School Daze

Title: School Daze

Director: Spike Lee

Released: 1988

Starring: Laurence Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, Tisha Campbell, Kyme, Joe Seneca, Art Evans, Ellen Holly, Ossie Davis, Samuel L. Jackson

Plot: Morehouse College a leading and historically black college serves as the battleground for several cliques as their individual causes leads them frequently in to conflict with each other.

Review: Drawing from his own college days here Spike Lee follows up the success of his debut “She’s Gotta Have It” by again working with an all black cast, something which was certainly more of a key aspect to the film back when it was released while giving us a film which juggles multiple interconnecting storylines to craft a picture of campus life.

Opening to Vaughn (Fishburne) leading one of his anti-apartheid demonstrations as he continually makes himself a pain to the school administrators with his demands that they along with his fellow students divest from South Africa. At the same time he also has an ongoing rivalry with Julian (Esposito) who heads up the Gamma Phi Gamma fraternity.

The Gamma Phi Gamma are certainly a random bunch with Julian insisting on being referred to as Dean Big Brother Almighty while enforcing a dog theme on his pledges referred to as “Wannabees” as they are lead around on dog leads while on any given moment being asked to drop to all fours or engage in one of their stomp chant sessions. Amongst the Wannabees is Vaughn’s cousin Darrell aka “Half-Pint” here played by Spike Lee who continues to show off his acting skills after memorably playing Mars in “She’s Gotta Have It” and its again the oddball that we see him playing here as the most downtrodden of the wannabees.

As to be expected anytime we have someone pledging for a frat humiliation is not to be far behind and its once again the case for Half-Pint and the other pledges as they find themselves being put through ever more random tasks to earn their place in the fraternity and it strange that with this group of characters he chooses to have them played so comically over the top when everyone else is played so straight. Still they make for a fun distraction to break away from the constant fighting and drama of the other groups, even if towards the end it seems more cruel for the pledge than you have to think it would be worth going through.

While it might have been enough for Lee to focus on the clashes between these two groups, we also have the clash between the Gamma Ray’s who match the dog theme of the frat with their own cat meows which they work into their chants especially when antagonising the non-Greek co-eds mainly over their skin colour and hair which Lee here memorably works into a homage to his love of MGM Musicals by having the two groups randomly burst into the big musical number “Straight and Nappy” whose music and lyrics were composed by Lee’s father Bill Lee. True perhaps this number is not as polished as those he is trying to homage, but its sudden appearance in the film really is one of the high points here.

Lee’s general refusal to stick within the usual framework for this kind of movie really brings something new to the film as he’s clearly shooting with his own rules, hence if he wants to have a random musical moment he’ll have one, while the big football game is not shot from the stands but rather based around the reactions of the crowd as they become more frenzied the worst the team loses.

An intresting mainstream debut for Lee who certainly doesn't hold back on his experimental side as he crafts a unique tale of college life if one infused with his own personal politics this is still an enjoyable and inventive watch. 

She's Gotta Have It

Title: She’s Gotta Have It

Director: Spike Lee

Released: 1986

Starring: Tracy Camilla Johns, Redmond Hicks, John Canada Terrell, Spike Lee, Raye Dowell

Plot: Nola Darling is simultaneously dating three different men at the same time and while they all know about each other, they all want her to commit to them solely only Nola doesn’t want to be “owned” by any one partner.

 

Review: Despite being one of the key directors of the early independent cinema scene with Jim Jarmusch’s “Stranger Than Paradise” and this film could certainly be linked as kickstaring the Independent cinema scene. Spike Lee has always been a director whose work I’ve seen very little of, they why of this situation could be narrowed down down to a handful of reasons while Lee has continued to be as talked about for his comments on various aspects of society including an ongoing dispute with Quentin Tarantino as his films. However putting that aside and focusing solely on his work as a director he still remains a highly acclaimed director, especially for his early films and for this reason I felt it was time that I dealt with this missing section of my film studies more

The first full length feature film to be directed by lee three years after his debut “Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads”. Here Lee shuns the typical potrayal of young black men as pimps and gangsters but believable everyday people with Nola’s lovers each being created to represent a different aspect and social level of society. It’s a world that he introduces via a series of photographs showcasing the local colour as we see pictures of residents, buildings and graffiti before we are introduced to Nola.

