Spike Lee: Dud or DUD?!?

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i now think school daze was def. his best. it has just enuf silliness and generosity to overpower the still-present grouchy preacher spike.

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 21 July 2006 06:23 (eighteen years ago) link

I was heartened when The Inside Man turned out to be such a fantastic piece of m mainstream filmmaking – and a hit!

Duds: Mo' Better Blues, Bamboozled

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 21 July 2006 11:59 (eighteen years ago) link

I'VE GOT JUNGLE FEVER
SHE'S GOT JUNGE FEVER
WE'VE GOT JUNGLE FEVER
WE'RE IN LOVE

fongoloid sangfroid (sanskrit), Friday, 21 July 2006 12:05 (eighteen years ago) link

i fucking loved jungle fever when i first saw it. havent seen it in years. how is it?

pisces (piscesx), Friday, 21 July 2006 12:16 (eighteen years ago) link

Paul Mooney's standup is maybe the best stand-up I've ever seen.

Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 21 July 2006 12:23 (eighteen years ago) link

I love Mo' Better Blues. :(

Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 21 July 2006 12:35 (eighteen years ago) link

it has a fair amount of flaws, but me too

gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 21 July 2006 12:36 (eighteen years ago) link

yes, the turturro bros were "problematic" in that movie, to say the least.

timmy tannin (pompous), Friday, 21 July 2006 12:43 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't get people hating "Bamboozled" (although to be fair this is mostly because I knew people from undergrad almost exactly like Damon Wayans' character so it didn't seem overacted to me).

Jesus Dan (Dan Perry), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:00 (eighteen years ago) link

Stevie's Jungle Fever soundtrack was at the time his best album in 10 years, so Spike deserves some credit.

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:11 (eighteen years ago) link

I was about the post the exact same thing as Dan!

Allyzay will never stop making pancakes (allyzay), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:13 (eighteen years ago) link

Does anyone else remember Mos Def being simultaneously hilarious and depressing and incredibly menacing in Bamboozled? After having seen it twice now, I realize that he is probably the only thing that ever really GETS me in that movie.

the doaple gonger (nickalicious), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:16 (eighteen years ago) link

I thought Mos Def was OUTSTANDING in "Bamboozled".

Really the only thing that let that movie down for me was the ending, which kind of went too far for me; everything else was great.

Jesus Dan (Dan Perry), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:25 (eighteen years ago) link

My disappointment with Bamboozled has to do way more with the misguided and failed metaphor that the premise is built around. Mos Def and Damon Wayans were great, but Spike Lee seems to think that really slow, unfunny skits about chicken stealing would do really well with white people at the dawn of the 21st century (I don't recall Homeboys In Outer Space being a smash). If you watch actual films of popular minstresly you realize how unnecessary the blackface was, that the jokes are still used today, just without the racist signifiers - which is what makes their presence so horrifying and offensive. The fake TV ads were dead on and hilarious, but the basic premise was a total flop and by the end we had our standard interminable Spike Lee hysterics.

Back in 2003 I said it was his worst movie, but he's made like 9 I haven't seen since or something. And I never saw all of Girl 6.

Zwan (miccio), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:31 (eighteen years ago) link

Spike Lee seems to think that really slow, unfunny skits about chicken stealing would do really well with white people at the dawn of the 21st century

So, I guess a fast one like the one that was about minstrelry on Chapelle last night is ok though? It's the slow ones that ppl are not responding to?

Allyzay will never stop making pancakes (allyzay), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:33 (eighteen years ago) link

Who said it was OK? I'm just saying that the racism has to be incorporated into other aspects of entertainment, and the material shown in Bamboozled was painfully unentertaining. If he had thrown blackface on top of good slapstick (the Bugs Bunny vs. dumb black farmer cartoon was turned into an Elmer Fudd one and was still plenty popular), then you'd actually have something that could actually be popular, and show the insidious nature of it. But what he did was way more "you people are idiots" rather than "this is how people are made to accept racism as mere entertainment."

Zwan (miccio), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:36 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm just saying that the racism has to be incorporated into other aspects of entertainment, and the material shown in Bamboozled was painfully unentertaining.

So I guess you've not watched Mind of Mencia, either.

Allyzay will never stop making pancakes (allyzay), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:38 (eighteen years ago) link

Oh god. Touche.

