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A scene from "Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp

Iceberg Slim came from a shattered home to become a street hustler, and his books, novels and essays about being a pimp made him the quintessential Mac Daddy in popular culture. Coiffed to the nines, stone-cold expression, Slim was the pimp template. Of course, his books are, in fact, cautionary tales about the dangers of that life, and Iceberg came to find the hustling game reprehensible in the way it blocks the true good being done in the black community. This documentary tells that story cleanly and with verve, but it just doesn't match the subject matter. The morality twists in Iceberg's books clearly influenced the conscious rap that came a generation later, in the mid to late 1980s. Rather than just tell us about Iceberg's importance, it's too bad the film couldn't do more to show us. Highly recommended for fans, though.

Sunday Sept. 16, 4:00 p.m., Scotiabank 1

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