With this film the camera not serves to observe the interactions of the small group of characters but also serves as an almost confessional device for the characters as they frequently break the forth wall to give their side of the story which inturn equally serves to perfectly encapsulate each of the character personalities. Nola is unquestionably the strongest of these voices as a fiercely independent young woman who sees no issues of having multiple lovers especially when each of her three lovers gives her something different that she wants. At the same time Lee is refuses to have Nola portrayed as being a slut even driving home the point when Nola is sent by the dominating Greer to a doctor after he accuses her of being a nymphomaniac only to be reassured by the doctor that there is rightfully nothing wrong with her behaviour.

Nola’s lovers as I mentioned already are certainly a mixed bunch as we have the polite gentleman Jamie (Hicks), the self-obsessed and dominating model Greer (Terrell) and the motor mouthed street punk Mars (Lee). Each lover is introduced talking to the camera about how they feel about Nola and what they get from their relationship with her. While at first it might seem like they don’t know about each other as the film goes on it becomes much clearer that they are actually aware of the other men and there a strange fascination to be found in how she dates each of them as she fools around with Mars laughing and joking while dressing up for expensive diners with Greer.

Each of the guys is memorable in their own way with Jamie coming across as educated only wanting to make Nola happy, even if its at the cost of pushing his more traditional world view. Greer meanwhile is his polar opposite as he is a self centred and sees Nola as his property and who through her association with him makes her better. That being said he is a flawed character himself as seen during his sex scene with Nola which is teased out by him slowly and maticulously removing and folding each piece of clothing while she waits in bed, watching him and slowly losing her patience.

Mars is arguably the most memorable of the trio while also played by Spike Lee himself seemingly channelling Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav is everybit the oddball from the moment his is introduced charging at the camera on his bicycle before unleashing his motormouth style of dialogue on the audience. His character would following the release of the film go on to be a pop culture icon for a short period as Lee carried him across to a series Nike Air Jordan commercials he would direct and appear in with Michael Jordan in turn cementing his pop culture status.

Shot in black and white reminiscent of both “Clerks” and “Slacker” this film equally plays similar to those film in that this is a film driven by its dialogue and its characters interactions shooting on small sets as well as on streets and more keyly the park of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Despite this Lee truly crafts a full world for his characters to inhabit despite his limitations. At the same time he constantly mixes things up just when we think we have things worked out as seen by the film suddenly switching to glorious technicolor for the dance sequence or randomly cutting away to a montage of young black men sharing their best pick up lines in a scene which is as humorous as it is cringe worthy especially when you have one of these guys thinking that lines such as “Baby, you’re so fine, I’d drink a tub of your bath water.” as a flattering pick up line.

A film which is as equally driven by its humorous elements as its character interactions, while even now it still remains a relevant film and a strong start to Lee’s lengthy career as a director, leaving me keen to see what else I’ve been missing in his filmography.

Oldboy (2013)

Title: Oldboy

Director: Spike Lee
Released: 2013

Starring: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Imperioli, Pom Klementieff, James Ransone, Max Casella, Linda Emond, Lance Reddick

Plot: Joe Doucett (Brolin) an advertising executive is kidnapped and imprisoned in an isolated hotel room. His only contact to the outside world being through the TV in his room, Joe soon discovers that he has been framed for the rape and murder of his wife, while his daughter is adopted. Now twenty years later Joe finds himself suddenly released and given 72 hours by a mysterious stranger (Copley) to discover why he imprisoned Joe.

Review: Unsurprisingly when the news was broke about an English language remake of the highly memorable yet alone much beloved Park Chan-wook original it was an announcement greeted with much distain by the fans of the original who rightfully saw it as yet another unneeded cash in. Still the studios rumbled on regardless as for awhile it looked like Steven Spielberg would team up with Will Smith for an adaptation of the original manga by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, only to step away from the project leaving it open for Spike Lee to take on the project. Certainly a fitting director choice, especially as it takes a certain kind of ego to think that you can better an undisputed classic like the original is rightfully seen as not only by foreign cinema fans, but by people who would normally not even consider watching a foreign film, much less an undubbed one.

So with this in mind I really entered into this film expecting the worse, even more so when I have never exactly been the biggest fan of Lee’s films, which for myself hit their high water mark with the Oscar snubbed “Malcom X” and have since then been pretty much hit and miss. At the same time his frequently opinionated attitude (especially when it comes to racial politics) often leaves little too warm to. So now having finally seen this film it is something of a surprise to report that honestly it’s not that bad. Okay first off it should be noted that this review is based were possibly purely on this film alone, without trying to draw comparisons to the original especially when the two are so incomparable especially when both directors approach the material with two different spins on things.

