Spike Lee's Chi-raq

Written in rhyming couplets, apparently.

https://vimeo.com/144523728

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHdjX9D4_RU

looks absolutely ridiculous ie like a Spike Lee movie

I hope it's pretty much straight to VOD, 'cause it looks really nice, so I want to watch it with the sound off like I do with Michael Mann movies.

Def could not imagine you wanting to hear what black people have to say, even for two hours

oh come on whiney this looks fucking terrible

Looks like a return to his old form to me (not sure I've seen a Lee movie since the Inside Man though...) Love or hate him I certainly wasn't bored by School Daze, Jungle Fever, Do The Right Thing so strikes me might be a good thing.

this looks potentially brilliant, potentially an interesting misfire, we'll see

Members of the City council and city residents have requested that Lee change the name of the film, going as far as to threaten the tax credits that the film maker will receive from the city.[5] "Chi-Raq" is a common endonym of residents of Chicago's South Side, used to describe the area as a war zone due to its high crime rates. Lee later called Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel a "bully" and several Chicago aldermen "bootlickers" for their criticisms.

never change, spike

Rahm is also a bootlicker.

SOUTH SIDE ROUGH RIDE

this looks rad as fuck

I am assuming everybody is familiar with the Aristophanes play that this appears to be a read a read on - which was obv also in verse

very into this idea

yeah man watching that just now w no idea of the lysistrata thing was pretty amazing

yeah this looks great

you all are fucking crazy

this is gonna be on like "she hate me" level of terrible

screenwriter for She Hate Me has two films total to his credit and is best known as a regular Law & Order guest

this one's based on an anti-war play whose rep has been p solid for over 2200 years

feel like we're starting with a little stronger foundation here

This looks like a mess, lysiatrata lift doesnt obviate that. I'll probably watch it. I bet a sympathetic protagonist gets murdered at the end.

Will be surprised if there's more to the lysistrata bits than the basic premise plus a couple clunkily inserted quotations.

Two thumbs up

http://www.journaldugeek.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/11/Jacques-Chirac.-007.jpg

Will be surprised if there's more to the lysistrata bits than the basic premise plus a couple clunkily inserted quotations.

Why?

Cuz that's generally his m.o.?

if you say so!

his previous aristophanes adaptations were pretty fast and loose tbf

kinda weirdly stoked for this? dawn from mad men look hot af

you all are fucking crazy

this is gonna be on like "she hate me" level of terrible

― marcos, Wednesday, November 4, 2015 9:15 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why would you say this? like unless you object to the pure theatricality of it why would this trailer be bad to you?

idk what one would expect re 'taking more than the basic premise', i mean, it doesn't have to hew any closer to the source material than, say, 'clueless'

i liked she hate me, tbh

or at least i cracked the fuck up at the protagonist's full length oil of himself as john henry, i don't know how many of the minutes of film either side of that i want to defend

i think it looks brilliant and theatrical. cant wait.

though obv, it could be a complete let down. the premise (which sounds like a film that came out a few years back about women in a village, possibly in the middle east, or central asia, that held sex from their husbands) seems like it could go either way.

not too sure about spike doing choreography though (i.e the assembly scene with all the women in the hall talking about no access or entrance). not too big a fan when spike gets carried away with reinforcing a favoured phrase.

School Daze musical/dance sequences were great IIRC but it's been like twenty years.

you all are fucking crazy

this is gonna be on like "she hate me" level of terrible

― marcos, Wednesday, November 4, 2015 9:15 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why would you say this? like unless you object to the pure theatricality of it why would this trailer be bad to you?

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, November 4, 2015 11:17 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

okay grand pronouncements based on a 2 minute trailer are not always great but i had the following impressions

1) the "based on an aristophanes play" thing as somehow promising is weird, in spike's hands it just looks super clumsy and corny, anyways "based on a classic greek play" is not inherently interesting to me
2) the theatricality just seems super obnoxious, the "i will deny all rights of access and entrance" scene just looked so ridiculous and embarrassing
3) i think spike is capable of/has achieved greatness in the past but most of spike's films of the past 15-20 years have been terrible, even the good ones have had very bad cringeworthy moments, this makes me immediately skeptical of new spike films
4) samuel l jackson just doing this samuel l jackson caricature thing that is like the same persona as his capital one bank commercials is not appealing to me in 2015
5) fwiw reading tons of chicago folks having immediately negative impressions was a little bit of a red flag to me, again this is just a trailer and this was mostly on twitter along with a few folks i know and trust but idk it did seem relevant

the whole trailer just seemed really hamfisted in general

would love this as a theme song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqrtoFWglMY

I would expect this to be terrible because Spike Lee's filmography has started to resemble Prince's discography.

Otm

how on earth does that even work

spike lee's filmography has started to resemble prince's discography in that i haven't really paid any attention to either lately

spike lee's filmography has started to resemble prince's discography in that, like prince, spike lee is african-american, albeit while prince makes music, spike lee makes films

spike lee's filmography has started to resemble prince's discography in that white people are secretly relieved they don't have to pretend to like either anymore

"i think spike is capable of/has achieved greatness in the past but most of spike's films of the past 15-20 years have been terrible, even the good ones have had very bad cringeworthy moments, this makes me immediately skeptical of new spike films"

um, bamboozled, inside man, the katrina docs... these are bad? bamboozled is one of his top 5 films.

"samuel l jackson just doing this samuel l jackson caricature thing that is like the same persona as his capital one bank commercials is not appealing to me in 2015"

wrong. this is not sam jackson doing jules again. its sam jackson actually acting well.

rahm emmanuel is a bully and worse. spike lee otm.

i still have time for spike lee films and will always have time for his documentaries, which are wonderful.

"fwiw reading tons of chicago folks having immediately negative impressions was a little bit of a red flag to me, again this is just a trailer and this was mostly on twitter along with a few folks i know and trust but idk it did seem relevant"

Wait which Chicago folks? Rahm Emanuel and his corrupt cronies?

Bamboozled is terrible (I couldn't even finish it - yes I fast-forwarded to the credits sequence), Inside Man is good, I haven't seen the Katrina docs

But he is v inconsistent and has a tendency to sloppiness. I still think Do the Right Thing is the best film of the 80s, and he's got a smattering of good-to-great stuff before and since, but it's clear he prizes immediacy and topicality over coherence and depth, and a lot of his films feel like squandered opportunities more than anything else. I would say the basic connective tissue in the Prince analogy is "great/groundbreaking in the 80s, followed by wildly egocentric and inconsistent decades featuring bids for relevance, the occasional gem, and a lot of crap". I don't think it needs to go much farther than that.

Rahm Emanuel is objectively an awful person, I think we all agree on that.

but anyone who makes so much is bound to be a tad inconsistent... and i would ask what is so bad about prizing immediacy and topicality?

maybe coherence is the price for prizing qualities many other directors do not prize

Wait which Chicago folks? Rahm Emanuel and his corrupt cronies?

― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Thursday, November 5, 2015 11:07 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no i was talking about people from these neighborhoods in chicago who have lost loved ones to violence and weren't crazy about how the trailer was portraying things, i don't really care about rahm emanuel?

inside man was a great heist film with a hamfisted corny ending

do the right thing is fantastic, his best work for sure

I think about it all the time

but anyone who makes so much is bound to be a tad inconsistent

I think it goes beyond a "tad" with him, esp when that inconsistency also is a characteristic of the individual films themselves, many of which may have great individual scenes or performances poking out from the grade-school plotting, clumsy dialogue, or egregiously ridiculous crap like a talking dog or a "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" crane shot or an "I am Malcolm X!" sequence

the thing ppl neglect about spike is that he is a bit like LVT or pasolini or scorsese maybe in that he is quite an emotional kind of film maker so he doesnt really make films like other people, there are strong ups and downs in his films that sort of ripple and flare up all the time

yeah that's true

What's kind of amazing, in a way, is that these florid emotional eruptions make it through all the logistics and bureaucracy that are required to actually make a movie. He has some crazed obsessive idea for a scene, that looks on the screen like it burst out of his head in two seconds, but it actually had to be written, all the blocking and lighting and set design done, shot, and edited, without losing the initial craziness that inspired him to make it that way in the first place. That's actually really impressive, to commit so deeply and intensively to something that looks and feels so impulsive and wild, when in fact it's the exact opposite of that.

the thing ppl neglect about spike is that he is a bit like LVT or pasolini or scorsese maybe in that he is quite an emotional kind of film maker so he doesnt really make films like other people, there are strong ups and downs in his films that sort of ripple and flare up all the time

― StillAdvance, Thursday, November 5, 2015 9:35 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, I'd also compare him to Godard, though obviously I'm not the first one to do so. Both their bodies of work feature crazy ups and downs and shifts in tone and ideas that work perfectly and ideas that don't quite make it and ideas that shouldn't work but totally do, often in the space of one movie. Viewing him through the same lens you'd view, say, a great "coherent" filmmaker Kubrick or an Anderson (P.T. or Wes) leaves a lot of Lee's strengths on the floor imo.

even in a film like she hate me, which is widely derided and for sure one of his weaker works, there's some stuff that was really fascinating to watch.

From yesterday's Sun-Times — captures well the trepidation about this movie:

http://entertainment.suntimes.com/entertainment-news/rhymefest-slams-spike-lee-chi-raq-movie-via-twitter/

Scratch that link, here's the full article:

http://entertainment.suntimes.com/entertainment-news/rhymefest-spike-lee-owe-chicago-apology/

“What we’re facing, governments cannot fix. The only cure for the Chiraq that’s in our heads is family. Parents. Mentors. Community members. When family comes back together you’ll see Chiraq disappear.”

i would like to hear more of this person's interesting opinions and of the opinions of others who share similar opinions

This movie is not about a war. This is not a war. Wars are fought for a reason generally. People fight over land, over money. . . . That’s not what’s happening on Chicago’s South Side . . . . People like to say its gangs fighting over turf. That’s not it. It’s senseless violence. People feel disrespected and not validated. They’re poor. Guns are cheap. Drugs are cheap. Because guns and drugs are cheap senseless violence happens. The guns and drugs get into the hands of children. . . . You can pick up the story of this film and drop it into any city. Chicago was used because of the media’s portrayal of the violence and it was used as a way for Spike Lee to sell tickets. We were used. We were exploited. This story is not specific to Chicago.”

I'm pretty sure governments can fix a fair amount of these problems (no not all of them) but whatever.

the thing ppl neglect about spike is that he is a bit like LVT or pasolini or scorsese maybe in that he is quite an emotional kind of film maker so he doesnt really make films like other people, there are strong ups and downs in his films that sort of ripple and flare up all the time
― StillAdvance, Thursday, November 5, 2015 9:35 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, I'd also compare him to Godard, though obviously I'm not the first one to do so. Both their bodies of work feature crazy ups and downs and shifts in tone and ideas that work perfectly and ideas that don't quite make it and ideas that shouldn't work but totally do, often in the space of one movie. Viewing him through the same lens you'd view, say, a great "coherent" filmmaker Kubrick or an Anderson (P.T. or Wes) leaves a lot of Lee's strengths on the floor imo.

― intheblanks, Thursday, 5 November 2015 16:52 (55 minutes ago) Permalink

Remembering now the interviews around the time of Do The Right Thing, when he often mentioned that Woody Allen makes a movie a year, and he wanted to be the first black director to be able to do the same. And he's done so.