Zwan (miccio), Friday, 21 July 2006 13:39 (eighteen years ago) link

We were watching a best-or retrospective of the Boston Pops while were packing for our most recent Christmas vacation and, sandwiched in amongst a bunch of standard Pops segments, was a song-and-dance routine done by a guy in blackface to "Waiting On The Robert E Lee" that was obviously filmed in the mid-70s and presented with neither introduction nor context beyond "we think this is one of the best things the Boston Pops have ever done". It is probably the most horriying thing I've ever seen on television and it came across EXACTLY like the skits in "Bamboozled".

Jesus Dan (Dan Perry), Friday, 21 July 2006 14:01 (eighteen years ago) link

So basically I think your thesis is bullshit, A.

(Also Carlos Mencia is really fucking odd because he's aggresively unfunny but there is an aspect to what he's saying that strikes my "OTM!" button sometimes; there's an entire routine he does in his standup about being uncomfortable doing a show for an audience full of Down's Syndrome patients that is an extended riff on the idea of "if you can't say something about a group of people to someone from that group of people, the thing you're trying to say is not at joke", a sentiment I agree with but GOD WHY CAN'T YOU BE FUNNY WITH YOUR "JOKES", YOU GIGANTIC BAG OF DOUCHE)

Jesus Dan (Dan Perry), Friday, 21 July 2006 14:05 (eighteen years ago) link

Because why come up with something at all funny or interesting to say when you can just scream "HAHA I'M A BEANER" over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again and people will still pay you to do it because they gotta do something to fill the void left when Chapelle lost his shit?

Allyzay will never stop making pancakes (allyzay), Friday, 21 July 2006 14:11 (eighteen years ago) link

ugh Mencia is the worst.

Bamboozled is totally incoherent, it actually made me feel kinda bad for Spike that he had made such an amateurish mess. I didn't even make it all the way to the end for the "payoff".

Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 21 July 2006 14:48 (eighteen years ago) link

the fashion sense on display in Jungle Fever has forced it to age very badly, unfortunately. it's kinda unwatchable because unlike New Jack City you can't really haw-haw at the haircuts and appreciate the story at the same time.

TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 21 July 2006 15:34 (eighteen years ago) link

mencia isn't even mexican, dudes.

hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 21 July 2006 15:36 (eighteen years ago) link

yeah I think Mencia is falling into exactly the rut that made Chapelle quit. I see what Dan is saying sometimes, that he's smarter than the jokes he does on his show, like a lot of the "lost chappelle" material so far. The "Ethnic Slot" on comedy central keeps making me think about how the first time Paul Mooney said his line about the script he wrote for Stephen King, and thought well that's pushing it, isn't it? And then I realize no, that's exactly why Chapelle had to quit and why Mencia pointedly avoids exceeding his IQ quota on his show.

TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 21 July 2006 15:42 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't care what he is, he can't write/tell a joke. He's like Colin Quinn + racial humor.

Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 21 July 2006 15:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Comedy Central to brown people: "We want to see, like, Blue Collar TV, but with non-whites. Mostly."

Stephen Colbert's interview with Julian Bond last night pwnz all, BTW.

TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 21 July 2006 15:44 (eighteen years ago) link

I'll finish derailing the thread in a second. "we could make three hundred white pixie skits, would it change anything?"

TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 21 July 2006 15:45 (eighteen years ago) link

OMG the Julian Bond segment was GREAT, totally took me by surprise.

Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 21 July 2006 15:47 (eighteen years ago) link

So basically I think your thesis is bullshit, A.

I just think there was more to the popularity of minstrelsy than the joy of watching people stand around in blackface. Emmett Miller, Al Jolson, etc - people who were talented but exploiters of a very fucked up culture. The movie kinda missed that (some of the Savion Glover stuff got near it), and gave an out to folks who love all kinds of modern racist shit but would never watch what was on that Mantan show. God help me for quoting him, but Ebert's review gets at the point pretty well ("To satirize black shows on TV, Lee should have stayed closer to what really offends him; I think his fundamental miscalculation was to use blackface itself. He overshoots the mark. Blackface is so blatant, so wounding, so highly charged, that it obscures any point being made by the person wearing it. The makeup is the message."). Admittedly, if you think that white people just eat up any racist shit they can get (which could definitely be argued), then this means nothing.

