OFF THE SHELF – Issue # 29: THE SPIKE LEE COLLECTION
And we’re back! Did you miss me? I took a week out to get the site in order with Wyverex and to give newcomers the chance to have a look through any back issues of Off The Shelf (all of which can be found here by the way) that they may have missed. But now that the site is chock full of delicious content – whether it be news, reviews or competitions – so there’s nothing stopping us pushing on with Off The Shelf once more huh?
So it’s the big 2 and 9 huh? Yup, Issue # 29 where we’re going to be looking at one of my personal favourite filmmakers, Spike Lee. He’s one of the most original, diversive and courageous of writer/director talents out there who seems to concern himself only with having enough money to sit courtside at his beloved Lakers and provide for his family, not with the celebrity and the studio deals that affect most filmmakers. This affords him the opportunity to make the films he wants to make about the films he wants to make.
My collection is far from comprehensive or anywhere close to being complete, simply because Lee doesn’t seem to get dealt a very fair hand on Region 2 DVD. I’m not interested in collecting all his TV pilots and all that. I only like his big-screen stuff and his festival documentaries. The majority of which from his mid to late nineties period, at the moment, is criminally unavailable here in the UK and ridiculously overpriced when it comes to importing. I’ve bought and own what I can of his work and cherish the majority of titles. I also hope to get a lot more of his stuff with time (and money) but in the meantime, I’d just like to share with you my thoughts on the Spike Lee DVDs that I do own:
Bamboozled
This is Lee’s vicious attack on the network television that angered him with their approach to stereotyping (or “outright racism” as he calls it) the ‘black man’ on prime time national TV. So biting was his original script – that of a black television executive who tries to get himself fired from his racist network job by creating ‘Mantan – The New Millennium Minstrel Show’ – that, for the first time since Malcolm X’s budget over-runs, he struggled to get funding. Sidestepping the problem, by funding it with his own (and celebrity friends) money and by going “low-tech” with digital cameras, Lee found a home for the movie with New Line’s international distribution arm and delivered an interesting, provocative sermon about race and TV in the modern age. Along the way he tries to hold on to the reigns of a borderline annoying performance by Damon Wayans and the balancing act of paying homage to Sidney Lumet’s Network without completely stealing from it! Definitely worth a look!Clockers
Unseen by me until last year, this is a small-scale crime drama that Lee could throw out with his eyes closed. It’s the story of a drug-dealer who gets an attack of “morals” and ends up caught between two ethically diverse detectives when a rival dealer is shot dead and his law-abiding brother steps up to take the blame. There’s the suitably excellent performances from Harvey Keitel and John Turturro as the detectives on the case, and behind the scenes Martin Scorsese is producing (having personally head-hunted Lee for the job!) from a fiery script from legendary crime author, Richard Price. It’s not Lee’s strongest movie but, thanks to his visual flourishes, he turns it into something a little more interesting then a lesser director would have done!Crooklyn
This is Lee’s semi-autobiographical tale, scripted by himself and his siblings Joie Susannah Lee and Cinque Lee, about life growing up as kids over the course of one summer in the Brooklyn neighbourhood they’ve affectionately nicknamed ‘Crooklyn’. Rather stupidly still unavailable here in the UK, this is a Region 1 import from my best friend Kirk as a Christmas present last year. It’s about twenty odd minutes too long and a little too self-indulgent in places but asides from that it’s a beautifully performed piece of drama that goes to great lengths to portray the average American black family as nothing like the normal ‘cinema’ stereotype. It’s Delroy Lindo’s greatest screen performance and if you’ve ever wanted to see this great character act shine, away from all those ‘second-name-from-the-bottom-of-the-credits-in-glossy-blockbusters’, then this is the film for you!Do The Right Thing
Lee came into public consciousness with She’s Gotta Have It which was a great directorial debut but a mediocre film. His “difficult second movie” breaks the curse that often cripples a “new” director and, as a result, he delivers an outright cinematic masterpiece. One of the best films of the 80s and one of the best films ever made. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it. Lee sealed the deal as a masterful director with this film and then almost littered his cinematic CV with classics thereafter. It’s still as pointed, noteworthy and intelligent as when it was released amidst its late-eighties controversy. It’s also still as impeccably performed, funny, touching and tragic. Every single self-respecting film fan should own this film!He Got Game