The optimistic part of me says that Crown Heights brought out his best work, and so the timeliness of this might do the same. Then again Jungle Fever is a rock-solid New Jersey in ILM parlance...

This movie is not about a war. This is not a war. Wars are fought for a reason generally. People fight over land, over money. . . . That’s not what’s happening on Chicago’s South Side . . . . People like to say its gangs fighting over turf. That’s not it. It’s senseless violence. People feel disrespected and not validated. They’re poor. Guns are cheap. Drugs are cheap. Because guns and drugs are cheap senseless violence happens. The guns and drugs get into the hands of children. . . . You can pick up the story of this film and drop it into any city. Chicago was used because of the media’s portrayal of the violence and it was used as a way for Spike Lee to sell tickets. We were used. We were exploited. This story is not specific to Chicago.”
― my harp and me (Eazy), Thursday, November 5, 2015 12:02 PM (1 hour ago)

sounds like gangs fighting over turf

I can see being wary of the scenes of a gym full of women chanting no more sex slogans, there's a She Hate Me vibe there but on the whole this looks like it could be great.

That's an armory, not a gym! (Coincidentally the same Armory used for a few scenes in Contagion.)

Spike is getting an honorary Oscar a week from Saturday btw

This movie is not about a war. This is not a war. Wars are fought for a reason generally.

i always thought "chi-raq" cut both ways

this looks rad as fuck

I am assuming everybody is familiar with the Aristophanes play that this appears to be a read a read on - which was obv also in verse

very into this idea

― tremendous crime wave and killing wave (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Wednesday, November 4, 2015 7:56 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this.

although, that said, i think there's been a lot of legitimate criticism of Spike Lee as an essentially middle-class (well, middle-class in background; these days he's rich) interloper in what's basically a working-class or poor milieu. and although his public statements show that he's conflicted on this issue, his films often take an implicit culture-of-poverty stance, blaming the black community for its own problems rather than diagnosing the structural problems that contribute to violence (absence of economic opportunity being the big one).

also, although the storyline would lead one to think the vibe of the film is all "girl power!," lee has an amazing knack for undermining strong roles for women with films that seem drenched in misogyny.

in other words, lee's a complex dude and this film should be interesting, whether or not it's any "good."

the biggest problem is that lee's visual sense isn't as strong as it once was. this trailer looks pretty nice, so i'll hold out some hope, but red hook summer was pretty sloppy, and not in a particularly energetic way.

it's nice to see that he and Samuel L Jackson are working together again; last I had checked they weren't on speaking terms.

I think like a lot of Lee's films it looks like a great premise or idea being set up to be ruined by whatever it is exactly that goes wrong with so many of his films.

Won't be a true return to form until we see some floating-sidewalk shots.

haha god I hate that walking-dolly thing

If this is about the french president I'm in

you all are fucking crazy

this is gonna be on like "she hate me" level of terrible

― marcos, Wednesday, November 4, 2015 9:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

responding to this way late but i kinda liked the absolute craziness of she hate me, it's borderline incoherent and all kinds of hashtag-problematic but kind of admirable for its commitment to that batshittery

in any event this is the first spike film since seeing the trailer for miracle at st. anna that i'm immediately interested in, and while miracle was an utter failure it was a gutsy swing for the fences in a way that none of his films in between then and now have seemed to be

admirable for its commitment to that batshittery

sums up his career nicely

def looks to be in the OTT satire on 100 thousand trillion vein of bamboozled, which i really need to see again

Won't be a true return to form until we see some floating-sidewalk shots.

― my harp and me (Eazy), Thursday, November 5, 2015 8:27 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there were like three briefly excepted in the trailer, weren't there? i think you're gonna be ok for them

"also, although the storyline would lead one to think the vibe of the film is all "girl power!," lee has an amazing knack for undermining strong roles for women with films that seem drenched in misogyny."

something about that gym scene just seems like it could be really irritating (still not sure why - the smugness of the tone maybe?) but hopefully thats not a big deal in the film overall.

"although, that said, i think there's been a lot of legitimate criticism of Spike Lee as an essentially middle-class (well, middle-class in background; these days he's rich) interloper in what's basically a working-class or poor milieu."

i think theres enough room now for him to be seen as more of a documenter of middle class black life than just black american life, full stop. not sure if the idea that he holds only black people to account for their problems, if that was the case, there wouldnt have been so much controversy over what he has said in interviews over the years.

will this film be on dvd at some point, or do i have to get on amazon prime or whatever to see it?

New trailer, with lengthy opening statement from Lee and a lot more speeches 'n' stuff:

http://vimeo.com/144826440

Rhymezone has longstanding objections to the term "Chiraq" generally

http://hiphopdx.com/interviews/id.2286/title.rhymefest-talks-empowering-rap-peers-disowning-chiraq-moniker

opens in ten days

http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/chi-raq-co-screenwriter-kevin-willmott-talks-the-use-of-verse-in-the-film-20151123

I can't really decide if this looks good or not, but I feel like a lot of people equate hyper-stylized with per se bad.

was Fury Road not hyperstylized?

Yeah fair point I guess, but I still feel like you get more knee-jerk criticism when you go stylized, whereas mediocre "realism" wins Oscars.

this movie is extraordinarily controversial in chicago right now. lots of people find it very difficult to see what this does that is positive

yeah it'll be interesting to see how this plays locally vs. nationally vs. internationally (does spike lee even have much of a profile in e.g. europe right now?)

i dont totally get why chicagoans might be so worried about this one movie. not like people dont know whats going on in the city (at least people who read broadsheets etc). and then theres guys like chief keef, etc, who have 'drawn attention' to the violence in the city. never mind that common did a whole album about it. i want to see it. spike is underrated as a great stylist. and i doubt he would be out to exploit gang violence. this might be a kind of companion piece with clockers.

"was Fury Road not hyperstylized?"

there was a lot of kneejerk hatred of that movie!!

five stars in the guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/nov/25/chi-raq-review-spike-lees-urgent-angry-and-very-sexy-midlife-masterpiece

2.5 stars in the tribune;

reader gives it a soft pan: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/spike-lee-chi-raq-rahm-emanuel-will-burns/Content?oid=20202638

i dont totally get why chicagoans might be so worried about this one movie. not like people dont know whats going on in the city (at least people who read broadsheets etc). and then theres guys like chief keef, etc, who have 'drawn attention' to the violence in the city. never mind that common did a whole album about it. i want to see it. spike is underrated as a great stylist. and i doubt he would be out to exploit gang violence. this might be a kind of companion piece with clockers.

― StillAdvance, Wednesday, November 25, 2015 6:36 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha how come a guy from outside chicago cant 'draw attention' to chicago violence when chicagoans have drawn attention to it already? how about because chicagoans have drawn attention to it already? 'drawing attention' only means something to a point, then it just becomes this frozen trope about chicago violence. in the long view, sociology has 'drawn attention' to chicago violence for a hundred years but nothing's changed in that time

so lemme get this straight - only people who are from the communities they wanna talk about have any business at all talking about at all in any way about those communities under any circumstances

hmm, d-40, hmmmm

When did I say that?

I just think the notion that Chicagoans should obsequiously appreciate spike for "drawing attention" to the problems there is facile--like StillAdvance said, chief keef did that three years ago, the question now is what he does w that and I don't think it's wrong for Chicagoans to be wary!

i guess it depends if spike is merely 'drawing attention' to it, or saying something more than 'hey theres this pretty tragic wave of violence going on in chicago right now guys', which i imagine he is, cos this doesnt look like a typical 'message'/'bad things that are happening in american inner cities!' type of movie. im sure chicagoans have a right to be wary, but there have been other films/docus on it too, like the interrupters, so its not like there havent been other screen representations of it already.

There is no way Chicago ends up liking this movie. The rest of the world will probably actually learn a lot because of it, though. I suspect if you're in Chicago it's very easy to count up various noble and probably better efforts to raise awareness, but this is a Spike Lee Joint, this is going to be seen by a shitload of people who haven't had exposure to this yet.

idk, once chief keef has addressed something you've probably reached maximum media saturation

crooklyn is such a wonderful movie. i think it must be my fave of his. this one looks pretty bad. if he did a movie called illadelph about the life of cool c and steady b i would totally go see that.

wait, you guys heard that terrible song from this movie, right?

this terrible one:

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/this-terrible-new-song-from-spike-lees-chi-raq-cant-pos-1741795557

haha wow what the oh my god that is horrendous

man if you told me a decade ago "don't worry, the idea of music will be destroyed in 2015, by a man named Kevon Carter" I would look at you like you were talking nonsense, but here we are!

There is no way Chicago ends up liking this movie. The rest of the world will probably actually learn a lot because of it, though. I suspect if you're in Chicago it's very easy to count up various noble and probably better efforts to raise awareness, but this is a Spike Lee Joint, this is going to be seen by a shitload of people who haven't had exposure to this yet.

― El Tomboto, Wednesday, November 25, 2015 7:10 PM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's not a doc tho, it's extremely fanciful...like its reaching for something more universal and just using the chiraq mythos as like a setting

And contra balls Chicago has been synonymous w "black on black crime" in the national media basically since keef blew up three years ago, moreso than other cities w/ the exact same issues

Like is there any human in the western world right now that DOESNT associate Chicago w violence ?

i don't. windy. oprah. that's about it.

and big fat pizza pies.

hot dogs with stuff

da bears

jimmy butler

i have heard tales about the infamous plastic crimewave syndicate in chicago...or "The 'Cago" as the natives call it.

from wbez in chicago it's this american life i'm ira glass each week we bring you little stories or some shit

deej is right though, before chief keef nobody had even heard of chicago and now that chief keef has weighed in there is nothing more that could be said about chicago

i went there once. ate a big fat pizza. watched barney kessel and herb ellis play two sets at rick's cafe. it was chill.

IRL Spike Lee movie (feat. Brian Dennehey & Giancarlo Esposito):

https://twitter.com/BauerJournalism/status/669684294164594688

Exciting to watch balls argue w things no one says, what is this 12 years on

Every conservative politician in America over the past three years used Chicago as a byword for black on black crime cmon

This isn't even the first movie CALLED chiraq made in the past three years

I'm not even saying the movie is bad just that "but it's drawing attention to these problems" is not just a low bar but a completely redundant one

tell us what you didn't like about the movie, deej

I haven't seen the film yet! And I was responding to other people who also have not yet seen the film but were responding to other people's wariness about seeing the film.

seems like the best thing to do would be to see the movie

does this speak at all to how people's attitudes towards ~art~ have changed in the, what, 25 years since do the right thing came out? or is it just a he's-not-from-round-here sentiment?

I mean no one to me knowledge says or said 'it's annoying that this film exists because, you know, we already know about inner city racial tension'

*my

looks awesome

i'm curious how the reaction to this film compares to the reaction to 'the warriors'--another film that took the complex real-life problem of gang violence and turned it in a hyper-stylized retelling of a Classical narrative (well, one is a comedy, the other an epic).

from today's perspective it's almost impossible to think of 'The warriors' as 'topical' in any real sense. it seems to exist in a world of its own. i doubt that lee's film will be so thoroughly abstract (for worse and definitely for better, lee has never had an interest in that kind of discipline).

distance also tends to dilute outrage in ways that aren't entirely predictable rational. whenever i see or hear about a holocaust melodrama, i always get an icky feeling, like it's necessarily exploitative and tacky, whatever the approach. but i don't have the same reaction to films about wars of antiquity, nor am i always repulsed from true-crime narratives.

i guess what i'm saying is that it's interesting that some seem to object to lee's film simply for existing -- for taking a real-life tragedy and making it into art, or at least art that doesn't stay within the narrow bounds of a sympathetic 'regretful' humanism.

see the movie

― k3vin k., Wednesday, November 25, 2015 8:45 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Without having seen the film, I'm comfortable defending people who are wary about the movie for being wary about it based on the trailer

"Distance also tends to dilute outrage"

lol yes whereas comfortable distance makes people what, more rational?

