Welcome back to Feature Presentation’s Spike Lee Week!
For Film East’s latest book, Art/Film, I contributed a chapter on one of my favorite filmmakers, Spike Lee, specifically his interest in live theatre and our shared affinity for David Byrne’s music. I’ll also be joining the international book launch tour on Saturday, May 23rd, at the Rehoboth Beach Film Society for a visual reading and book signing. Spike’s work means so much to me, and I’m so happy we can share this piece in print forever.
To celebrate the book — which comes out next week on May 11th — Feature Presentation is running a week’s worth of reviews and retrospectives all about the man himself. We continue this four-part celebration with double feature pairings for all sides of Spike’s career.
Do the Right Thing (1989) and The Perfect Neighbor (2025)
If Do the Right Thing is the greatest film ever made about police brutality, then The Perfect Neighbor, one of the finest documentaries of the past year, is about what happens when the police don’t do anything. Director Geeta Gandbhir — herself a former assistant editor on Spike’s films like Malcolm X and Clockers — tells this story of a white woman repeatedly calling the cops on her Black neighbors (for no good reason, it must be added) largely through surveillance cameras, mostly police officers’ body cams. If you’ve seen Do the Right Thing (and you really should if you haven’t), then you’ll know that The Perfect Neighbor can only have a tragic ending. It’s one thing to see it in fiction, however. It’s another to see it in real life.
Jungle Fever (1991) and The Dutchman (2025)
One of the things that I like most about Jungle Fever, a film where Wesley Snipes begins an affair with a white woman, is that it’s about so much more than that. Sure, it’s about infidelity and interracial relationships and societal expectations and sexual stereotypes and straight-up racism. But Snipes’ character is a fully fleshed out person, not just a vehicle for the plot. We know what kind of husband and father he is. We know what kind of boss he is. We know what kind of man he is — particularly in his interactions with his drug-addicted brother, a breakout Samuel L. Jackson. It’s not just about his relationship with a white woman.
Amiri Baraka’s stage play Dutchman is one of the foundational texts on this subject, a 50-minute one-act about a white femme fatale who viciously attacks Black targets. Though director Andre Gaines’ (producer of Spike’s film Da Sweet Blood of Jesus) film adaptation is a bit of a mess, it expands this story (casting André Holland and Kate Mara in the leading roles) to tackle so much more. It also, in a clever bit of reconfiguring, openly discusses Baraka’s 1964 work in the film. From 1964 to 1991 to 2025, the themes are a thread.
BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Three the Hard Way (1974)
BlacKkKlansman is the real-life story of a Black cop, Ron Stallworth, who infiltrated the KKK in the 1970s. While all of these proud racists, from the local chapters to the Grand Wizard David Duke, are treated like the idiots they are, there’s always the undercurrent of danger and violence. It’s a film that’s both ridiculously funny and sweatily intense.
Follow it up with a film from the ‘70s, a Blaxploitation actioner from pioneering director Gordon Parks Jr., Three the Hard Way. This one follows Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, and Jim Kelly as they investigate a white supremacist’s plot to poison the nation’s water supply, all in an attempt to totally eradicate black people. Hard to believe? No. Probably considered a far-fetched idea outside of Black America for decades, the movie is maybe more timely than ever. It’s silly, sure. But also quite scary. And full of all the Blaxploitation tropes we’ve come to know and love.
Summer of Sam (1999) and Zodiac Killer Project (2025)
Summer of Sam is a story about the infamous serial killer, but done in only the way Spike can do. It’s Zodiac by way of Boogie Nights, where the fear and despair linger in a ‘70s set cityscape. If you go into this film looking for something new about the Son of Sam, you will be disappointed. There’s nothing true crime about this. Though there are glimpses of the man and the motive, it’s about what this terror and panic did to the people of New York, even those not really affected by the crimes.
Zodiac Killer Project, similarly, isn’t really about the never-caught Zodiac Killer. It’s a documentary about a documentary that didn’t happen, one that fell apart at the last minute. Director Charlie Shackleton instead made his film about the true crime genre as a whole, its conventions and its machinations. As a result, it tries to take down that whole ecosystem before building it back up again. I like it more as a concept and a critique than I do as a feature film, but I can see what Shackleton is doing. Just like Spike, he’s talking about the thing while only ever talking about other things.
Bamboozled (2000) and Network (1976)
Bamboozled is really just Spike remaking one of his favorite movies, Sidney Lumet’s classic Network. If you want to see just how little things change over time, watch these two movies about the power of television, public perception, and cultural complacency.
Network is a movie I respect (particularly the prescience) more than I like. It all came true, and I’ve seen that television. I’ve seen it aped on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, in movies like Christine and Nightcrawler, in books like Cue the Sun!, you get the idea. My favorite version is probably Bamboozled, but that’s because I love Spike. His film has more bite, so I would suggest watching it second. That way, you can see what Spike saw and how exactly he upped the ante.
Da 5 Bloods (2020) and Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)
One of the things I love about Da 5 Bloods, the second of Spike’s war films highlighting the contributions of Black soldiers (after Miracle at St. Anna), is how it plays with space and time. As the five men travel back to Vietnam to bury their friend and look for a buried treasure, they also occasionally travel back in time to their fightin’ days alongside the late great Stormin’ Norman (the late great Chadwick Boseman). The older actors play their younger selves without de-aging effects.
This was never done more famously than in Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut’s protagonist flashes back, forward, and into other dimensions, where he witnesses the bombing of Dresden, a future he never thought he could have, and his time on the alien planet of Tralfamadore. If your anti-war story needs to bump up the allegory, introduce some magical realism or some science fiction. George Roy Hill’s film isn’t as strong as the novel, but it’s the only film adaptation, so just read the book if you want the truest pairing.
Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014) and Sinners (2025)
After the success of Sinners, I saw a TikTok (which I will not link here because I’m calling this person out) say something along the lines of “If you liked Sinners…you should watch Interview with the Vampire…because it’s also about vampires!” Mind you, I’m not picking on a random person, I’m identifying a professional (!) in this industry who wildly misunderstood what we all liked about Sinners. Needless to say, gay Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt vampires were not at the forefront of my mind.
If you liked Sinners (just like Network, you should probably watch this one first in the double feature because it’s the movie you’re probably more familiar with), follow it up with Spike’s lo-fi version Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. A remake of the 1973 black horror classic Ganja & Hess, you’ll find a similar metaphor of racial disparity at work here. Plus, Spike loved Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (as we all did), writing this on his Instagram after seeing the film:
I Was Acting Like I Was Courtside At Da World’s Most Famous Arena-MADISON SQUARE GARDEN And We’re Kickin’ Da Celtics In Dat Green Ass🏀😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Word Iz Bond I Haven’t Felt This Way In A Movie Theatre In A Minute. Last Thing I Told My Brother Ryan”He Really ,100,Tapped Into Our Ancestors On This Joint”. AND DAT’S DA BLACK CINEMATIC POWER,TRUTH,RUTH.YA-DIG❓SHO-NUFF🎥🎬👊🏾🎥🎬👊🏾🎥🎬👊🏾🎥🎬