Classified X

Excellent, polemical documentary presented by the director of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song on the history of black cinema from DW Griffith to the 'counter-revolutionary' blaxploitation era and the ghetto gangster genre of the present. Peebles spills his articulate spleen on all and sundry (only Spike Lee, Julie Dash and John Singleton come off lightly) in an elegant rant that scores some scorching points aimed at 'the brothers', but which is pertinent to anyone interested in black representation in the cinema.