Hung Out to Dry
The grief in Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke is heartbreaking. Unfortunately, the anger in it is misinformed, facile, naïve, misplaced, unfair, inconsistent, unsupported, or some combination of the seven.
Spike Lee
The Pleasure Principle
In Inside Man, director Spike Lee and screenwriter Russell Gerwitz announce early that nothing too traumatic will befall any of the characters, and then they keep that promise; they implicitly give the audience permission to enjoy the film.
Tagged: Inside Man, Reviews, Spike Lee, Thrillers, Ways of Watching
A Church Filled with Blood
Two months before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, four African-American girls were killed in a church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. Spike Lee’s documentary 4 Little Girls elevates the tragedy to Act of God status.
Tagged: 4 Little Girls, Documentaries, Reviews, Spike Lee
Spike Lee’s Messy Beauty
Spike Lee’s 25th Hour would appear to be about a good-hearted drug dealer’s last day of freedom before he begins a seven-year prison sentence, but the movie insistently pushes itself beyond that. It should be a circumscribed drama limited to the dealer (named Monty and played by Edward Norton), his girlfriend, his father, and his two best friends, but the film regularly veers into the margins.
Tagged: 25th Hour, Reviews, Spike Lee, Ways of Watching
