TOP MOVIES

Joe Bullet

SABC1, Channel 191, Today, 20:30 I like picking movies that come with many interesting points to talk about — and you don’t get any more interesting than this.

This unique specimen comes to us as part of SABC1’s ongoing Mayibuye Film Festival, and was produced in 1973 during the apartheid era, which, given its all-black cast, made it all the more surprising. It even made two screenings in select cinemas before being forcefully shut down.

Reportedly, the film was unbanned at a later date, but it never saw another cinema release and was largely forgotten.

Until now, that is. Joe Bullet has been restored by the Gravel Road African Film Legacy initiative and is being shown to audiences for the first time in 40 years.

The actual story sounds ridiculously, perhaps even deliciously, B-grade. From the few descriptions I’ve found, I can’t tell exactly what Joe Bullet (Ken Gampu, pictured) is supposed to be — a detective, a mercenary, or whatever, but he seems to be a South African version of Shaft — the man you go to when you need to get $%*@ done.

Bullet is called on to fight against corruption in the seedy underbelly of the soccer world after a crime lord starts sabotaging the Eagles team. It’s got everything — gunfights, martial arts battles, narrow escapes, romance, you name it. It’s South African blaxploitation from an era when most of us would have thought it impossible.

How could you not want to see this, if only out of curiosity?

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

M-Net Movies Showcase, Channel 108, Thursday, 21:15 If only every horror writer understood what makes horror compelling. For me, it’s stories in which the horrific elements are deeply woven into the plot and meant to be discovered, understood and overcome by a core cast of characters we’re hoping survive the ordeal.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula won three Oscars and follows the original novel quite closely, although the shift from the epistolary style of the book to a straightforward narrative in the movie necessitated a few changes. The greater focus on Dracula’s (Gary Oldman) pursuit of his reincarnated wife, Elisabeta (Winona Ryder), works well and creates an entrancing gothic horror atmosphere.

Anthony Hopkins’s compelling performance as paranormal Professor Van Helsing also deserves a mention. Even Keanu Reeves, who plays the lawyer who sets events in motion, does a good job.