Gooden Worsted is now Taking Requests!  Coffy My Rating: plus Gooden Worsted's Bitable Bytes: "A 'top' film!" "Delicious womanliness!" "The funkiest!" "A warm comforter-pile!" I'm giving this video venture not one set of ten-stars, but two, identical sets of ten stars each! These two separate ten-star ratings mirror the featured parts of Pam Grier's anatomy, and they might represent Celine and Joshua (pseudonyms for) my two co-venturers. So one ten-star rating goes to Coffy, a "top" film in the Blaxploitation genre. The second rating goes to my hosts whose hospitality and ability to set up a unique, memorable video screening earns them their own ten stars. In this classic early-70's film about the African-American experience, Pam Grier stars as a busty, gutsy nurse-cum-vigilante, nicknamed Coffy because her last name is, symbolically, Coffin. Celine pulled the screen up to the foot of her and Joshua's wrought-iron bed and we climbed into it with our mugs of top-notch ice cream. Down came Joshua with a tall hot-buttered rum. We snuggled warmly into the covers with your own Gooden in the middle­lucky me! Then the action began. Coffy's little sister has been seduced into a drug-crazed catatonia before the movie begins. Mad as hell, Coffy counter-seduces Mr. Pusher-man with her delicious womanliness, lures him back to his apartment, and destroys his cranium. She wants to confide in her old boyfriend, the last honest cop in town, but doesn't find a way to do so before he is coma-ized by the mobsters in league with the rest of the police force. She is also afraid to confide in her current boyfriend, a two-faced, two-bit politician doin' the Washington shuffle toward a Senate seat. Before being ganged by the ski-masks, Mr. Good Cop tells Coffy that it's no good to kill one pusher because the swath of crime extends in all directions. We watch her mind brew this information into a scheme to get to the criminals behind the criminals. It's to Grier's credit that she acts as well as she does, but the gratuitous shots of her bare breasts, each as impressive as the other, cement her appeal. We snuggled deeper into the bed, our heads propped against too many pillows. Between bites of one of the best Rocky Roads I've had and sips of buttery, gingery rum, we watched Coffy pose as a Jamaican hooker named Mystique. She gets in with ace-pusher, King George. He has the funkiest theme-song with lyrics, "King George. He's a pimp. He's a pusher. Yeahhh." Mystique's entry into George's harim may get her closer to Mr. Big, a sucker for ethnic women, but it causes trouble amongst the existing concubines, particularly the main lady. The result is a fantastic cat-fight that results in five torn-off blouses. Coffy also manages to turn her afro into a very dangerous weapon indeed! My lovely compadres recognized Mr. Big as the psychiatrist from M*A*S*H. But Alan Alda-style sensitivity was nowhere to be found in this crowd. At last, there's a Bruce Willis-style shoot out that gives all the baddies their comeuppance like Bob Mastodon. Without resolving how she's going to get away with this killing spree or where she will go to next (since she's doubtlessly going to be fired from her post for ditching work 48-hours running), the movie ends with Coffy walking down the beach. It's the same, classic non-ending that kung-fu movies often use after the final fight. With the experience complete, the mugs of ice-cream and rum empty, and the three of us lightly dozing in a warm comforter-pile, the closing credits ran. The worst part about this movie was having to say goodbye. Want to share a happy story with Gooden? ©1999 by Randy Shandis Enterprises. All rights happily reserved.