One of my own personal favourites out of all of Lee’s film. To me, it’s as brilliant a film as Do The Right Thing but unjustly ignored for some reason. Lee has made, in my humble opinion, a triple smack of outright majestic pieces of cinema (Do The Right Thing, Summer of Sam and this film!) and an accompanying filmography littered with cinematic slices of near-perfection, under-rated gems and admirable failures in some circumstances. This is just a flat out sublime film! It’s also the film that should have got Denzel Washington a Best Actor Oscar (instead of Training Day!) and Lee the Director’s Oscar that they robbed from him for Do The Right Thing. At the very least they could have awarded him something for the screenplay! They’re always sticking it to the ‘black man’ though eh? It’s heart-rending yet deliberately non-manipulative with your emotions and it’s a joy from start to finish with 131 minutes flying by in the blink of a eye, in this story of a convicted felon who is given a limited release and the offer of a reduced sentence if he can use his time free from jail to convince his estranged son – a top college basketball recruit – to avoid the big money deals and sign for his prison governor’s alma mater team! What follows is the very opposite of some sporting underdog movie, but becomes instead a battle of wills between a father trying to repent for his sins and the son who can never forgive him! A modern classic!Inside Man
This is Lee doing a studio picture, stepping outside of his comfort zone and delivering a genre flick based on somebody else’s script and with the weight of profit expectation and studio eyes bearing down on him. And it’s no surprise to discover that he blasts it out of the ball park with a thoroughly inventive and engaging rejig of the ‘heist’ movie. This is a twisty, turny, superbly performed drama with exceptional performances across the board from an excellent Denzel Washington, a staggeringly brilliant Jodie Foster and a surprisingly effective Clive Owen. Littering the script with side-bars on race, prejudice and all the other things that we’ve come to expect from a Spike Lee joint, this is a hugely recommendable film and one of the top twenty films of 2006. The great thing is that Washington’s Keith Fraizer character is so entertaining and endearing that another adventure with him front and centre would be a real joy and considering Washington publicly states he’d love for the character to be his “franchise”, Jodie Foster recently told Empire she would drop everything to replay her character and Lee himself is prepping ‘Another Inside Man’ for his first ever sequel, this could become a reality! Fingers crossed!Jungle Fever
One of Lee’s most under-rated of films, this 1991 drama is a little heavy-handed in it’s story of a successful and married black man (Wesley Snipes – in his best role in my opinion) beginning an affair with a white Italian American girl (Annabella Sciorra) from his place of work, quite rightly worrying that the racial difference would make an already taboo relationship even worse. The film has one hell of an accomplished cast that dazzles from start to finish; Spike Lee himself, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, a truly stunning turn from Samuel L. Jackson, Lonette McKee, John Turturro, Frank Vincent, Anthony Quinn, Halle Berry, Veronica Webb, Michael Imperioli, Nicholas Turturro, Michael Badalucco, Debi Mazar, Tim Robbins, Brad Dourif, Theresa Randle, Doug E. Doug, Frank Esposito and Queen Latifah. Well worth a look and if you’re a fan of before-he-got-fat (although that’s probably because he can’t see how much he’s eating!) Stevie Wonder then he provides a great soundtrack!Malcolm X
Lee’s opus, the film he spent years trying to make but kept losing self-confidence in his own ability to pull off. This is a cinematic biography of Malcolm X, the famous African American leader. Born Malcolm Little, only to see his father murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, Malcolm became a gangster, and while in jail discovered the Nation of Islam writings of Elijah Muhammad. Soon he begins preaching the teachings of Muhammad when let out of jail, eventually converting to the original Islamic religion and becoming a Sunni Muslim. Eventually he changes his name to El-Hajj Malik Al-Shabazz and stops his anti-white teachings, as he realises the error of his mistakes only to be later assasinated and die as a Muslim Martyr. The film is flawed (see Frankie Faizon’s comments during Season 1 of Dinner For Five) but a worthy and respectful attempt. Lee’s effort was so commendable that when budgeting troubles threatened to wreck the production, nearly every leading black American celebrity of note stepped forward and put up money to see the film through to the end! Sometimes incorrectly considered to be Lee’s best film, it’s a brilliant but occasionally misjudged attempt but by no means his greatest movie!The Original Kings of Comedy
