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Now we can stop arguing about it under the Cohen brothers.

NOT CRAP, even though he makes some really frustratingly incomplete films.

ditto

Ditto 2.

His bad ones are really, really, really bad. You've gotta give that to him. Either an A or an F; anything but a C.

i dunno. i never was too big a fan of shelton's. except mo better blues. that movie was pretty alright. the trumpet scene was like, oh DAMN!

i kinda find his tendency to use over-amped stereotypes a little annoying. no, a LOT annoying. and i sometimes feel like without the concept of racial tension, he wouldn't really have much in the way of filmmaking. like the majority of his films would become movie about, uh, um...

and his tendency toward the rant scene, ugh. kinda killed any chance 25th hour had of me not hating it when he went back to the old, tired, spike lee standard rant shot. so tired. spike lee's about as flexible when he writes as tarantino is when he speaks. always comes out saying something he thinks is fresh or fascinating, and sounding pretty much the same as he does every other time.

i can't speak about this one with much certainty, but a good friend once laid out an enormous number of parallels in plot and characters between do the right thing and summer of sam. to the point where he was pissed and felt kinda cheated. so i haven't bothered with that one, since his analysis already fit in with my perception based on the six or so lee movie's i'd already seen. can anyone speak to this, anybody who knows both of those movies well enough to ponder it and tell me if they see it too or if my friend wasn't thinking clearly? and one thing i do remember is that he was counting the heat as a character and a focal point for the plot.

then again, all the things i dislike about lee just get me thinking about Higher Learning, which is arguably one of the worst films ever made. so i guess no matter how much i don't like lee, i'll always know he could do worse.

but then i wonder, if you took River's Edge (which i love) and added in all the racial shit that blacks have to deal with in america, doesn't that leave you with a great story for a spike lee or john singleton movie? so then i wonder... and i don't in any way espouse any beliefs that support discrimination based on race or gender or none of that. but i feel like i can't dislike lee and singleton for their tendency to focus on racism without in some way being perceived as racist. which further annoys me.

BUT. in terms of bringing movies to the mainstream that make white people ponder (or even empathize with) the struggle that blacks have to deal with just because they're black, well that's cool.

his movies are (the ones i've seen) pretty much entirely about interpersonal interaction. which is pretty low on the list of things i find compelling in a movie. the characters, i mean. i'd rather see ghosts fighting robots covered in blood (yes, *espcially* since neither of them bleed), and hot chicks driving monster trucks over throngs of communists or something.

so CRAP, but with a real good helping of waffle. aw hell, NOT CRAP, just because he makes people think. mostly about the same shit over and over, but at least it makes people think.

tmh,

Summer Of Sam is a crap film, Do The Right Thing is a masterpiece. There's no comparison. There's tension in both, but it just goes on and on in Sam, whereas DTRT keeps it concomitant to the plot. Also, if you're not into films that are more character-driven (interpersonal interaction) I can see how Spike would leave you cold. That's his main interest, specifically with regard to racial interaction. I love that he's one of the few directors with anything meaningful to say about this topic and who's also willing to keep saying it. It's pretty important!

But again, he's frustrating sometimes because he seems to try to keep too many balls in the air. Stuff I like:

He Got Game
DTRT
Clockers
Jungle Fever
She's Gotta Have It
School Daze
25th Hour
Bamboozled (until the end)
Kings Of Comedy (hard to fuck that one up)
Malcolm X

Stuff I don't like:
Girl 6
Mo' Better Blues
Crooklyn
Summer Of Sam
Bamboozled (the end only)

Check out He Got Game if you haven't yet. Great soundtrack, too.

Not Crap, although his recent effort has been lacking (25th hour, in particular, was pretty dull, esp. considering all the great actors in it)

'Do the Right Thing', a classic. I often think of that line in 'She's Gotta Have It' about Larry Bird- there's something so great about just that short exchange of dialogue

yeah, especially since his name isn't spike, it's shelton.

i don't know...i always hated the way he depicted black people.
Jungle Fever,Do The Right Thing,Malcom X,He Got Game...i saw almost every movie of his and always found that he shows an incredibly stereotyped side of black culture.
it seems that every black character in his movie is a white-hating,crack-addict basketball player that can't finish a sentence without using the word "motherfucker".
not to mention the way Italian-Americans are represented: wife-beating,spaghetti-eating,o-sole-mio-singing retards.
sure,his movies may address important issues,but the way they do is irritating to me.
CRAP

Jungle Fever,Do The Right Thing,Malcom X,He Got Game...i saw almost every movie of his and always found that he shows an incredibly stereotyped side of black culture.
it seems that every black character in his movie is a white-hating,crack-addict basketball player that can't finish a sentence without using the word "motherfucker".

yeah, that sums up about two out of about a million characters in his movies

we all say 'motherfucker' a lot over here, so perhaps there's a cultural barrier at work

sorry ted,i didn't explain myself properly (my bad): i think that spike lee shows a distorted image of black people,italian people and basically everyone else.
his characters are ,in fact,caricatures of real people and therefore lack of deepness and subtlety.

as for the "motherfucker" issue...i think the amount of swearing in the dialogues (especially in Do The Right Thing) is used as a trick to make the characters look more "real" (not to mention the overemphasized gesturing of the actors...). a real poor gimmick,in my opionion.
sure,most people swear a lot (both in my country and yours) but the way Spike Lee represents it in his movies is puerile at best.
the only barrier here is my poor use of english.

finally,it seems to me that Lee uses his movies as a means to provoke people.
"the message is more important than the medium",a notion i find obtuse when applied to movies and arts in general.

jesus christ,i'm starting to sound like a visual arts professor or something!