Re: Lackawanna Blues
 

Loved it!!!

Spike Lee Article in Slate
 

Spike Lee: The director talks about movies, race, and Will Smith.
By Lee Siegel
Posted Thursday, Dec. 1, 2005, at 1:05 PM ET

Ever since the romantic comedy-drama She's Gotta Have It antagonized black women and black men in 1986, Spike Lee's films have enjoyed the outrage of various groups. Between Do the Right Thing's racial and ethnic provocations, however, and last year's She Hate Me *a sexual farce that offended lesbians and feminists* the social context for Lee's films has changed. In Hollywood, the bar for racial provocation has been raised to wearying heights. At the same time, nakedly commercial entertainments *blackbusters* from Barbershop to Get Rich or Die Tryin' appeal to a black audience that barely existed 20 years ago. Lee's recently published autobiography, Spike Lee: That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It, offered an occasion to talk with the sometimes inflammatory director about movies, money, race, and the gentle art of making enemies.

The article may be read in its entirety here: http://www.slate.com/id/2131367/

^^
Thanks for posting, Soror. My favorite point that Shelton Jackson Lee made was about the "gatekeepers." If more of us were in that role, I also believe that Soul Plane would have never been greenlighted. Producers, in some ways, are to movies as editors are to journalism -- they're the control people.

But I also had to laugh about the mention of Cuba Gooding Jr. There was a Web site called badassmofo.com that once gave CGJ a "porch monkey" award because of his poor choices of roles after winning an Oscar (although Rod Tidwell wasn't a serious character). Again, I hope Eric Bishop BKA Jamie Foxx doesn't fall into that trap.

I would love to see films tackle serious and historical subject matters more often in the tradition of Roots, Sarafina, Cry Freedom, Malcolm X, Amistad, and Hotel Rwanda, and also the yet-to-be-made Gladiator-scale epics of early African heros such as the real Lion King of Africa, Sundiata Keita, or Sunni 'Ali, or any popular queen - the biblical Candace, for one. I would also like to see more culture-based films such as Eve's Bayou and Soul Food.