Zwan (miccio), Friday, 21 July 2006 16:05 (eighteen years ago) link

A friend at work told me about some Mencia stand-up routine where he pointed out that a lot of comedians end with a big joke, but how that isn't real, how that isn't like life, so he just put the mic down, pumped his fist on chest and walked away. The audience gave him a standing ovation.

Zwan (miccio), Friday, 21 July 2006 16:07 (eighteen years ago) link

"real"

what an idiot.

Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 21 July 2006 16:09 (eighteen years ago) link

cuz chest-thumping is so much more "like real life" than, oh, I dunno, actually developing decent material

Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 21 July 2006 16:10 (eighteen years ago) link

I think the fashion is my second favorite thing about Jungle Fever after Wesley Snipes

gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 21 July 2006 16:26 (eighteen years ago) link

Did anyone watch Spike's lesbian impregnation-cum-Enron movie? I don't think it even opened in the art house theaters here.

milo z (mlp), Friday, 21 July 2006 16:38 (eighteen years ago) link

The fact that Mencia isn't (fill in the blank) doesn't stop the fact that 99% of his jokes seem to end in the word "beaner," does it, Joel? WTF point are you trying to make, unless the point is that it actually makes it worse than what occurs in Bamboozled, in which case I apologize for "WTFing" you.

Allyzay will never stop making pancakes (allyzay), Friday, 21 July 2006 16:39 (eighteen years ago) link

anyone see sasha/borat's bit where he goes to a country bar and performs an anti-semitic folk song and they eat it up?

gear (gear), Friday, 21 July 2006 16:44 (eighteen years ago) link

allyzay, dude is half-german, half-paraguayan or something. not mexican. but i guess us white folx can't tell the difference!

hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 21 July 2006 16:45 (eighteen years ago) link

dude actually was born in Honduras to a Mexican mom and raised in East LA

gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 21 July 2006 16:48 (eighteen years ago) link

But Colin Quinn did make racial 'humor.'

deej.. (deej..), Friday, 21 July 2006 16:48 (eighteen years ago) link

THROW THE JEW DOWN THE WELL
SO MY PEOPLE WILL BE FREE

BORAT (nickalicious), Friday, 21 July 2006 16:49 (eighteen years ago) link

IN MY COUNTRY WE HAVE PROBLEM

TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 21 July 2006 18:53 (eighteen years ago) link

ok Joel I'm going to spell this out reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal slowly for you:

1) Have you watched Mind of Mencia?
2) If you have, have you noticed that a rather significant portion of his jokes are about Mexicans?
3) And, by Mexicans, do you realize I don't mean "Hispanics" but rather specifically "Beaners" and "Wetbacks" and "Mexicans" (Mencia's own words)?

In other words, if you don't have an actual point to make besides vague random accusations of ppl not "understanding" that Mencia himself is not a Mexican (it's not even the dude's real last name. I know! I read boing boing too etc), can you please go back to ranting about Israel?

Allyzay will never stop making pancakes (allyzay), Friday, 21 July 2006 19:06 (eighteen years ago) link

also thank you gabbneb but Mencia's actual background is besides the point I was making which was rather about unfunny minstrel acts (and claiming that Mencia is a faux Mexican would actually make it worse than the situation depicted by Lee but the problem is, not that a specific individual poster is reading the posts being made here, that I already said this and you knew that).

Allyzay will never stop making pancakes (allyzay), Friday, 21 July 2006 19:07 (eighteen years ago) link

BTW I was fucking offended my dave chappelle's whiteface rendition of The Reflex.

TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 21 July 2006 19:09 (eighteen years ago) link

I forgot about She Hate Me. Spike Lee makes some weird movies. Even the bad ones (i.e. Girl 6) coast on weirdness.

Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 21 July 2006 21:28 (eighteen years ago) link

she hate me is SO weird.

s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 21 July 2006 21:40 (eighteen years ago) link

also is it just me or does every single Spike Lee movie climax with someone getting killed? Its like he doesn't know any other way to end a story.

Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 21 July 2006 21:46 (eighteen years ago) link

(I can't remember how Mo Betta Blues ends...)

Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 21 July 2006 21:47 (eighteen years ago) link

well not ending the movie after someone gets killed is kind of disrespectful.

not the world i want to live in (tremendoid), Friday, 21 July 2006 21:50 (eighteen years ago) link


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