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 end this four-part celebration with the chance to catch-up with some unseen Joints.
And welcome back to The Library!
The Library is my attempt to watch at least 50% of the films in my DVD, Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD, VHS, and Laserdisc home library. To be included in the column, I can't watch it streaming or catch it at a repertory screening — I have to watch the disc. I’m moving slowly on this effort — it’s been over a year since the last edition — but I’m not stopping until I get to that coveted 50%.
Current Count: 1,013 of 2,264 - 44%
Malcolm X (1992)
A tribute to the controversial black activist and leader of the struggle for black liberation. He hit bottom during his imprisonment in the ‘50s, he became a Black Muslim and then a leader in the Nation of Islam. His assassination in 1965 left a legacy of self-determination and racial pride.
Yes, that’s right, I had never seen Malcolm X. I consider myself a Spike Lee aficionado, but I had never seen his biggest and boldest epic.
To be fair, this was an active decision on my part. There are some filmmakers whose work you cherish, whose work you hold so close, that you make a point to save some of it. That way, you will have more to look forward to*, more to discover. I was holding out hope that one day a 70MM screening would come my way; I had to “settle” for the Criterion 4K** disc that I purchased during my Art/Film research process.
*Elric Kane has talked about this wonderfully on the Pure Cinema Podcast. I am not alone in this feeling.
**Does anyone else have an issue with 4K discs freezing...like...all the time?
To absolutely no one’s surprise, it’s a stunner. I’ve actually turned it on a few times before, but (and this has nothing to do with the movie itself) after a few minutes, I always knew it wasn’t the right time. You have to be sat for a 212-minute behemoth, and if you aren’t mentally (or physically, for that matter) prepared for the journey, it will steamroll over you.
Spike starts hot (the burning American flag, the Rodney King footage), but Denzel, echoing the growth of his character, simmers. Hot and hotter. When the white woman asks what more she can do, and X sharply responds, “Nothing,” it reaches a boiling point. At the film’s emotional climax, it runs over. By the end, I couldn’t believe I was watching the same movie where Spike and Denzel stunted out in their zoot suits.
I’m looking forward to digging into the disc’s extras which, including a feature-length documentary, collectively run over three hours.
Crooklyn (1994)
From Spike Lee comes this vibrant semi-autobiographical portrait of a school-teacher, her stubborn jazz-musician husband and their five kids living in '70s Brooklyn.
Spike needed to zag after Malcolm X’s zig, and that’s exactly what he does with Crooklyn. After the expansive epic, he went small and intimate with the story of the Carmichael family. Taking place on and around their Bed-Stuy stoop in the summer of ‘73*, it’s a much more low-key picture, a portrait of a family and a snapshot in time. Alfre Woodard is a sniper, Delroy Lindo (in his best Spike role until Da 5 Bloods) is a hot potato, the kids are adorable, and I appreciate the appearance from David Patrick Kelly.
*Oh my god, the muuuuuusic. Sly and the Family Stone! Stevie Wonder! James Brown! I know choosing compilation albums is a cheat, but this could be a solid pick for “desert island records.”
But Spike (and this is why I love him) just can’t help himself. After the film started fairly “normal” and “straightforward,” I was tricked into thinking he wasn’t going to go for his Spike-isms. I was quickly proven wrong when the film cuts to the two “glue-sniffers” (Spike casts himself as one of them, which is just hilarious...and perfect casting), hanging upside down, floating down the street, accompanied by Curtis Mayfield’s “Pusherman.” There he is! That’s the Spike I know and love!
He does something similar when the young girl Troy goes to spend some time with her family in the South. He shoots the sequences with an anamorphic lens, stretching it so that it appears distorted and elongated. This makes Troy’s whole trip feel awkward, surreal, and occasionally nightmarish. And, I must say, Spike fooled me. I thought something was wrong with my Kino Lorber Blu-ray*, and I went back a few scenes to make sure I wasn’t crazy. I even Googled it to double-check. But that’s on me. When it comes to Spike, I should have known better...
*Unlike the Criterion disc for Malcolm X, there are no extras here, except for a few trailers. I appreciate them putting out affordable bare-bones discs (I only paid $9.99 for this during a sale), but...do people watch these trailers?
The Original Kings of Comedy (2000)
The house is rockin’ and the laughs are rollin’ as comedians Steve Harvey (The Steve Harvey Show), D.L. Hughley (The Hughleys), Cedric The Entertainer (The Steve Harvey Show) and Bernie Mac (Life) meet in this riotously comedy summit.
One of the things I love most about Spike — and, to plug the book one last time this week (it’s really good, I promise!), what I wrote about in Art/Film — is his commitment to working outside the framework of traditional narrative filmmaking. His constant and consistent output of documentaries, stand-up specials, filmed theatrical performances, and more makes digging into his filmography that much more fulfilling.
The Original Kings of Comedy was one of the last live performance preservations I had left, so I pulled my DVD off the shelf to wrap up this column. Because I’m white, I grew up with the Blue Collar Comedy Tour DVD, which I watched a million times* and basically memorized. The two shows are quite similar in their structure and their construction, which means, because these guys were first, that Blue Collar just ripped them off.
*Listen, I was a kid who loved stand-up and had few places to find it. Sue me...
I was not as familiar, however, with the comics themselves. Sure, I knew Steve Harvey from Family Feud and D.L. Hughley from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (I told you I was white), but I didn’t know them as comics. I was surprised by how physical a performer Harvey was, including an extended bit where he just plays music and dances along to hype the crowd up. I couldn’t believe that Hughley was doing crowd work in an arena. That’s a confident performer. Cedric the Entertainer was funny, but had the most straightforward set. Bernic Mac was the show’s closer, and he had to go last because he’s so crazy, dirty, and explosive. Spike edits in so many audience reaction shots, and they were just losing their minds. All four of them just totally murder.
Credit: Each plot synopsis comes from Letterboxd via TMDb.