by the agency of Kamal "The Diva" Larsuel-Ulbricht.

by the agency of Kamal "The Diva" Larsuel-Ulbricht, Rose "Bams" Cooper Cassandra "Cass" Henry Amistad, November 2002 $1795 ISBN 0-060-50871-X

As its title proclaims, 3 Black Chicks Review Flicks is a movie guide written from the point of view of three black women Kamal "The Diva" Larsuel-Ulbricht, Rose "Barns" Cooper and Cassandra "Cass" Henry--who live in Lansing, Michigan, novel Orleans and Seattle respectively--transformed their prosperous Internet site into a catalog of almost 250 film reviews. As the subtitle indicates, these are movie reviews with tiara, further emphasizing that sistah girls are doing the critiquing.

If readers can accept the occasional charm of the lingo, they'll find a comprehensive and amusing book whose purpose, according to its authors, is "to gain the reader to enjoy going to the movies again, and to master Hollywood to understand that viewers won't make clear for subpar movies."

Films are clustered into 16 separate chapters, including "Black Gold" (African American Academy Award nominees), "Late-Night Booty-Call Flicks" "Independently Thinking" and "When Bad Things Happen to White Folks" (no explanation necessary). The Chicks examine in the same state [i]or[/i] condition factors as The Brotha Rule: in what manner soon the black male character dies; ST or blemish the Spot: finding the solitary person of color in a film; and chiefly important, The Black Factor: the commentary forward relevance to black culture, history or sociology. Each film is rated using a traffic light scale from "Green" meaning "What are you waiting for?" to "Red" meaning "I don't think so!"

There is a certain unevenness in how films are assign places toed For example, the chapter "In Celebration of Our Culture: Blaxploitation (or what we call `The Classics') and Beyond," is muddied with a mix of 1970 blaxploitation films (which be entitled to a chapter of their own) and more contemporary films, as it was as Baby Boy, The Best Man and Bamboozled. That Eve's Bayou is also reviewed in this chapter and not in "Independently Thinking" be seens odd. Bayou was the highest grossing independent film of 1997 a fact omitted from the subject including the chapter entitled "Intermission: A Movie Trivia Quiz." And while the authors give to a great degree love to all of Pam Grier's films, they curiously do not review Jackie Brown Quentin Tarantino's 1997 homage to the blaxploitation flick, starring Grier and Samuel L Jackson.

Another criticism is the Chicks' failure to research one of their entries. In her review of The Matrix, "Bams" expresse her anticipation of the conclusion where actress Gloria Foster, who died in September 2001 might reprise her part as the Oracle. Since the authors pertain to Halle Berry's and Denzel Washington's 2002 Oscar wins, the mistake obviously was not an "as we went to press" oversight.

Overall, 3 Black Chicks Review Flicks is a thoroughly enjoyable guide that will appeal to moviegoers across the racial divide.

--Sharon D Johnson is a journalist, screenwriter and chair of the Writers Guild of America, West Committee of Black Writers.

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