Spike Lee: Dud or DUD?!?

btw, Spike seriously needs to start playing leads in his films again. Enough of this gratuitous cameo bullshit.

_25th Hour_ is great, BTW.

All of the above.

I happen to think that Spike Lee has some very grebt directorial skillz (the closing scene of Jungle Fever made up for all its unevenness, I thought) but Anthony is completely on the money here.

Joel are we not to speak ill of ppl who have brothers and sisters, is that the deal? gosh I hope not

Actually Anthony I could accuse you of that on just about any thread, but this one was the one I was posting to.

Yes, John, every single woman in every Spike Lee movie is a hooker or has sex with him. But where is the scene in Do the Right Thing where Mookie gets it on with Mother Superior? Or in Crooklyn where Spike the glue-sniffer gets it on with Ms. Woodard (I always forget her name)?

Ally's right that sometimes he seems a bit ADD--my first thought upon seeing one of his films is often, "Stop cutting so much" (not least the hectic opening scene of 25th Hour but he does make of this style more than almost any other contemporary Hollywood filmmaker and he knows how to be patient when he needs to--sometimes.

I'm totally in his fan club.

That "Dead End" shot reminded me of a scene from Cecil B. De Mille's Dynamite, where our hero and heroine and trapped in a coal mine and suddenly spy a box of dynamite: close-up of box of dynamite, labelled "DYNAMITE." Cut to shot of hero and heroine. Heroine exclaims, "Dynamite!" Cut back to close-up of box of dynamite. Hold for 10 seconds. ... Somewhere in the audience, a 3-yr-old shouts, "Enough already!"

his tremendous skills and his glaring weakness are generally all tied up in the same knot i think — he is good at really unexpected things which he then completely distracts you from by some shouty bit of business (that said, rosie perez shouting in do the right thing is just some of the funniest, sexiest acting in cinema)

i love that he LOVES LOVES LOVES new york, and even the "fuck you" mirror monologue in 25th hour — which starts out you think it's a clunkadunk hommage to TWO iconic scenes in taxi driver in one go, and i think also some stuff in raging bull!! — which ultradisses koreans, gays, italians, cops, blacks, old rich ladies, taxi drivers etc etc, is a kind of sweep-of-the-city love poem after all

he's also the only person i can quickly think of who's carried on using godard's cartoon swiftness and kept it political AND funny — this is where he falls down most often (godard too probably) but in 25th hour there one scene (v.late on) which i won't spoil, which is basically just a single photo set-up, that packs SO much into it abt america, and lee and america, and black-and-white in america, and the past and the future. and what could be and what is, and what's stopping what ought to be

(eg tarantino can also to the godard cartoon thing but tarantino's politics never get beyond the immediate circle out into the big city world and public arena blah blah)

25th hr is VERY deft abt exactly all the things lee has previously been very UNdeft abt: esp.what's so pernicious in jungle fever

it's had flak here (in the UK) for the 9-11 stuff being sellotaped clumsily in but i didn't think that at all: it's like it's the current affairs catalyst for spike to acknowledge american possibility and generosity ALSO, even though he's still utterly politcally realistic abt it, not sentimental or bullying

Anthony remains OTM insofar as Spike Lee, whose work I generally like a lot, is something of a sexist. So are a lot of people, I'm not saying "dismiss him!" or anything. But the women he writes are caricatures, and the exceptions you point out draw attention to this rule.

I also found "Get On The Bus" to be an entertaining and uplifting film, albeit with shite music.

And years ago, when I saw "Fight The Power", I liked that too.

So I say that Spike Lee is CLASSIC.

*spoilers*

in the "25th hour" fantasy where Norton sits for a passport photo. There's a shot, held for just four or five seconds but an eternity in this context, of the man running the photo shop. There's something in the countenance and speech of this kindly eccentric (his ears and mouth riddled with studs, suggesting some of kind of Hell's Angel settled down) that's extremely generous, that cuts through the (hilarious) New Yorker's vision of the Rest of the America that is the bulk of that remarkable conclusion. I dunno, the whole sequence and that shot in particular must have been difficult to pull off--without enough little odd bits of business it would've seemed too ludicrous, too vain...with too much detail it would've seemed like a real forking-paths narrative which was NOT the point--but Lee and Benioff did it.

In this film the criticism of the harsh drugs laws is part and parcel with the shots of the WTC site and the backstories of the broker and the school teacher--something like a sum total of America's mistakes and abuses, responsibilities and blindnesses, fissures and reconciliations. I found the WTC stuff moving and totally germane, not least because it would have been this huge FACT that would continue to come 'round and smack the characters in the face. Philip Seymour Hoffman's stunned "whoah" when he sees the site from above felt like the kind of line that risked risked ridicule (for its seriousness/earnestness/"clumsiness") to achieve truth.

The Russian mobsters verged on cartoonish Scorsese territory, and that one scene threatened to make real some of the xenophobia expressed in the monologue. Oh well.