The Original Kings of Comedy was a record-breaking stand-up comedy tour that appeared to run and run across American. Over the course of February 26 and 27 2000, in Charlotte, NC, Spike Lee orchestrates to record the four stand-ups in action for posterity. The themes are race, men and women, old-school and hip-hop. Steve Harvey keeps proceedings in order as Emcee whilst D.L. Hughley mines racial differences and talks about his marriage, Cedric the Entertainer riffs on a the possibility of a black president and best of all, Bernie Mac, reflects on his attitude toward children). Mixed in amongst the concert footage, Lee takes us backstage and out around town with the performers. It’s as hit and miss as most stand-up recorded concerts are but when it does make you laugh, trust me when I tell you that your sides will ache. I leave you with one of D.L Hughley’s best gags: “… You can’t fire white folk. You fire white folk, you’d best believe somebody gettin’ shot that day. “I’m fired? I’ll be right back, you sons of bitches.” You fire a brother, we be mad for a different reason. “How come you didn’t call me at home, motherfucker? You knew I was fired yesterday. Makin’ me burn up all my goddamn gas.” Black folk kill you about that gas, ’cause we don’t fill up all the way, don’t we? Just enough gas for the trip we going on. “Gimme two dollars on Pump 1, please. I ain’t goin’ that goddamn far, shit.” You ever been so broke, you get the money out of the ashtray? Don’t act like it’s just me. Fuck y’all. You go up there, “Gimme 52 cents on Pump 1, please.” “What are you driving, a lawn mower?” “Stay outta my goddamn business and put the gas in the fucking car!” Yeah?”School Daze
I know there’s people, Roger Ebert for example, who absolutely adore the hell out of this film but I’m not one of them. I think it’s one of Lee’s least well executed and poorly judged films that seems to run all over the place, hammering points about race, self-esteem and self-identity with a complete lack of sensitivity or subtlity that Lee would become very capable of in his later films. The director himself described it back in 1988 as a “contemporary comedic look at black college life and the conflict over the fraternity system” but it’s dated extremely badly with cheesy song-and-dance numbers, over-the-top fashion and an ending that is meant to be intelligent, thought-provoking and controversial but just – like Joe Queenan unfairly says about ALL of Lee’s movie endings – fails completely!She’s Gotta Have It
Visually this directorial debut is a staggering achievement for a first time director on such a miniscual budget (this is the best New York has looked since that other black-and-white love-affair, Manhattan) but from a script and acting point of view it’s an unfortunately amateurish affair. Lee’s technical abilities behind the camera completely overshadow his abilities as a writer/performer and the rest of the cast don’t do much to ease the obviousness of this divide. Worth a look as a curiosity but nothing more!
She Hate Me
I picked this flick up for £1 at a car boot sale out of a morbid sense of curiosity after hearing really bad things about this all-star-cast film. I ended up really enjoying it. It’s a little bit twee and cluttered with Lee wanting to use the film to speak out about the (then) Enron scandal, disaffected young black Americans and what makes up a family. The film tells the tale of Harvard-educated biotech executive John Henry Jack Armstrong who gets fired when he informs on his bosses, launching an investigation into their business dealings by the Securities & Exchange Commission. Branded a whistle-blower and therefore unemployable, Jack desperately needs to make a living and accepts an offer from his former girlfriend turned lesbian, Fatima, to impregnate her and her new girlfriend Alex. When this proves a successful encounter, word spreads and soon Jack is in the baby-making business at $10,000 a try. Lesbians with a desire for motherhood and the cash to spare are lining up to seek his services. But, between the attempts by his former employers to frame him for security fraud and his dubious fathering activities, Jack finds his life, all at once, becoming very complicated. I recommend this film to you. It’s not for every one but if you like Spike Lee films as a matter of course then this film will work for you!Summer of Sam
Definitely one of his best films, unarguably in his Top Five, and a genuine modern masterpiece and one of his first film with no major black characters, this is Spike Lee’s take on the “Son of Sam” murders in New York City during the summer of 1977 but shys away from a straight biopic of the murderer and his murders and instead chooses to centre on the residents of an Italian-American South Bronx neighborhood who live in fear and distrust of one another as a result of the killing spree. I could wax lyrical about how fantastic this film is but I think I’m going to leave you in the more than capable hands of Mr Ebert who describes the movie as follows: “… Lee has a wealth of material here, and the film tumbles through it with exuberance. He likes the energy, the street-level culture, the music, the way that when conversation fails, sex can take over the burden of entertainment. And there is a deeper theme, too: the theme of how scapegoats are chosen. What’s interesting is not that misfits are singled out as suspects; it’s that the ringleaders require validation for their suspicions. At the end of the film, everyone’s looking for Vinny. They need him to agree with their choice of victim – to validate their fever. It’s as if they know they’re wrong, but if Vinny says they’re right, then they can’t be blamed. Summer of Sam” is like a companion piece to Lee’s Do the Right Thing. In a different neighborhood, in a different summer, the same process takes place: The neighborhood feels threatened and needs to project its fear on an outsider. It is often lamented that in modern city neighborhoods, people don’t get to know their neighbors. That may be a blessing in disguise.”25th Hour