When an out-of-towner comes to town and brings out-of-towers to tell the story of your town, it's fair enough to be wary.

lol yes whereas comfortable distance makes people what, more rational?

i'm not saying outrage is irrational! it is often very rational!

i mean folks living in parts of chicago have every right to be outraged about the violence in their communities, and very possibly about lee's treatment of that violence.

but people were outraged by 'the warriors' too (you can read all about in the newspapers)... but if you watch that film today, the topical associations largely seem to fall away, and you're left with strange, hyperstylized work of art that seems to belong to no time.

a comment from the guardian that i think is worth pasting -

"The reviewer misses one of the main problems with the term "Chiraq". The only way one can even begin to compare homicides in Chicago to deaths in Iraq is to completely ignore every single civilian casualty in Iraq (as well as the coalition and Iraqi army deaths). Most months as many civilians are killed in Baghdad as are killed in Chicago in a bad year. Anything that helps Americans continue to ignore how much we've screwed up Iraq for the average Iraqi is not a good thing."

right, i noticed that -- lee compares the deaths of american soldiers in iraq to the number of homicides in chicago. but by some measures hundreds of thousands of iraqis were killed in the course of the american occupation. much of iraq (not to mention syria) is experiencing a human catastrophe of the likes we haven't seen in this country in 150 years.

(i know this will sound like trolling, but what also came to mind here are some of the more hyperbolic descriptions of 'rape culture' in america which seems to suggest that we are experiencing some world-historical epidemic of sexual violence. although america does seem to have higher rates of sexual violence compared to other wealthy nations, there are places on earth that are much, much more dangerous for women--places where rape is something like an official instrument of war. this isn't to say that america doesn't have a very serious problem with sexual violence that needs to be remedied; just that rhetoric can sometimes obscure the degrees of crisis.)

that came out wrong; i don't mean to suggest that we should be 'ok' with a certain number of homicides per year, or the way that gun violence affects the poor and people of color disproportionately.

i guess i just agree with some of the folks in chicago who are concerned that the 'chiraq' label paints a image of pervasive lawlessness that hyperbolizes and caricatures life in many neighborhoods in chicago. (i still think it might be unwise to prejudge a film one hasn't seen...)

were ppl outraged that the warriors exploited real life gang violence or were ppl outraged that this movie that was obv gonna trigger riots (cf the ott concern over do the right thing in 1989) was getting released?

brings out-of-towners to tell the story of your town

hey, John Cusack plays a priest!

And contra balls Chicago has been synonymous w "black on black crime" in the national media basically since keef blew up three years ago, moreso than other cities w/ the exact same issues

hasn't it actually been a rw buzz-topic longer, like since a certain black chicago community worker became president?

were ppl outraged that the warriors exploited real life gang violence or were ppl outraged that this movie that was obv gonna trigger riots (cf the ott concern over do the right thing in 1989) was getting released?

― balls, Thursday, November 26, 2015 11:24 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

both!

Man, I loved the Baseball Furies.

My concerns with this film, as such, have everything to do with Spike Lee, whose hit to miss ratio is vast and epic. Had he made a documentary I'd be as excited as anything. But another Spike Lee Joint? Nah, seems smug and pointless. The last thing Chicago needs is less truth and more Truth. This city is so messed up and going through so many horrible things right now that metaphors and reimaginings do nobody any favors.

hasn't it actually been a rw buzz-topic longer, like since a certain black chicago community worker became president?

― I don't have the time or energy to make a counterargument (stevie), Thursday, 26 November 2015 17:44 (54 minutes ago) Permalink

No. Back then chicago's rep was more about shadiness and corruption, cf the obsession over tony rezko, or his supposed political radicalism, via Jeremiah wright and Bill Ayers. Look I watched this stuff happen firsthand, the handwringing over Chicago violence came hand in hand w the spotlight drawn by the music, ppl forget that by summer 2012 fucking gwenyth Paltrow was telling interviewers she was listening to drill music

Like obviously the facts themselves predate it--the interrupters came out in 2011--but that wasnt getting the same national attention. 2012-2013-2014 there were multiple documentaries, big prime time news specials, the media spotlight was extra heavy to the point that Obama brought up Chicago violence in his reelection speech-- and all of them referenced the music, this isn't a reach

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/nov/26/spike-lee-female-students-should-go-on-sex-strike-to-combat-campus?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Close+up+new+-+2+edittable+regions&utm_term=140004&subid=40319&CMP=ema_1046

Spike Lee: female students should go on sex strike to combat campus rape/

i dont know what tone he said this in, but im not as optimistic as spike about this idea.

Colbert cited statistics that showed that since 2001 more Americans had died in Chicago than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

can this really be true?

easily

lot more americans in chicago than iraq or afghanistan, obviously

Also is that people dying from violence or just deaths in general?

homicide in chicago:

2001: 667[48]
2002: 656[48]
2003: 601[48]
2004: 453[48]
2005: 451[48]
2006: 471[48]
2007: 448[48]
2008: 513[48]
2009: 459[48]
2010: 436[48]
2011: 435[48]
2012: 516[49]
2013: 441[18]
2014: 432[18]

certainly nowhere near the amount of people FROM iraq and afghanistan who have been murdered. but we don't count them here.

just your typical wednesday...

Wednesday 25 November: 81 killed
Mosul: 28 children killed in French air strike; 11 executed.
Badush: 25 executed.
Baghdad: 11 by IEDs, gunfire; 2 bodies.
Madain: 4 by car bomb.

Murder rates have gone down in Chicago over the past 2 decades but it's misleading in two ways: first that the projects were knocked down and people moved often to the inner ring suburbs; then a police policy of containment meant that while the rates decreased in most Chicago neighborhoods in many neighborhoods they actually increased dramatically. The inequality of violence as they call it increased dramatically so some neighborhoods are worse than they've ever been

Not sure that this context is explained in the film, but it's important regardless

the figures colbert used for chicago were military deaths, IIRC

was a little amused to see during the trailers before creed that spike's cousin has a movie about chicago violence coming out also.

Barbershop 3?

yup

Seen a lot of reviews and reactions to this one that run along the lines of "even bad Spike Lee is better than no Spike Lee," which seem to hinge on the assumption that Lee has been out of commission since "Inside Man" and not constantly churning out movies that few saw or liked. The guy has massive personality and talent, and has made a handful of my favorite films or documentaries, but like my Prince comparison upthread, it unfortunately comes down to problems of quantity and quality control.

Red Hook Summer and Da Sweet Blood of Jesus both had their fans; I didn't see either, and most of you probably didn't either.

Exactly. And did anyone like Oldboy or ... whatever that WWII movie was?

Oldboy was terrible. Hope he made some good cash doing it though.

Da Sweet Blood of Jesus was surprisingly good, and seems to be quite similar to Chi-raq, actually. Looking forward to seeing that one.

i would totally watch red hook summer. don't think i need to see the martha's vineyard vampire movie. too many cocktail parties on the vineyard will make you make a movie like that. of that i'm sure.

man, how great was summer of sam? i need to watch that again. that is so my kinda movie. he has made some great stuff.

i would like to see this someday:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucker_Free_City

i think it would be cool if he had a big ambitious t.v. show a la the wire to produce/direct.

Oldboy really was terrible. Miracle at St. Anna wasn't any sort of great film, but it was at least worth the consideration.

Looked a bit boilerplate, iirc.

Summer of Sam ... I should revisit that. One of those movies, like Bringing Out the Dead, that should have been great but for some reason just didn't work for me at the time.

summer of sam is a brilliant terrible movie. i mean parts of it are such garbage and parts of it are such magic and they build to a whole that is giddy and electrifying and exasperating and nonsense. i love it.

exactly, no one saw those movies so they're probably bad

Oldboy was terrible. Hope he made some good cash doing it though.

― scott seward, Thursday, December 3, 2015 9:58 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lee might have gotten a decent salary, but that movie made... no money at all. so nobody is getting points.

summer of sam is a brilliant terrible movie. i mean parts of it are such garbage and parts of it are such magic and they build to a whole that is giddy and electrifying and exasperating and nonsense.

Sounds like Lee in a nutshell. Even Malcolm X fits this description.

I liked the baba o'reily montage.

https://twitter.com/chancetherapper/status/672855914727260161
https://twitter.com/chancetherapper/status/672856445830995968
https://twitter.com/chancetherapper/status/672857134137233408
https://twitter.com/chancetherapper/status/672857511268102148
https://twitter.com/chancetherapper/status/672867640742948864

http://www.thestranger.com/film/feature/2015/12/02/23212222/fuck-you-spike-lee

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVaemKOUEAA445E.jpg:large

As I walked out of Chi-Raq and was asked for my first impression, I started with my usual response, "It was... interesting." But then I stopped and added, "And it was bad." Then I nodded my head a little more confidently, "Yes, it was very bad."

haha this is very relatable in terms of bad movies in general

it's exploitative and problematic

The "um, it's based on Lysistrata you morons"-splaining leveled at any criticism is getting sort of icky.

can't believe spike lee, via the release of this movie, literally is suggesting that women abstaining from sex will solve chicago's violence problems

3. When Spike Lee does do satire, he defines satire right at the front of the movie, so everybody knows it's satire.

sometimes i kinda wish tarantino and spike would make a movie together and get every cartoony stereotypical archetype out of their system. just an explosion of screaming baptist preachers and nazis and pimps.

make it happen, Samuel Jackson

(all roles played by Samuel Jackson, obviously)

that Stranger article is p. weird imo

man this is getting a theatrical release? i thought i was gonna be able to steam it today

i would love to catch this in a theater but i'd be shocked if it happens

If anything I sort of think Spike played his vampire card a movie early. I bet this subject would have made a good horror movie metaphor.

Just saw this in the theater. Crowd really into it.

very good reviews so far, i'll wait for amazon

Box office returns; I'll watch the trailer.

http://m.chicagoreader.com/chicago/spike-lee-chi-raq-rahm-emanuel-will-burns/Content?oid=20202638

has chance the rapper actually SEEN the film, before he makes sweeping statements about it. it does seem really over protective to be like 'oh if youre not FROM here, you have no right to make a film/talk about this'. the film might be exploitative and ignorant about the dynamics of the city, idk, but if every film in a particular setting had to be made by people from that place, not sure how many films there would be.

I'm assuming he did see it ? As he waited until after it was out to tweet about it

I'm not getting the impression that black people in Chicago have a problem with Spike not being a Chicago native. Rather that he, habitual maker of movies that approach black urban life with pathos nuance chose to make this movie.

Of course Spike Lee can do whatever he wants but if the satire isn't smart then it's farce, and if that was his intent from the jump then calling it Chi-raq was lazy and dumb.

Isn't Chiraq the name of a character in the film?

Stage name of the rapper played by Cannon.