By "Godard's cartoon swiftness" what do you mean exactly?

**That's not the specific shot I meant no, but almost as rich, albeit with difft material. What I meant wz the bi-racial family with kids, plus American Gothic backdrop: but tied in to a lot of what you just said, about generosity and possibility.**

* spoilers over spoilers over spoilers over*

And by Godard's cartoon swiftness, I mean dropping an image like that (or a sequence of them) where everything reads very clearly and swiftly, a whole queue of layers of semiosis (semioses?) that's absolutely precisely achieved. The way you scan and then read them gives you the narrative, the character's take on the narrative, the authorial take on the narrative, and the wider political-historical perspective, not in one go exactly, but in one during-reading sweep of the screen. As in: oh this happened, this is what they thought, haha this is what spike thinks, and this is how it fits into America as a story....

That's not very exact, sorry.

I'm a sucker for those portrait sitting-esque compositions with in their (manufactured) stiffness recall some of the awkwardness of real life, and a lot of its truth in the bargain. Distant Voices, Still Lives is the best example of this I know. (Wondering what you think of that film, Mark.)

Funny how a thread w/the title "Spike Lee: Dud or Dud" has (d)evolved into this! ILE makes me happy today.

And this is remarkable or notable for mainstream American filmmakers in what way?

to be fair i think the score's OK, and norton — while a bit flat yes as per — is far from unwatchable

to be honest i don't understand why any actor living says yes when they find they're playing lead to phillip seymour hoffman's second (or indeed 20th) banana => i believe i wd avidly gaze at a warhol-esque slo-mo epic of PSH cracking a smile slowed down so that it takes 24hrs

Not the worst uillean(sp) pipes of the yea though, they gop to the wandering band in Gangs Of New Yoirk.

Its a pity Zoe Williams didn't think of refering to the ultimate fear of UTBS in the 25th Hour - to reference her Guardian magazine piece. The fear of UTBS and the solution was ridiculous.

(i think fear of having yr teeth bashed out for convenient BigHouse BJs is a justified fear)

do the right thing, obv.

it's a while since I saw it.

...so...ummm..."because there's lots of sexism, we shouldn't fault a talented director for it?" You can't mean that, can you?

On the other hand Lee's need to have wall-to-wall soundtracks does render those moments when he turns it all off poss. more effective (e.g. the beatdown in 25th Hour).

[[Mark the fact that you are proofing anyone's writing makes me happy. Sometimes I worry that my typo-ridden, grammatically dodgy posts betray my editorial incompetence but now I fear not.]]

This to me was a problem during the shouting-at-the-mirror scene in 25th Hour. The music came close to ruining that sequence for me.

I liked Da 5 Bloods maybe a shade less than Chi-raq and BlacKkKlansman, but it definitely continues Lee's impressive current streak. A few things I groaned at--a specific winky reference to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and another to The Bridge on the River Kwai, the gazillionth use of "Time Has Come Today" in a 'Nam flick--but the cast is great (Lindo and Major especially) and I bought most of Lee's more audacious flourishes. One music-nerd bit I laughed at: two of the bloods talking about going "back to the world" as "(Don't Worry) If There's A Hell Below We're All Going To Go" plays over the scene; wrong Curtis album, I know, but I can't believe it wasn't intentional.

Also, I just realized this was my first time seeing Chadwick Boseman in anything. An effective, and now-even-more poignant performance; I don’t know if this is technically his last film, but I’m seeing more John Cazale (who completed The Deer Hunter just before his death from cancer, if I have my facts right) parallels here.

Wouldn't be any Spike Lee film without groans.

this thread title sucks

Yup

most of the "I don't know jack shit impress me" posting is on Twitter now thankfully

and ilm, ho ho i'll be here all night

heard that in Rod Stewart's voice

“Da 5 Bloods” outtake of Boseman singing Marvin’s God is Love is truly beautiful - Spike put it on insta but there’s a youtube clip here:

https://youtu.be/hHHmfKmQ618

this thread title sucks

fervently agreed

starting new threads is easy and free

Well, there's also "why is japanese/french/italian cinema awful?" threads that get revived to talk about the cinema of those nations so Spike is in good company.

change those too

Ive always dreamt there could be some equivalent of FP for thread titles, where if enough people vote "(THIS THREAD TITLE SUCKS)" gets appended to the title

every single music poll would get TTTS'd by non-ILM readers

the "why is such-and-such cinema awful?" threads were all intended to suck, as provocations to ensure ppl contribute and push back

this is not true of all thread titles that suck (which is most them, merely boringly)

I'm not really a computer guy, so I never really understood why certain things can be altered and other things (thread titles, poll choices) can't. Not questioning the truth of this--I literally don't understand.

thread titles are often changed, and also can be

people get very silly about thread titles being changed, who knows why they're so bad and hated

Bamboozled gets better with each viewing, to the point that I think I would now rank it very close to among his best. I still hate the cinematography, though.