Interestingly then than rather than trying to adapt the original source Manga, Lee here chooses instead to adapt Chan-Wook’s original film. It has to be noted though that on the credits it is listed as “The Korean film” rather than name checking Chan-Wook. Lee also notably leaves off his usual trademark “A Spike Lee Joint” title which seemingly was Lee’s protest of choice for the studio hacking 35 minutes off his original 140 minute cut. Where these cuts were made I couldn’t say, especially as nothing seems to be noticeably missing

Noticeably more violent than the original, the hammer blows are frequently shown in graphic detail much like nearly all the violence which has none of the savage beauty which Chan-Wook brought not only to the original film but his vengeance trilogy on the whole. Here Joe is a blunt weapon of raw vengeance fuelled with a single minded determination to find out who imprisoned him. It is interesting though to see that Lee rather than simply recreate the memorable brawls of the original instead reworks them in his own vision, so that the Joe’s first chance to test out his fighting skills is not with a group of thugs but instead a bone breaking showdown with a group of lacrosse players. Now as for the memorable one shot corridor fight, here it becomes a multi-level fight as Joe works his way down a series of ramps battling thugs, which Lee ambitiously also shoots as single shot. A sequence which reportedly brought Brolin to tears, while also sequence which suffered under the cuts imposed by the studio, but honestly I couldn’t see where the cut had been made as it remains still a standout sequence if perhaps too clustered in places, as the ramps frequently give the thugs the opportunity to surround and pile in on Joe.

Unsurprisingly some of the more memorable scenes like the squid eating scene are noticeably absent, though the squid is teased as Joe goes on a marathon dumpling sampling session to try and find the restaurant which supplied the dumplings he has been forced to live off for the last 20 years. A reminder once again that there are still somethings you can’t do via the Hollywood studio system that you can do in the Asian film industry. Needless to say when the film does have a memorable moment, it is frequently do to it being a reworked scene from the original, as when attempts to emulate Chan-wooks stylish violence as seen during a particularly sadistic torture session carried out by Joe on Samuel L. Jackson’s hotel manager / jailer the result comes off largely flat and lacking any of the morbid beauty that Chan-wook’s films have frequently brought to such matters.

While the film might frequently fail to capture the spirit of original, it cannot really be blamed on the assembled cast who despite being given what is ultimately watered down material to work with, they still manage to provide some great performances with Brolin easily carrying the film with his testosterone driven antics while still having the acting chops to take us on a journey with the character of Joe, who starts of as an portly alcoholic arsehole, who through his forced captivity is forced to face up to his personal demons while preparing himself for his eventual revenge. True he might not play it with the same feral roughness (he does get a pet mouse though) that we get with the original, but he still perfectly sells the final twist, which sees Brolin pulling the character to the complete opposite end of the scale in reaction to the final twist. It is however one which here like so many aspects is reworked into what I guess Lee saw as being a more acceptable ending for Western audiences. One major and unquestionably shocking aspect of the original’s ending, which I won’t reveal for those of you who havn’t seen it (the fans will know already which one) is kept intact and nicely worked in just when you think that they wouldn’t include it.

As the villain of the piece Copley continues to prove himself as a human chameleon as he continues to never play the same kind of role twice. Here he plays a camper but none the less calculating villain who shares similar motive to Lee Woo-Jin in the original but here Copley is a lot more playfully tormenting of Joe and takes great delight in the trails Joe is forced to go through, were as Lee Woo-Jin played it cool throughout. While Copley is on great form here, he does lack the memorable presence even though he is frequently delightfully evil and comes with a devilish bodyguard (Haeng-Bok) who sadly gets a chance for a great showdown with Joe squandered.

A flawed yet strangely watchable remake and even despite entering the film with a low opinion it still turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable experience. True it might be a more edited version than Lee would have liked (if we are to believe his latest rants) and I would be interested to see what got cut and if it improved or detracted from the film (something which was certainly the case with the “Donnie Darko” director’s cut). Still as remakes go this is certainly one of the better ones out there, even if its unwanted status will mean that many will avoid it out of loyalty for their love of the original. This film however is worth a curious watch, only if to reinforce your love for the original the talent of Park Chan-wook all the more.