Most detailed description I've come across; wouldn't mind seeing it, without great expectations:
http://www.npr.org/2015/12/04/458442385/spike-lee-pits-sex-against-guns-in-a-powerful-message-movie

It's a shambles and it doesn't all work but I'm a fan. Slow Jam dance might be one of my favourite musical moments in recent years (not a lot to choose from, granted).

http://www.chicagomag.com/arts-culture/December-2015/Chi-Raq-is-a-Wasted-Opportunity/

i was at a film critic bar gathering in NYC last night where a couple guys were raving about it

(one was also raving about Hateful Eight so the hell with him)

fuck people who like stuff

the jerks!

you got it

christ fuck ilx

"Christfuck ILX" = the collaborative ILX black metal album that needs recording

ooooooof this sucked

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/07/magazine/chi-raq-and-the-myth-of-chicago-gang-wars.html?mwrsm=Facebook

i still haven't seen it but fuck this movie

chris x...

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21305-chi-raq-ost/

i mean kris x...

as in kris ex...

i really need more coffee...

I might rent this, very low expectations. It seems like Spike wanted to make a specific polemic, and Chicago was just a convenient setting.

He should have just set it in Big Made-up City, USA.

But then he wouldn't have that title.

Good point. He should call all his movies Chi-raq and set them all in Chicago.

remember when john sayles made a big made-up city movie about the crumbling of the american dream? i do!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doa7vS0alxc

xp Well except for the ones in New York. Those he should call East of Chi-raq.

Should have called it "Crooklyn."

Lost Angeles

at this point i almost wonder if spike was deliberately trolling chicago's weird inferiority complex w/ new york

Deathtroit

like they can't all be while you were sleeping, you'll survive this second city

gat-lanta

bleed-oria

Would watch all these movies tbh.

Shot-Lanta
Portland, Ore-Gun.
Segattle
Miuzi Weighs a Bos-Ton.
Miuzi, Florida

it's basically if chuck d did a reboot of on the road w/ charles kuralt

san gun-tonio

gun arbor, michigun

the Bed-Stuy of DtRT also has mythical elements

seriously, werent capone n noreaga using fictitious US-middle eastern compounds in the late 90s? or at least calling themselves after dictators and such? whats the difference? rappers have been renaming themselves/their cities/towns after war torn countries for years.

i saw Clockers in Illadelph. the crowd was digging it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/07/magazine/chi-raq-and-the-myth-of-chicago-gang-wars.html?mwrsm=Facebook

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, December 7, 2015 10:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i still haven't seen it but fuck this movie

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, December 7, 2015 10:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

do the paragraphs in this article about the spike lee movie have anything to do with the paragraphs in this article which aren't about the spike lee movie

the Bed-Stuy of DtRT also has mythical elements

o fkn rly

sorry if i blew your mind

Amused at how much most people don't even want to pretend to engage with this movie on its own terms.

morbs which is the worst spike lee movie iyo

i haven't seen them all

(i find very few, if any, worse than mediocre)

i find it hard to pick a spike lee movie i'd point and say yeah, that one? that's a bad movie. not even the sperm donor one, for example, which is kind of a huge mess. or the million man march one. or even the minstrel show one.

Girl 6 and Oldboy are the two I'd cite.

Bamboozled I liked alright; way less pedestrian than Malcolm X

The tougher one is how many great films has he made. One or two? Three?

But who's counting?

He's made two great films and a whole bunch of middline-to-bad ones

What's the great one besides do the right thing? (genuine question not snark, only seen about half his films)

bamboozled has acquired an interesting rep, nymag ranked his movies the other day - http://www.vulture.com/2012/08/spike-lee-films-ranked-from-best-to-worst.html - and had it pretty high, and the list wasn't esp idiosyncratic (i'd quibble w/ some of the rankings but there's nothing where i'm like wtf)

"She's Gotta Have It" imo

xp

I guess tbf I would rate Inside Man, 25th Hour and probably Malcolm X as good (as opposed to "middling")

if we're saying great doesn't necessarily equal perfect (and frequently greatness can be tied to that lack of perfection) i'd give him three great (dtrt, x, 25th hour), four maybe five if you include docs.

Malcolm X isn't even in my upper half for Lee films.

Jungle Fever ridiculously too low on that list.

the ones i'd watch again: she's gotta have it, school daze, do the right thing, mo better blues, maaaybe jungle fever, malcolm x, crooklyn, clockers, 4 little girls, he got game, the original kings of comedy, bamboozled, , 25th hour, inside man, when the levees broke, if god is willing and da creek don't rise, bad 25

haven't seen but could imagine watching: she hate me (i think kerry washington might be naked in this), red hook summer, chi-raq, the jim brown doc

i did not like bamboozled at all. maybe i should see it again. i felt like everything before and after the filming of the actual minstrel show was bad. like he just really wanted to film a network minstrel show and everything else was an afterthought. but maybe i was just in a bad mood when i saw it.

The tougher one is how many great films has he made.

"You only need one." - Orson Welles

Never liked He's Gotta Have It aside from the Mars character; some really bad acting and scripting.

like he just really wanted to film a network minstrel show and everything else was an afterthought.

this was my feeling too (granted I didn't even make it to the end - I ended up just fast-forwarding to the notorious credits sequence)

do people even go back to jungle fever or do the right thing and school daze and watch them now? i haven't seen them in forever. i haven't listened to a public enemy record in forever either though. they might just seem like artifacts now. crooklyn i could watch any old time.

Do the Right Thing def holds up. I haven't seen School Daze is a reaaaaal long time. Jungle Fever I tried to watch when it was on TV awhile ago and man that's just a mess.

i did not like bamboozled at all. maybe i should see it again. i felt like everything before and after the filming of the actual minstrel show was bad. like he just really wanted to film a network minstrel show and everything else was an afterthought. but maybe i was just in a bad mood when i saw it.

the minstrel show is the only part that was actually captured on film, right? the rest was shot with digital handheld cameras to give it an ugly dingy look. I think Bamboozled is a great movie, flaws and all.

but a compelling mess. that's what i'm hoping this movie could be. xp

Bodymore Murderland

re: SGHI Morbz is right that there's some rough acting/scripting but idk it successfully evokes a particular era in black culture that I'm sentimental about and its virtues outweigh its faults imo. The Mars Blackmon sequences are obviously the strongest.

It is interesting that he's tried so hard/spent so much time - right from the beginning - with central female characters and sexual politics and still seems to fundamentally misread or misrepresent both, often quite forcefully.

like you'd think eventually he'd get better at it or learn something but nope

but Suzan Lori-Parks wrote Girl 6, right?

ppl being all "oh see the movie before you judge, you're not meeting it on its terms" like the movie's a person with feelings or something... lol

I'd imagine it was made by people with feelings

I think the largely improvised scene of black women talking about "jungle fever" in that film is p incredible, tho not in a way that won much praise.

Exactly. That scene alone justifies the sprawl and mess.

As does Samuel L. Jackson's performance (still his best).

those bits are both good yeah but the rest oi

liked Turturro and the Bay Ridge goombahs also (trust me, you can find those ppl there 25 years later)

yeah jackson is why i'd see it again. i'm curious if there's an interesting critique or examination of buppies in there also, no way i would've picked up on it at the time but what i remember of him at the firm suggests maybe? i remember sciorra was great and gorgeous and wesley snipes could act once. mo better has some bad bad stuff in it (not just the antisemitism) but the stuff that centered on jazz i remember liking a great deal even if wow talk about fantasy and even if spike's jazz love is centered in that marsalis/crouch axis. bamboozled i found a mess at the time but i've heard it spoken of so well lately i'd watch it again. summer of sam i caught alot of a few months back, i liked it more than i liked it then but i still don't like it very much. i think i'd be more interested in watching that miniseries of the bronx is burning again than summer of sam. not sure which has the better turturro performance though.

mo better has some bad bad stuff in it (not just the antisemitism) but the stuff that centered on jazz i remember liking a great deal even if wow talk about fantasy and even if spike's jazz love is centered in that marsalis/crouch axis.

I was shocked how much I liked this movie when I finally got around to it.

denzel is good in mo better, i think that mode of denzel performance (basically that and devil in a blue dress) is my favorite. when he's not doing gregory peck but he's also not 'going dark'. just a sexual scoundrel. i always wish someone would make another easy rawlins movie, maybe do little scarlet. cheadle in devil in a blue dress is still easily my fave performance by him.

my memory is it's pretty good until the ending, which just tries to cram a whole lot of development into too short a timespan

re: MMB

er MBB

do the paragraphs in this article about the spike lee movie have anything to do with the paragraphs in this article which aren't about the spike lee movie

― thwomp (thomp), Tuesday, December 8, 2015 12:21 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes

at this point i almost wonder if spike was deliberately trolling chicago's weird inferiority complex w/ new york

― balls, Tuesday, December 8, 2015 11:01 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fucking lol

its weird how ppl want to separate the film from the politics in a film explicitly about its politics

it's certainly not weird that a white chicagoan who has made a career policing and criticising what is and isn't real black culture might not be interested in seeing a movie that places some of the blame for the violence in chicago on white gentrifiers

you aim for the personal gut shots but you've always got a blindfold on

yes, i think this movie probably sucks because i'm feeling defensive about being a white gentrifier, you nailed it, very smart

you should throw in a dated jab about listicles while you're at it

http://i0.wp.com/www.theworldwetravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Do-The-Right-Thing-Spike-Lee-Stuyvesant-Brooklyn-Untapped-Cities-NYC-Film-Locations.avi-VLC-media-player-6252014-31110-PM.jpg

lol

you're right it never occurred to me that white people could be responsible, i guess we're lucky this incredibly groundbreaking movie opened your eyes

Denzel's never been sexier than in Mo' Better, with Devil second.

the Spike joint I can rewatch is Clockers, still my favorite Richard Price adaptation.

its mystifying to me balls is still taken seriously on this website, is it just his constant tone of jaded knowingness that makes ppl think he's got insightful things to say

and She's Gotta Have It survives the poor scripting. The thing's got life.

you guys are making me want to put on a brightly colored oversized trenchcoat and watch Mo' Betta Blues again

life is overrated xp

that's why a B+ is my go-to grade.

even when i loved it i thought the acting was a problem, not sure what i'd think of it now. then again i enjoyed master of none so i can get past bad acting.

this film doesnt really have someone saying 'wake up' does it?

this film doesnt really have someone saying 'wake up' does it?

I hope it does. In fact, I hope it's Lawrence Fishburne, dressed exactly like he was in School Daze, only now he's old and grubby, running down the street pounding on car hoods and screaming at the drivers, like Kevin McCarthy in the 1970s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

lol. just asking as i read a review and i couldnt tell if it really did have that, or if the theme was basically a reprise of 'wake up!' (without anyone actually saying that).

"it's certainly not weird that a white chicagoan who has made a career policing and criticising what is and isn't real black culture might not be interested in seeing a movie that places some of the blame for the violence in chicago on white gentrifiers"

i would pay for a spike lee movie about white gentrifiers. i cant think of a subject that would be better catnip both for spike/his fans/his detractors.

I thought this review was interesting and well written. It comes from a guy who's a longtime Lee fan, but who usually writes about direct-to-video Universal Soldier sequels and other movies where people get kicked in the face a lot.