I only just got round to watching this in the last couple of months. It’s a good little film and it’s worth watching just to see Lee handling his screen-love of all things New York after the tragedy of 9/11 but it was well over hyped on it’s release as some sort of cinematic masterclass in acting. Admittedly, the performances are uniformly fantastic but the film is a chamber-drama and moves at a pace compatable to that, which a lot of people – including myself, initially – were not used to. I seem to like the film more and more with each viewing but I still don’t hold it up there as one of Lee’s best films. This is probably better then most dramas but Lee himself has done better: Monty Brogan (Edward Norton) is about to start his last day of freedom before turning himself into the authorities to serve a seven-year term for drug dealing. He’s a not your average stereotypical “dealer” though and is in fact thoroughly well-educated and well-mannered to boot, who had always dreamed of being a fireman following in the working-class footsteps of his father (Brian Cox). The same father who has had to put up his beloved bar in Queens as bond so that his son can stay out of jail until his sentence begins. Before he goes to prison, Monty wants to have one last night out on the town with his two best friends. Frank Slattery (Barry Pepper), a successful bonds trader, and Jakob Elinsky (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an English teacher who is trying to fight off the advances of one of his students. Over the course of the film, the three friends enjoy the night into the early morning as they eat, drink, and visit the hottest spots in town, during which Monty comes to realise that his loving girlfriend (Rosario Dawson) may have more to do with his impending predicament then she is letting on!When The Leevees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts
In 1985 Claude Lanzmann directed a truly stunning nine and a half hour documentary on the Holocaust by interviewing survivors, witnesses, and ex-Nazis. The documentary went on to define Lanzmann as both a filmmaker and as a person, and became the byword in classic documentary-making! Well, this four-hour/four-part HBO documentary is Spike Lee’s Shoah and is quite possibly the greatest thing he has done and will ever do! In August 2005, the American city of New Orleans was struck by the powerful Hurricane Katrina. We all know that. Although the storm was damaging by itself, that was not the true disaster. We know that too! Because we know that the true disaster came when the city’s flooding safeguards, the levees, failed and put most of the city, a city largely below sea level anyway, underwater. Through nothing more than compiling archived news footage and home video footage belonging to survivors, and placing it alongside talking head testamonies of EVERY SINGLE PERSON that Lee could find who was involved, effected or got caught up in Hurricane Katrina’s wake, the film covers that disastrous series of events that devastated the city and its people. Furthermore, Lee allows the evidence to present itself and reveal – without any prejudice – the gross incompetence of the various government figures and how the poor and underprivileged of New Orleans were mistreated in one of America’s most tragic and shameful of circumstances! Every single person on this planet, of my generation, should have seen this production! It’s that simple!
And that’s your lot! See you all next week! Let me know what you think either in the comments below or by the usual e-mail routes (undiscovered_genius@hotmail.com or gazz@stalepopcorn.co.uk).
8 Responses to “OFF THE SHELF – Issue # 29: THE SPIKE LEE COLLECTION”
Great OFF THE SHELF as always. I’ve just recently been getting into Spike Lee’s work starting when I bought a copy of Do the Right Thing cheap and ended up loving it. I caught part of 25th Hour on TV the other night and wanted to look into it. I didn’t realize till this that he was involved. Keep the collections coming Gazz.
Brett, if you haven’t seen it already then rush out and get yourself a copy of SUMMER OF SAM and watch it as a double-bill with DO THE RIGHT THING!
Sublime stuff!
Honest!
Awesome, Gazz.
Spike Lee has always been absolutely brilliant and I too think everyone should be made to watch When The Levees Break. The best documentary of all time, simple.
Couldn’t agree more with your sentiments on all of these films, man.
Would definitely buy a book with this as part of its content
*Broke*
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