It's Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and if you haven't got any plans yet and don't mind profanity, a trip to the cinema to see Mario Van Peebles' "Baadasssss!" may be in order. It's a dramatization of the making of "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song", his father Melvin's 1971 landmark blaxpoitation film (in which the thirteen year-old Mario starred as a young man having his first sexual experience with an older woman).

Today on the program, the younger van Peebles shared his thoughts on making a movie about the making of the movie:

"everybody said, 'you've gotta make your dad more likeable.' And my dad's one note to me was, 'whoever plays me, don't worry about making me too damn likeable.' He's a tough guy, and in 'Baadasssss!' I show that."

Never underestimate the power of competition between son and father: Mario also revealed that it took just eighteen days to make "Baadasssss!", one day less than it took to make "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song".

Posted by leboheme at 03:27 PM