Richard Brody loves it http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/spike-lees-necessary-overwhelming-chi-raq

The conclusion is not very convincing IMO (still have not seen it)

and She's Gotta Have It survives the poor scripting. The thing's got life.

this

http://i0.wp.com/www.theworldwetravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Do-The-Right-Thing-Spike-Lee-Stuyvesant-Brooklyn-Untapped-Cities-NYC-Film-Locations.avi-VLC-media-player-6252014-31110-PM.jpg

i love this moment btw

street theater!

http://pitchfork.com/news/62492-spike-lee-slams-chance-the-rappers-chi-raq-criticism/

spike - 1
chance the rapper - 0

Lol. The mayor is in much bigger trouble rn, I doubt he actually gives a fuck about the movie at this point

Seriously the idea that chance doesn't like the movie bc he's beholden to the mayor only makes sense until you actually think about it

I doubt that Chance's dad, no matter his job position, has had much influence on stubborn Rahm

Seriously the idea that chance doesn't like the movie bc he's beholden to the mayor only makes sense until you actually think about it

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, December 11, 2015 2:05 PM (1 hour ago)

it's a very fair clap back, let's be honest

xpost Yeah, I bet Rahm doesn't even know this movie came out. Probably neither do the hundreds of protestors calling for his head.. Though I know Rahm knows about them.

it's a very fair clap back, let's be honest

― k3vin k., Friday, 11 December 2015 20:39 (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nah, it's diversionary bs. What exactly does his dad's day job have to do with his criticism of the movie?

xp Rahm met with spike lee about the movie

well if we are to accept that the purpose of the movie -- whether it did this well or not -- was to address the problem of violence in chicago and the problems that underlie it, one might ask what chance, who seems to have opinions about the subject, has been doing to combat the problem, or what kind of politicians he supports to bring about change. if it's true that he hasn't spoken out against rahm, or doesn't support the protest against him, i'd say his family ties to the regime are pretty fair game

afaict the extent of chance's criticism of the movie was a couple of tweets containing some social justice buzzwords. i may have missed a follow-up, though -- please link if he's fleshed his ideas out a little more

xp

otm

It's not even so much about whether the movie does it well as whether it was ever really trying in the first place.

Don't know why Spike Lee gets the botd here wrt his intentions and Chance doesn't.

He's been vocal and active against violence in Chicago and even if his silence regarding the mayor is a valid barb it isn't a relevant one.

His tweets are embedded here.
http://pitchfork.com/news/62395-chance-the-rapper-says-spike-lees-chi-raq-is-exploitive-and-problematic/
If you think, "well your daddy works for the mayor!" is a fair rebuttal to that then idk

Loooooool notm

Xp

so maybe if spike said chance's tweets were problematic and then stopped talking about it

Sorry for glibness, pulling the "well what are YOU doing about the violence" on chance, who's one of the most socially active celebrities to come out of Chicago maybe ever, is just funny to me

so you would agree that his connections to rahm are off-limits, got it

They're completely irrelevant

Like the scene he's from in Chicago was built on the idea of combining Saul alinsky's organizing principles w/ Afrika bambaataa's, it's an extremely socially active and radical scene, chances bff is Malcolm London, the activist whose arrest made national news during the laquan McDonald protests

so maybe if spike said chance's tweets were problematic and then stopped talking about it

― Sufjan Grafton, Friday, 11 December 2015 21:39 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He's not obliged to defend the movie, but either way what he said was irrelevant.

http://allhiphop.com/2015/12/11/rhymefest-to-spike-lee-support-chicago-filmmakers-or-dont-come-back-to-the-city-video/

“Spike needs to sit down and have a conversation with some people that are really doing work in Chicago instead of just talking sh*t he don’t know about,” stated Rhymefest. “Spike needs to give $100,000 to a program for film development for shorties in Chicago to tell their own story. That’s a challenge that’s issued to him, or just don’t come back to Chicago.”

not sure that those movies would be seen by as many people

Or that they'd even be better.

also not seeing where Jennifer Hudson is saying that she was "tricked to be in the picture"

wasn't aware that rhymefest gets to decide who does and doesn't "come back to Chicago"

so much posturing on all sides in this 'debate'

Rhymefest is a hypocrit but I thought Bonny's response was very thoughtful and insightful

https://www.thefader.com/2015/12/10/lil-bibby-spike-lee-chiraq-real

Lol autocorrect. Bibby's

Bonny "Prince" Bibby

afaict the extent of chance's criticism of the movie was a couple of tweets containing some social justice buzzwords. i may have missed a follow-up, though -- please link if he's fleshed his ideas out a little more

xp

― k3vin k., Friday, December 11, 2015 4:14 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the fuck u talking about

besides "problematic" lol

named the year's best by Richard Brody of the New Yorker

It’s gratifying that Amazon Studios has invested in his vision and restored his work to the prominence that it so greatly deserves. What’s all the more remarkable is that the film that might be called his comeback, “Chi-Raq,” has nothing of the retrospective, nostalgic, or self-righteous about it—it displays an uninhibited freedom of invention. Here, taking huge personal, artistic, and political risks, Lee creates a latter-day masterwork—perhaps his best film to date.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/best-movies-2015

Posted upthread morbs

sorry

different article actually, other one was the original review.

would like to see this.

wow d-40 even being disingenuous as repost policeman, a new low

the color-coded spartans/trojans stuff sounds very baz luhrmann and obviously is not how it Is but movies can and will do many things. a lot of the critical articles i've read (by people who've seen it and not) seem to think that there's some other, realistic, respectful movie someone could make that really would "wake people up" and cause Change. maybe there is. someone should make it. but in my experience sober, polished tragedy reduces to entertainment just as easily as insane satire--easier, actually, because i think a lot of people feel like subjecting themselves to dramatic tragedy is a kind of moral act, and nothing is more entertaining than performing moral acts. like i thought this line in the lil bibby piece (which contains a lot of praise!) was wrong--

It's supposed to make you want to cry. A lot of the stuff that they were doing was funny. Even the whole rhyme scheme, that shit was just stupid. If you see some shit on Chicago, people need to want to cry at the end, not laugh, because it really is sad.

--because i watch moved liberals weep at handsomely mounted injustice almost every weekend, and imo i might as well be projecting porn. (gonna nag the office to get this-- we got dear white people, which the moved liberals did not like, so there's a chance.) no idea if this movie's good or not but i think aggressive, passionate satire is a better way to keep people awake at night than respectful realism--and at the very least not a reason in itself to condemn a movie. (i know there are other reasons it's being condemned--is it about 2015 chicago at all, is its title ghoulish marketing for spike's aristophanes stunt--but idk how i'd address those without seeing it.)

wow d-40 even being disingenuous as repost policeman, a new low

― mattresslessness, Saturday, 12 December 2015 04:17 (1 hour ago) Permalink

this is a great archetypal mattresslessness post in its pseud condescension

apologies for not realizing he hadn't linked to the review but to a second review, it was very "disingenuous" (tf??) of me to make that error

--because i watch moved liberals weep at handsomely mounted injustice almost every weekend, and imo i might as well be projecting porn. (gonna nag the office to get this-- we got dear white people, which the moved liberals did not like, so there's a chance.) no idea if this movie's good or not but i think aggressive, passionate satire is a better way to keep people awake at night than respectful realism--and at the very least not a reason in itself to condemn a movie. (i know there are other reasons it's being condemned--is it about 2015 chicago at all, is its title ghoulish marketing for spike's aristophanes stunt--but idk how i'd address those without seeing it.)

― denies the existence of dark matter (difficult listening hour), Friday, December 11, 2015 10:32 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is bibby a 'liberal'?

i didn't read him as talking about himself there. he says right before it that he thinks the movie should have been more of a documentary and that it won't do something the interviewer paraphrases as "wake people up". does he mean he too remains asleep?

I'm not saying I agree with everything Bibby says, but I think it's fair to say when a movie is supposed to "wake people up" that it should at least have a comprehension of the dynamics—not necessarily the same as the specifics—of that situation. (I'm going to sidebar for now the fact that I think everyone's been pretty "woke" to chicago's violence problem for the last three years)

i don't disagree w/ the general premise of your post—obviously there's no form, satire or realism, which is inherently more 'respectful' of the situation, and in some cases giving it some distance from the reality is an artistic & maybe political positive. (Although I articulated that POV on twitter & Malcom London RT'd to say more or less, as a recall, that it really just freezes a caricature in the nation's mind)

but can we at least agree there are ways in which this might not ring true—not in the accuracy of specific signs depicted, but in its ability to grapple w/ the reality—that could be perceived not only as disrespectful, but ultimately sabotaging of the art, especially since the art is specifically suggesting it will have some rubber-meets-the-road effect?

he's talking about the emotions he thinks the movie ought to induce in the audience and i'm just skeptical of the notion that tearful audiences of realistic movies about social outrages are communing any closer with victims than confused or bewildered or uncomfortably amused ones.

sry that was xp.

like, i get that the Takes are flying fast & furious and there are lots of ppl who are like "why isn't this a reverent docu-drama with strings to indicate sadness" but the criticism im reading from bibby seems to be reaching beyond that:

Chicago is not purple and orange. We don't gangbang like that. It's just like, every street—it's different blocks. And we don't meet up in different spots like that, and have meetings and shit like that. We don't have old guys in gangs. It's really just kids, smoking weed and drinking and lean, and somebody killed their cousin or their friend and they wake up everyday wanting to get their revenge. I guess that's the only way they know.

he wants to make it more fantastical. more artfully abstracted from the reality. but what if he does it in a way that erases the truth ppl experience there, or warps it for a national audience? i think that can be a legitimate grievance. it feels like ppl on the one hand want to argue "its not insensitive because this is about a real situation" and on the other hand that its art so that it might have harmful consequences can be waved away under creative license (XXP)

dude, you have to see this movie and report back. it's the only way out of this mess we are in in this country. and people keep picking on you here. we need a long-ass review with some pert info.

but can we at least agree there are ways in which this might not ring true—not in the accuracy of specific signs depicted, but in its ability to grapple w/ the reality—that could be perceived not only as disrespectful, but ultimately sabotaging of the art

sure-- the movie could have nothing to say, could be fatuous, narcissistic, not revelatory of anything. lots of movies are like that. but "a sex strike wouldn't really work", "it should be more realistic", "it should make you cry" are not arguments about that. in fact he talks plenty about the details and feelings it does get right-- enough to make me want to see it more even if i come away as disappointed as him.

the old guys thing is a sharp criticism, fair.

this is a pretty good thread

--because i watch moved liberals weep at handsomely mounted injustice almost every weekend, and imo i might as well be projecting porn. (gonna nag the office to get this--

dlh what do you do

i work at a single-screen movie theater that also does a lot of live stuff; i run the projector and cook the food and do the buying and fill in gaps on shows' tech crews. (i am also an editor at a large music streaming service.) it's oscarbait season and i have seen a lot of true stories lately.

posting on the way home from teching the nutcracker, speaking of the season.

(my mean remarks about liberals are because many of our regulars are senior citizens from the town up the road, puna; a local synonym for "hippie" is "punatic". actually these people are lovely i just get bitchy about their politics sometimes because they look disapproving when i read them the popping oil ingredients.)

Spike Lee at his most brechtian since maybe School Daze doesn't warrant criticisms about truth and accuracy. Whatever the merits of the movie, the point of making it stylized and unreal and dissonant is to give the politics of the movie some space to breath. The unreality is the prod that sets the audience thinking instead of simply being engaged with a story.

