i was sixteen. thank the lord i wasn't pregnant but it was over a no-good boy. this one was italian. hehe

i've got a good movie sound-track by Gladys. pipe dreams. haven't seen that one either. i think its time for a movie night.

msaims

Natalie said...

going to netflix now.

Home ec new Haven said...

My mother and i used to go to movies A LOT when I was a kid and we went to see this. I think I was 9...um...awkward!

Lynette said...

thanks for that memory!! my mom recently bought the cd/dvd and we watched it.