Rating the cream of Spike Lee’s bountiful crop
There are good and bad Spike Lee movies, and on any given year you don’t know what you’re going to get. But the important thing, the thing that counts, is that Spike Lee is occasionally a great filmmaker. He’s been great, not just once or twice, but at least three times, and he has made two or three other films that come very close.
It’s too soon to tell how “BlacKkKlansman,” new in theaters this weekend, will be remembered, as either great or near-great, but it’s definitely among his best. So you have something to look forward to. In the meantime, here are some Spike Lee films that have stood the test of time.
“Do the Right Thing” (1989): Lee’s first masterpiece, this was the story of a black neighborhood on the hottest day of the summer, a slice of life that also underscored the tensions between the black residents and white business owners. The movie provided Danny Aiello with the best role of his career, as the owner of a pizzeria, and was a nice showcase for the late, lamented comedian Robin Harris. Every so often you get a movie in which a young filmmaker seems to be telling you everything he has ever learned and felt in his first 30 years — not just trying to tell you, but succeeding. This is that kind of movie.
“Malcolm X” (1992): Lee’s second masterpiece was this riveting 202-minute biopic about the life of civil rights leader Malcolm X, featuring Denzel Washington in one of his signature roles. It’s a succession of dramatic and intense scenes, an irresistible movie that, if you stumble onto it on television, you can lose half your day. Just one little problem: I’ve watched the Russian roulette scene at least half a dozen times, and I don’t see how he could have palmed the bullet.
“Summer of Sam” (1999): Lee takes the reallife drama of the “Son of Sam” murder case — in which a lunatic was going around shooting young people having sex in parked cars — and uses that to create a portrait of New York City in 1977. Disco, the punk scene, the crime, the dirt, the sense of a city going bankrupt — it’s all there, plus the real-life mood at the time. As someone who lived in New York when this was all happening, I can tell you, “Summer of Sam” is the ultimate portrait of New York in the late 1970s.
“25th Hour” (2002): This is, in my opinion, the best American film made in this century — the first great 21st century movie about a 21st century subject. Right before this story about a drug dealer’s last day of freedom (before going off to do hard time) was filmed, the 9/11 attacks took place. Wisely, Lee decided to incorporate the 9/11 aftermath into the structure and texture of the film, and so he captures the malaise, the grief and confusion of that period — not just in New York, but in the country as a whole. It’s a remarkable film.
“Inside Man” (2006): This is a heist film with no ambition behind it but to be the best heist film possible, and the result was one of that year’s best movies. Clive Owen played an enigmatic bank robber, in a story that was never quite what you expected and always more interesting than you imagined.