Deej, do you think Spike Lee is any less respectful of the experiences of Chicagoans than Mozzy is to the experiences of Sacramentans? Do Mozzy's tapes reflect Sacramentans' experiences? Or do his tapes "erase the truth ppl experience there, or warp it for a national audience"? E.g. when you contrast Mozzy's numerous explicit references to committing murder with the actual murder rate of Sacramento, which nearly matches the not especially "gut-wrenching" or "shocking" but very realistic rate of the rest of California, you might think either that Mozzy committed all 27 murders (out of 480,000 people) in Sacramento last year or that, possibly a shoe store slap fight here or there notwithstanding, Mozzy is just another Gene Simmons selling a rock n roll fantasy; and that's fine with me, but there's no internal consistency in your criticism of one artist and your plaudits for another, though I look forward to your tortuous explanations as to why I'm so wrong.

You're also still pushing this narrative that Chicago violence has entered the national consciousness post-drill, which I think is very self-serving considering your role in promoting the music. I don't know what rhetorical effort you've put into convincing everyone this is true except to say that there are people out there in the world who have talked about Chicago violence since drill came into being, which duh. People talked about it before drill, too.

man, dlh, your job sounds sweet

-

bmc: does this movie actually literally repeat the 'wake up' ending from 'school daze'? or was i misinformed?

the color-coded spartans/trojans stuff sounds very baz luhrmann and obviously is not how it Is but movies can and will do many things. a lot of the critical articles i've read (by people who've seen it and not) seem to think that there's some other, realistic, respectful movie someone could make that really would "wake people up" and cause Change. maybe there is. someone should make it. but in my experience sober, polished tragedy reduces to entertainment just as easily as insane satire--easier, actually, because i think a lot of people feel like subjecting themselves to dramatic tragedy is a kind of moral act, and nothing is more entertaining than performing moral acts. like i thought this line in the lil bibby piece (which contains a lot of praise!) was wrong--

It's supposed to make you want to cry. A lot of the stuff that they were doing was funny. Even the whole rhyme scheme, that shit was just stupid. If you see some shit on Chicago, people need to want to cry at the end, not laugh, because it really is sad.

--because i watch moved liberals weep at handsomely mounted injustice almost every weekend, and imo i might as well be projecting porn. (gonna nag the office to get this-- we got dear white people, which the moved liberals did not like, so there's a chance.) no idea if this movie's good or not but i think aggressive, passionate satire is a better way to keep people awake at night than respectful realism--and at the very least not a reason in itself to condemn a movie. (i know there are other reasons it's being condemned--is it about 2015 chicago at all, is its title ghoulish marketing for spike's aristophanes stunt--but idk how i'd address those without seeing it.)
― denies the existence of dark matter (difficult listening hour), Friday, December 11, 2015 10:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just wanted to cheer this post. a lot of the criticisms of the film simply seem to be upset that lee’s treatment of the violence in chicago doesn’t fulfill their ideas of "realism"—that it isn’t sober enough. it’s quite possible that the film is a disaster, but naturally lee has every right—and probably a duty, given his body of work—to treat the subject in as outlandish and stylized a fashion as he would like.

this isn’t playing here and i don’t know if it’ll open in this town. but i hope to see this.

I haven't seen the movie yet (has there been a friend lately in which so many people post this disclaimer?), but dlh's comments remind me of the reaction to JFK from libs who thought Stone "muddied the waters" (I think it was beloved Richard Cohen; I'm not looking it up) and tut-tutted him for not being courageous enough to make An Honest Film about What Really Happened. The honest straightforward take w/out any of the movie's awesome lurid, ridiculous, "how's your mousse" moments wouldn't have done anything except reassure those convinced the Warren Commission was fiction. At least Stone's approach questions almost every piety of the left and right -- almost every piety, for DO NOT FORGET YOUR DYING KING.

i was tempted to see it this weekend but tbh i like chris hemsworth and i love patrick o'brian looking shit so i'm probably gonna see the whaler pic instead

I read that Ron Howard's take on the guy's fictionalized take on the true events that inspired Melville's "Moby Dick" does not do the reality justice, and that the rampant use of CGI does not pay proper respect to the real violence of mother nature and vindictive whales.

man that reminds me i'm in this kinda book club thing and we're reading ecology papers for fun (which reminds me i was looking up papers on assemblage theory and came across a paper by a sometime ilxor, only it was on like renaissance english lit instead of like hubbell's unified neutral theory so it was pretty funny) and there was this one awesome paper involving predation, i can't find it for free anywhere but this facebook post has the abstract - https://www.facebook.com/OrcaProjectSriLanka/posts/971991626199133 - if you've got a login for access to academic papers i highly recommend it, fun stuff, but man talk about violence.

good post bam

i wanna see that whale movie too but not nearly as much as i'd want to see yet another moby-dick, for reasons not unconnected to this discussion

is lynne ramsay still doing moby-dick in space?

idk but would camp out

ahab u've switched off ur targeting computer

what's wrong

I have you now.

ahab does at one point, while excoriating the sun for not showing him where moby-dick is despite "even now beholding him", complain that the sun is also keeping quiet about "the objects on the unknown, thither side of thee"

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/winking-sun-493788.jpg

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/0/3664/197388-3105-114828-1-adventure-comics.jpg

engaging w/ this in two pieces but i at least appreciate the straightforward argument even if u can't help but be a condescending shithead about it

Spike Lee at his most brechtian since maybe School Daze doesn't warrant criticisms about truth and accuracy. Whatever the merits of the movie, the point of making it stylized and unreal and dissonant is to give the politics of the movie some space to breath. The unreality is the prod that sets the audience thinking instead of simply being engaged with a story.

I understand this point & made it myself, as i referenced upthread. I thought my last two posts addressed this specifically. https://twitter.com/MalcolmLondon/status/661646774319374336

Deej, do you think Spike Lee is any less respectful of the experiences of Chicagoans than Mozzy is to the experiences of Sacramentans? Do Mozzy's tapes reflect Sacramentans' experiences? Or do his tapes "erase the truth ppl experience there, or warp it for a national audience"? E.g. when you contrast Mozzy's numerous explicit references to committing murder with the actual murder rate of Sacramento, which nearly matches the not especially "gut-wrenching" or "shocking" but very realistic rate of the rest of California, you might think either that Mozzy committed all 27 murders (out of 480,000 people) in Sacramento last year or that, possibly a shoe store slap fight here or there notwithstanding, Mozzy is just another Gene Simmons selling a rock n roll fantasy; and that's fine with me, but there's no internal consistency in your criticism of one artist and your plaudits for another, though I look forward to your tortuous explanations as to why I'm so wrong.

First off, fuck you & your 'torturous explanations' im certainly not the only person who has this perspective on spike's film who's enjoyed a chief keef song.

I'm not saying there's no way Spike could make a good movie about chicago called chiraq, just because he's an outsider! Nor do I think that's what the people critical of this film are saying. I'm just suggesting that concerns about his ability to accurately portray the central dynamics of the problem **are fair things to be concerned about** and shouldnt be dismissed out of hand as a bunch of ppl who don't realize that art is artifice, man. I may watch the movie and end up disagreeing w/ the people critical of it. (In fact I wasn't going to post again til I'd seen it, but then you posted...)

And of course these questions are relevant to ask of rappers as well! There's no contradiction here, & these concerns are present in my writing about rap music as well (And to be completely transparent, I'm coming from a tradition of arguments about these things, these arent ideas ive formed in a vacuum). Mozzy, like the drill scene artists, is in conversation with his community about the truth of his art. (FYI, and I bring this up not because I'm saying it makes Mozzy more "authentic" and therefore good, but because the concerns about the murder rate should be put into context—https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/sacramentos-bad-rap/content?oid=16642245—see "Today's Gangs of Sacramento". His experience of gang life may be sold as "authenticity" & translated into a cliche the further you get from Sacramento, but that doesn't mean that the gangs or the violence are fictive—even if we'll never know the true nature of that relationship.) The whole reason the drill scene & keef became a thing was bc of local support of the teenagers in these communities. And lots of people in these communities think mozzy & keef are not representing their communities well, this is a pretty common and well disseminated POV. Even as their art moves me greatly I can absolutely see how consequences intended & unintended from their rise are in some ways negative...

The whole obsession w/ "realness" in street rap is in part a moral argument, and it's also a set of inter-community negotiations: that if you're going to be supported by ppl in this community you can only speak on that which you have experienced firsthand. these codes exist to avert exploitation, to ensure that those doing labor receive payment for their experiences and not someone else's. This is one ideology underlying a large portion of gangster rap. And then there's lot of gangster rap which doesnt fit that mold. & ive enjoyed music on both sides of the line. But I think criticisms from these communities of Spike, Keef, and Mozzy are legitimate!

You're also still pushing this narrative that Chicago violence has entered the national consciousness post-drill, which I think is very self-serving considering your role in promoting the music. I don't know what rhetorical effort you've put into convincing everyone this is true except to say that there are people out there in the world who have talked about Chicago violence since drill came into being, which duh. People talked about it before drill, too.

Self serving or not its true. i watched this happen firsthand. The interrupters doc that came out in 2011 made a little noise locally. But went from one article in TheRoot about Chicago Violence in early 2012 to an "epidemic" by summer. There were documentaries from Noisey, the UK, Worldstar, all these media entities swooped in to suddenly cover the violence in chicago. People didn't think of chicago like that before then, or they thought of it the way they thought of any other city with "some rough parts." I mean by summer nightline was doing special episodes on it which always included footage of the rappers themselves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag7JseqFqoA

anyway v interested to see how chance addresses this on SNL tonite lol

cold open with rahm

*stares blankly at the camera* "Rahm...is good."

lol

the Christian Science Monitor was reporting on Chicago gang violence, and citing public housing costs, in August of 2010

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0830/Behind-Chicago-s-high-crime-summer-persistent-street-gang-violence

my date-limited news search on this subject produced a scant 639 other articles on the topic for the date range 1/1/09 through 12/21/10

fyi

*public housing cuts (as one among several points leading to the increase)

CNN reporting on Chicago gang violence and referring to it as "epidemic" in May of 2009

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/08/chicago.children.slain/index.html?iref=24hours

"Gangs Turn Chicago Streets Into a Battlefield," ABC Nightly News (national); anchor refers to the "epidemic of deadly violence taking the lives of children in Chicago" in the first line of the broadcast

http://abcnews.go.com/US/gangs-turn-chicagos-streets-battleground/story?id=8785218

(meant to add airdate: 10/8/2009)

This is an insane line of critique. Of *course* ppl reported on violence in Chicago before 2012. Lol @ citing the Christian Science monitor lmao

But they also reported on philly, on New Orleans, on Detroit

Chicago becoming a national story as a *singular* space of talking points about it is a racent development; fox news' whole thing on Chicago being a stand-In for black on black crime is recent. Before 2012, it was all about Chicago corruption and obama's socialist radical friends and leftist preachers. You can choose not to believe me, but again I witnessed this firsthand and I'm really not making it up!

I never said this was the first time ever, just that in 2015 there is no one unaware that Chicago violence exists. It is common knowledge. Patting spike on the back for bringing attention to Chicago violence is critical laziness period

It's wild how I have to field criticisms from you dudes about "making these arguments about yourself" when you're clearly unafraid of making them about me and my career, but hey

oh I see. what you wrote was this:

The interrupters doc that came out in 2011 made a little noise locally. But went from one article in TheRoot about Chicago Violence in early 2012 to an "epidemic" by summer.

so I pointed out that national news was specifically using the word "epidemic" three years before your start date. doing it a lot. the national media was aware of, and reporting on, the epidemic of violence in Chicago long before 2011. there was much more than "a little noise locally." you wrote:

People didn't think of chicago like that before then, or they thought of it the way they thought of any other city with "some rough parts."

I demonstrated that this is a false claim. where did I refer to you personally or your career bro? you're being wrong and it's just being shown to you, that's all.

i mean, deej's larger point -- that the claim 'whatever this movie does, it still tells people about a thing they don't know about' is not a good one -- is still valid, if anything even more valid

Before 2012, it was all about Chicago corruption and obama's socialist radical friends and leftist preachers. You can choose not to believe me, but again I witnessed this firsthand and I'm really not making it up!

you are, in fact, making this up, as date-limited searches of news will tell you within something like .03 seconds if you're actually interested!

xp it's true! deej is for sure known to make some good points, but "nobody was talking about Chicago gang violence before 2011" isn't one of them

Excuse me for not being as precise as I should have, but there was a demonstrable uptick in conversation about Chicago as a center for violence after the music popped up. I'm sorry if I in some way minimized the extent to which it had been covered previously--but I certainly never denied that it had been covered, I LIVE HERE, and I'm aware that it has been covered at a certain level for years, obviously. But it became a National Story that was referenced by politicians, in the president's state of the Union, on high profile shows like night line, in 2012 in a way it hadn't the previous year. This is true! And yes, in 2011 the coverage was not nearly as omnipresent. Pulling up an 09 article about a violence epidemic isn't disproving shit

But yes as Thomp points out this was a sidebar to the main point that doesn't really undercut the main thrust of what I'm saying at all

There's a long history of articles pointing to urban blight and violence and saying hey it's an epidemic, btw....you'll find some in 1909 never mind 2009... I maintain, though, that among the many peaks and valleys in the country paying particular attention to chicago's south side, 2012 was a year in which it reached a major saturation point.

Deej, do you know what the Christian Science Monitor is? Are you aware of its reputation? I ask because I don't understand your implication that it's not a noteworthy publication.

So your point is that, based on some anecdotal evidence and your gut feeling, national attention toward Chicago violence reached a saturation point long after its horrific peak, which was before you were even born? I know someone who did social work and mediation with Chicago gang members in the 70s and when I mentioned your thesis to him last week he chuckled, then made some indignant show of utterly complete dismissal. I wonder how his anecdotes stack up against yours.

And why is tracking and defining this narrative even important except to tie Chicago violence and this movie to your hobbyhorse slash meal ticket? How common is this claim that the movie Chi-raq, an arthouse movie in limited release, is informing the general public about Chicago, so much so that it must be repudiated?

I don't think this subject holds up well against all the folk wisdom and myth-making. When Lil Bibby tried to make a little corrective to what he felt were Spike Lee and the public's misconceptions, he made some of his own. Atlanta's murder rate, for example, is higher than Chicago's, and belittling the violence and terrorism of gang activity there makes him look less like a credible observer and more like an entertainer promoting his similarly-titled work

You have significant reading comprehension issues

Like half your post is refuted by my last post. Try again

Accusations of careerism in a fucking message board argument...like my whole asshole you goofy dumbass

*lick....lol like

I'm afraid your reasoning is too nuanced for me

See mattresslessness his post is a more accurate example of "disingenuousness" since ur looking

Sorry bro I don't think you've earned any more explanations! You're not arguing with what I said but w what you think I said and I have no interest in holding your hand for this

Good thing my dad doesn't work in Chicago city government! You'd be saying I was in rahm's pocket too

deej it's a really bad look, when a guy repeatedly proves you wrong, to just tell that guy to lick your asshole. it's the sort of thing that gets you banned, and then you whine and pick an all-caps display name, etc.

I had a longer thing but your thesis about when national news media began reporting on the increase in Chicago gang violence is just wrong, it's been proven wrong whether you moved to Chicago after college or not.

Deej: Lol @ citing the Christian Science monitor lmao

Bam: Deej, do you know what the Christian Science Monitor is? Are you aware of its reputation? I ask because I don't understand your implication that it's not a noteworthy publication.

Deej: You have significant reading comprehension issues

Me: what exactly is there about "LOL... LMAO" that evades Bam's comprehension? If you express yourself like a 12-year-old, or Lagoon, then you've got to expect people struggling to comprehend you.

Maybe by "last post" you meant that Sears Tower of text? I haven't read all of that yet. Skimmed it a bit. Trying to pace myself. Yesterday was chore day and go see a movie day and visit my girlfriend day. Let me catch up and then I'll toss your salad.

Chicago violence has been endemic/epidemic for years, obviously, as it is with just about any major city, with peaks and valleys of fretting on a national and local level. But I agree that it's only been in the past couple of years that Chicago has earned a more alarmist/sensationalized murder city sort of rep.

or Lagoon

thread now emitting shrapnel

He didn't prove me "wrong" you idiot! He's not even in the same argument

If I express myself like a twelve year old it's bc when I "write a Sears tower of text" I'm taking it on good faith that the person I'm talking to is going to engage with it instead of...well I can't tell if bam is trolling because he's actually stupid or if it's a more disingenuous kind of trolling, but fuck you if you expect me to explain to you how bibby is talking about the Atlanta *music industry* when he talks about how violence isn't as present there, or how using the Christian Science monitor as a barometer of the degree to which Chicago violence became a national story makes no sense. I answered genuinely and straightforwardly what I was talking about but clearly this is more about some perverse kind of point scoring in a game of captain save a revered east coast filmmaker

Josh in Chicago otm

Fwiw the whole point of saying that it reached a saturation point a couple of years ago was to say that it doesn't actually do anything just to bring awareness. Like in part I'm talking about the inefficacy of I.e. Rappers (and filmmakers) "raising the alarm" to create some kind of sustained change. If it didn't happen in 2012 it's not going to happen with a movie that (confusingly) bamcquern is now minimizing as an art house concern

It's Willis Tower guys.

http://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/thumbs/video/2227974/83008008.jpg

deej you're being either disingenuous or really thick - I used the CSM link, I would have thought obviously to anybody whose reading comprehension was up to speed, to point out that even publications as square and non-cutting edge as the Christian Science Monitor were writing about the rise in Chicago gang violence -- specifically about the rise, specifically about the same trends you are talking about and the same causes you and I and everybody else is aware of: not generally about violence, not any of the mischaracterization of the articles you're doing without checking the sources -- long before your posited point-of-origin-in-the-national-consciousness.

on the actual point, no, I don't imagine this film "raises awareness" really, specifically because people have been aware of this for years, even the squarest most mainstream publications knew no later than 2009, and were reporting on it. if it were hugely successful, there might be some "people with large amounts of money become aware and try to help," that's always the possibility with big mainstream exposure, but a version of Lysistrata in verse is not gonna be that movie no matter what.

but feel free to just sail the Pequod right back into the seas of ad hom, who can blame you, your actual point didn't hold up so it's what you've got left

C-. Spike's heart is in the right place, but I'll never watch this again and can't bring myself to direct anyone to it. Somehow this might translate better to theatre in a way, though that's impossible for a billion reasons.

In what universe is "squareness" of a publication a measure of the depth of media penetration in a story about urban blight? Academic sociology journals must be super out of touch

And the ad homs didn't enter this conversation until ppl started bringing my career into it u disingenuous sanctimonious motherfucker

Does Josh's post affirming what I said mean nothing to you? Do you only accept information that affirms your constant bias that I'm probably wrong about everything ?

Like I feel like I'm trying to chip away at a huge block of ice around your head to get you to understand my point it's very bizarre. Your argument has gone in circles so many times you're trying to argue the point I was making: people already knew about this problem so defending spike's film on "raising awareness" grounds is a flawed argument

have you seen it yet?

The thing about the 'raising awareness' argument is that afaict, Spike Lee never really expressed an interest in doing that?
So saying "This movie is bad at raising awareness of this problem!" at this point, seems to serve as a lazy stand-in for "This movie is exploitative!" -- perhaps because the latter would require a substantial engagement with it as a work of art, while the former thesis can be 'proved' by 1001 facts about things that are not Spike Lee's Chi-Raq

also: lol at accusing Spike Lee of 'getting it wrong' by making his movie be about two big old rival gangs (what is this, West Side Story???) instead of a bunch of decentralized nodes of corner violence... only to promptly turn around and shit on everyone outside of Chicago as 'outsiders' who can't possibly understand that this city has a unique and historically unprecedented culture of violence, & why it would not be susceptible to a thousand-year-old riff on male psychology (SPOILER ALERT: part of the 'meaning' of a work like Lysistrata is that macho cultures like this go extinct)

The thing about the 'raising awareness' argument is that afaict, Spike Lee never really expressed an interest in doing that?
So saying "This movie is bad at raising awareness of this problem!" at this point, seems to serve as a lazy stand-in for "This movie is exploitative!" -- perhaps because the latter would require a substantial engagement with it as a work of art, while the former thesis can be 'proved' by 1001 facts about things that are not Spike Lee's Chi-Raq

― bernard snowy, Monday, December 14, 2015 8:20 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dont know if you didn't follow this argument or what (lol) but—(although I'm pretty sure he did explicitly say this movie was about raising awareness?)—I was responding to someone in this thread who claimed that criticism of the film was unwarranted bc it was raising alarm bells

an example of the kinds of articles that did not exist in the onion prior to 2012 http://www.theonion.com/article/chicago-introduces-new-citywide-gun-sharing-statio-37797

in august 2012 the onion even PARODIED the rise in coverage of chicago violence/its associated music in this article http://www.theonion.com/article/hot-new-murder-craze-sweeps-chicago-29349

also: lol at accusing Spike Lee of 'getting it wrong' by making his movie be about two big old rival gangs (what is this, West Side Story???) instead of a bunch of decentralized nodes of corner violence... only to promptly turn around and shit on everyone outside of Chicago as 'outsiders' who can't possibly understand that this city has a unique and historically unprecedented culture of violence, & why it would not be susceptible to a thousand-year-old riff on male psychology (SPOILER ALERT: part of the 'meaning' of a work like Lysistrata is that macho cultures like this go extinct)

― bernard snowy, Monday, December 14, 2015 8:24 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

your isolation of this particular macho culture from the macho american culture writ large seems like not the kind of thing spike lee would agree with

I really have no interest in the headless ouroboros of attacking your right to criticize someone else's right to criticize the critics of a movie that, as far as I know, neither of us have seen.

But given your responses throughout this thread, both to other posters and to "the thing itself" (in the rare cases when you seem to be engaging with it), it seems fair to say that you have a lot invested in this narrative of "the media" suddenly getting hip to Chicago violence in the last ~5 years, turning their cameras on it, & exploiting it for their own gain.

Even if we accept this oversimplification as true -- & I do think you're onto something when you talk about e.g. Fox News treating Chicago as a punching bag to be wheeled out regularly in service of the black-on-black-crime 'issue' -- But why not assume that Spike Lee's film is ALSO aware of, and addressed to, the whole fucked-up national media conversation in the background, to which you seem intent on reducing it? Why are you so unwilling to give this particular work the benefit of the doubt? Do you react similarly when a 'controversial' mixtape comes out of Chicago? Or do you listen to it first?

This is an honest question. I know from things you've posted upthread that you are not blind to the ethical issues involving artistic treatment of urban crime, but I think you are being (wait for it) oversensitive here, in your inability to move beyond the knee-jerk defensive posturing of "This movie should have never been made!"

And now, just so you know that all of the above written in good faith, untainted by personal antipathy towards you, I will give that antipathy free rein in this last paragraph, by suggesting that this post upthread:

it's certainly not weird that a white chicagoan who has made a career policing and criticising what is and isn't real black culture might not be interested in seeing a movie that places some of the blame for the violence in chicago on white gentrifiers

― balls, Tuesday, December 8, 2015 10:42 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

eh, that last part was unnecessary and I already regret it -- also forgot to mention that in your last post, you are 100% right, and I had no intention to isolate the 'culture' either geographically (it's a Chicago problem!!) or demographically (it's a black youth problem!!) -- as Spike Lee said in the interview where he responded to Chance, it's an American film, a film about guns... which is of course why it could be, and originally was, set in a 'nondescript urban environment'

the last part wasn't as much out of line as it is off the mark, balls has zero idea what hes talking abt

i dont disagree with what you're saying but in my defense the context of this argument was ppl who were—despite not having seen the movie themselves—out of hand dismissive of the film's critics, as if it was impossible that the film could have been a bad idea bc art...i just wanted to set the scale to zero, and suggest that its possible the film could be bad from a political pov, and not just an artistic one

http://pitchfork.com/news/62564-chance-the-rapper-further-slams-spike-lees-chi-raq-sings-donny-hathaways-this-christmas/

During the chat with WGCI's Chicago Morning Takeover, Chance responded to Lee's claims that Chance is biased because his father works for the city's mayor.
"I mean, Spike Lee is saying that 'cause he's promoting a movie. He's trying to make more money," Chance said. "He got his little 15 million from Amazon and his other little bread from Lionsgate and made a movie that was not about Chicago but, you know what I'm saying, manipulated and used Chicago actors and Chicago scenery to push this movie."
He added, "It was an oversimplification of a bigger problem. He wasn't really focusing on the issues of Chicago, it wasn't really about Chicago. To me, it was about this age-old conversation of black on black violence, which is to me some Bill Cosby 'pull up your pants' stuff. I’m just not for it."
He also said, "I was trying to explain to people outside of Chicago that it was marketed to that this isn't a representation of us and we're not rockin' with it."
In the movie, Nick Cannon and Wesley Snipes play two rival gang leaders, whose competition guides a lot of the drama. "The reason why we’re dying isn’t because there's two head gangbangers that are into it," Chance said. "We’re dying because we all have PTSD, you know, post-traumatic stress disorder. Kids as young as seven, and younger than that, have seen people murdered in front of them. So that starts a paranoia in your mind that you're walking around with. When you're walking around and you feel like people are trying to kill you, you shoot when you get scared. That's a problem that even I have. That's a problem that a lot of people suffer. And I feel like he didn't address that. He made it seem like we’re doing it because of gang life, and because our male ego is being compromised when we don't fight. But that’s the smallest form of it."

ppl who were—despite not having seen the movie themselves—

an interesting demographic to consider in light of this thread, eh

Deej, I got around to finishing your post upthread. I respect what you say re contemporary gangsta rap's troubled relationships with the communities it comes from, although I didn't understand the fruits of their labor bit, because I'm not sure what the labor is you're speaking of and why it's sacrosanct.

I also get "Bobby Brady's hero" vibes from talk of teenage grassroots support of gangsta rappers. Like my students think El Chapo Guzman is a wonderfully rakish and wily robber baron who exudes romantic nihilism and buys houses for the poor, in addition to being an astute political thinker and borderline genius engineer, so I've seen enough reality-starved minds, at least in relation to pop culture heroes, to be unsure exactly what teenage support of popular culture really means.

I do agree that criticizing the politics of the movie is fair game; I just don't think a clear distinction has been made between Spike Lee's responsibility and e.g. Mozzy's responsibility, especially when you take into account the style, audience, and personas of the artists.

I still disagree with the Chicago/drill zeitgeist argument, though. 2012 was Chicago's peak for homicide victims (not murder rate). I think it's far more likely that news organizations chased the story of 500 victims in a year rather than the story of violent lyrical content in music. As in the heyday of golden era gangsta rap, violent lyrics make a nice distracting anti-puff piece to hang on real murder trends, but the story of drill is an old story.

NYC-bred friend who is a huge fan of Spike's early-mid period thought this horrible, all complaints on aesthetic grounds: shallow treatment of women, juvenile humor etc.

I wil lse it if NY ever stops clotting my life with unmissable revivals.

*will see

If I were to clumsily work yr notable ilx interest in the various papacies into a pun about unrevivable missals youd no doubt feel picked on so I shall refrain

no idea what you're talking about, sorry

I'm a lapsed Catholic who would like to kill God if he exists, btw

ok missals i get it, you irish and yr humor

That's all, rly

I also get "Bobby Brady's hero" vibes from talk of teenage grassroots support of gangsta rappers. Like my students think El Chapo Guzman is a wonderfully rakish and wily robber baron who exudes romantic nihilism and buys houses for the poor, in addition to being an astute political thinker and borderline genius engineer, so I've seen enough reality-starved minds, at least in relation to pop culture heroes, to be unsure exactly what teenage support of popular culture really means.

Tbc I don't think a populist vote is sacrosanct, I mean ppl still think South Park Mexican the kid fiddler is a political prisoner, and more locally Chicago t33ns are really into this derivative gimmick rapper famous dex who IMO is rotting their brains like junk food---I nonetheless believe gangster rap is a source of good art drawing attention to things in new ways and communicating ideas that do not have a space in or more traditional mediums & art forms...perspectives which are not being expressed in other avenues. Etc

as far as the labor question that's a much bigger q than I'm prepared to answer during a commercial break on my phone on the couch at 11pm

As far as media attention in 2012, agree to disagree. There had been a Chicago murder peak a few years before that and I lived here then too; the noise level wasn't even comparable, IMO.

has anyone actually seen this yet

i'm not sure if it actually exists except as thinkpiece fuel

the mythical fandango tells me it is in fact at theaters in downtown boston but they could be in on the elaborate prank tbh

you show up and it's just 50 bloggers with pens and pads of paper staring at one another

just saw it. i might have weird taste, but i think it's fantastic as just a piece of entertainment, and really a return to form, vis a vis school daze and the early period. bright, colourful, outrageous, ridiculous, joyful. also a total mess, with no characterization of anyone, politics that aren't even facile so much as just incoherent from moment to moment and scene to scene. agree with that review that describes it as the spikiest of spike lee movies. if you have any hope that it could or should be a movie that actually has anything at all to say about the actual conditions in chicago, yeah, you have every right to be angry. it's completely worthless in that regard. even the throwaway bits people say could point to actual conditions (the preacher bit, which was excruciating, and the low-point for me) don't really make sense. but just as like a... thing... and a legit adaption of aristophanes in a major motion picture, its pretty great on its own terms imho. and in a sense, all the cacophonies of different wrong contradictory takes on chicago do sort of give a kaleidoscopic view of what the _conversation_ about it genuinely sounds like.

The part right before the preacher gives his sermon was so super dark comedy that it may have been my favorite part of the movie - just sorta over the top and ultra-grand and ridiculous but also moving or something. Kind of like this in a way (but not really)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBZR-KvKso4

John Cusack chair-dancing in during the performance was o_O

This movie reminded me of Christian Marquand's "Candy", another rough literary adaptation about a beautiful woman's sexual agency.

I loved Wesley Snipes. He used to be such a reliable comedic actor. It's too bad he got bogged down with action movies/tax jail.

Two other movies that came to mind were The Great Beauty and, of course, Romeo + Juliet.

even though it made it even more unrealistic, i liked the theater-set-like staging of some of the scenes, and thought it sort of helped half-keep it in a musical tradition.

I don't think realism was a characteristic Lee was shooting for here. This is an extremely stylized film.

I forgot to mention Felicia Pearson, who is sitting down in most of her scenes because she's too cool to dance.

spikes moralizing weighs this down, it's got such heavy feet for what it's trying to do... it's a freaking stinker but im glad spike got to make something on this scale again, watch Clockers again and your mind boggles at the budget he got to make that with, big crazy german expressionist sets and cinematography

wesley snipes is a genius actor

gone from NYC already except for one theater's 11pm shows

Yeah, but it's streaming on Amazon now.

not the same experience i suspect

Gonna be free with Amazon Prime starting February 5.

now out on Blu-ray etc

did u see this Morbz

not yet

seems weird but I guess popovich screened it for his team and flew in spike (to Cleveland) to talk abt it

This was great! The "Oh Girl" sequence was every bit as awesome as "Straight and Nappy" and "Da Butt" scenes from School Daze (which seems to be the film that comes up the most in discussions of this new one), but on the whole this is a much better film, much more confident and tonally consistent--even some of the initially WTF moments (like the one with the old army guy) end up paying off in a satisfactory way once it becomes clear where Lee is going with them. Samuel l. Jackson's greek chorus bits were delightful--I ended up rewinding and re-watching most of them. And who knew that Mariah's (former, I just learned via Wiki) boy toy could act?

And who knew that Mariah's (former, I just learned via Wiki) boy toy could act?

This wasn't his first movie; Drumline at least is reasonably well-regarded, and he was good in The Killing Room, which I don't think anybody but me saw.

I knew that he was in other things that I hadn't seen, but all I really knew of him before now was that he had released some horrible jokey rap records. He's very good here, though.

I can't fault the ambition of this though it's "uneven" -- some of the broadest comedy in it is really terrible -- but I found the climax extremely moving. The veteran actors, Bassett and Snipes, seem to have found the right note that too much of the other cast didn't or weren't able to.

The script was co-written by the guy who made that Confederate States of America film about a dozen years ago that wasn't well liked, so there's presumably no way to know if his input is "the problem" here, or if Spike's ideas helped or not.

The only comic scene that I thought was really broadly overplayed was the seduction of the General. Glad that you pointed out Bassett, though; she's terrific here, and it had been way too long since I'd seen her in anything.

bassett's so good she embarrasses everyone else

i'm sad spike never got to make that james brown movie with snipes

I never read reviews beforehand (and only skim if I do), so this wasn't at all what I expected. (Something like the more majestic scenes in Jungle Fever and He Got Game, I think.)* I don't like broad comedy--broad anything--so not surprisingly I didn't like this. A few scenes, the one with the general especially (what I always figured Myra Breckinridge would be like), I found embarrassing. First time I've ever flat-out disliked Samuel Jackson.

*Occasionally, it felt like this film was trying to find its way out.

i want to see this again to make sure i gave this a fair shot, but i found a lot of the humour in this just distracting. i know most ppl are going to think its crass for a film with this subject/setting, but even so, yes, i did find it too brash and distracting. it is in many ways the ultimate spike lee movie, in terms of being almost like a culmination of every typical leesian move youve seen over the years, and it does it brilliantly, in terms of being pure auteur shit, as barry jenkins called it, but i think he just overpowers it all in doing that, enforcing his style onto something that doesnt need it. its brilliantly made, but this is a film where removing himself somewhat from the film is what was needed. it needed less spike lee ego, and more about the actual gangs. i think it would benefit from being a stage production actually, more than any other lee film i can think of. but i just wish he never decided to combine lysistrata with the setting/issue of chicago gangs, as the latter wasnt explored how it deserved to have been - this is one time where his habit of dovetailing two separate narratives really could have been dialed back (it was also just too jarring for me, putting comedy up against a serious issue... at least in something like jungle fever, he had two serious narratives running at once). i wish he had just made it in a non specific place, rather than set it somewhere IRL like chicago, as it just set him up to fail somewhat. but im guessing he thought no one would talk about it otherwise!