![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cjlasky7My son's team won, 9-1.
Back to the reviews:
Thursday: took the train to Union Square in Manhattan for the 11:10am showing of "Highest 2 Lowest." (H2L is a remake of Akira Kurosawa's "High and Low": but the Kurosawa film was an adaptation of an Ed McBain novel, so Spike Lee is technically "repatriating" the material.)
I'm not going to focus on the plot here, because you get the impression Spike isn't that interested in the plot either. Other than one sharply directed sequence, a botched ransom drop set during the Puerto Rican Day Parade (guest starring salsa king Eddie Palmieri), Lee mostly uses the movie to work on his usual obsessions:
Loving, panoramic shots of New York City. Idolization of 1960s soul icons and New York athletes. Hating on Boston (especially the Celtics). NYC cops messing up shit. (Although Dean Winters is hilarious as a detective driven insane trying to keep track of the ransom money.) Fortunately, that also means he lets his actors cook, and we can luxuriate in Denzel Washington and Jeffrey Wright (as music mogul David King and his right hand man).
King is supposed to have been the greatest music producer of the early 00s, "the best ears in the business", and his Stackin' Hits label is a world wide brand. So why is the music in this movie such a needle scratch? For one thing, the basic score is terrible, a standard Hollywood orchestral score that melodramatically punctuates every emotional beat. This movie screams for a rap/hip hop pulse--but I don't think Spike Lee likes rap very much.
[Which brings up the point: what kind of music did Stackin' Hits produce anyway? The early 00s were the time of Snoop and Dr. Dre, Usher and Nelly. But Spike is too busy worshipping Aretha, Stevie Wonder and James Brown to make the music fit the character. It's about as realistic as 70 year-old Denzel chasing down 36 year-old A$AP Rocky in the climax.]
This could have been much better. (Lee's previous movie with Denzel, Inside Man, was a LOT better.) But it's still Denzel and Jeffrey Wright (together!) and there are worse ways to spend two hours.
After the flick, I popped down to Forbidden Planet to check out comic books and The Strand to ogle the rare book collection. I cut through Washington Square Park and stopped off at Generation Records on Thompson Street. (Yeah, I know, I don't own a turntable anymore. But I get a nostalgic thrill thumbing through the old vinyl.)
I went next door to Brown Bag Sandwich Co. for lunch--roast beef au jus and cheddar on Italian bread, and I got a Thin Cookies chocolate chip cookie in Soho. (Pretty good--not too sweet with just a touch of vanilla.)
*************
Back to work tomorrow. Sigh. Well, it couldn't last forever....
Back to the reviews:
Thursday: took the train to Union Square in Manhattan for the 11:10am showing of "Highest 2 Lowest." (H2L is a remake of Akira Kurosawa's "High and Low": but the Kurosawa film was an adaptation of an Ed McBain novel, so Spike Lee is technically "repatriating" the material.)
I'm not going to focus on the plot here, because you get the impression Spike isn't that interested in the plot either. Other than one sharply directed sequence, a botched ransom drop set during the Puerto Rican Day Parade (guest starring salsa king Eddie Palmieri), Lee mostly uses the movie to work on his usual obsessions:
Loving, panoramic shots of New York City. Idolization of 1960s soul icons and New York athletes. Hating on Boston (especially the Celtics). NYC cops messing up shit. (Although Dean Winters is hilarious as a detective driven insane trying to keep track of the ransom money.) Fortunately, that also means he lets his actors cook, and we can luxuriate in Denzel Washington and Jeffrey Wright (as music mogul David King and his right hand man).
King is supposed to have been the greatest music producer of the early 00s, "the best ears in the business", and his Stackin' Hits label is a world wide brand. So why is the music in this movie such a needle scratch? For one thing, the basic score is terrible, a standard Hollywood orchestral score that melodramatically punctuates every emotional beat. This movie screams for a rap/hip hop pulse--but I don't think Spike Lee likes rap very much.
[Which brings up the point: what kind of music did Stackin' Hits produce anyway? The early 00s were the time of Snoop and Dr. Dre, Usher and Nelly. But Spike is too busy worshipping Aretha, Stevie Wonder and James Brown to make the music fit the character. It's about as realistic as 70 year-old Denzel chasing down 36 year-old A$AP Rocky in the climax.]
This could have been much better. (Lee's previous movie with Denzel, Inside Man, was a LOT better.) But it's still Denzel and Jeffrey Wright (together!) and there are worse ways to spend two hours.
After the flick, I popped down to Forbidden Planet to check out comic books and The Strand to ogle the rare book collection. I cut through Washington Square Park and stopped off at Generation Records on Thompson Street. (Yeah, I know, I don't own a turntable anymore. But I get a nostalgic thrill thumbing through the old vinyl.)
I went next door to Brown Bag Sandwich Co. for lunch--roast beef au jus and cheddar on Italian bread, and I got a Thin Cookies chocolate chip cookie in Soho. (Pretty good--not too sweet with just a touch of vanilla.)
*************
Back to work tomorrow. Sigh. Well, it couldn't last forever....
no subject
Date: 2025-09-15 01:39 am (UTC)I like two Spike Lee films: Do the Right Thing, and Inside Man.
He still lives in Brooklyn by the way. And filmed a lot of his films in that area. I know he does, because I've met people who have had horrible run-ins with him. He screamed at one woman for living in the area, and was rude to a co-worker. Although I kind of get why he was. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2025-09-15 02:37 am (UTC)Everything else is either crippled by Lee's propagandizing or lazy plotting, or both. (You read my review of Black Klansman a few years ago and I'm sticking by it.) I still think Lee is one of the most important American film makers of the last 50 years; but that doesn't mean I ignore his weaknesses. He's not as consistent as Scorsese or Spielberg, but he hasn't gone as bugfuck nuts as Coppola.
Inside Man is something of an outlier, because he was brought in late when Ron Howard dropped out. It's "Spike flavored," but the script was worked out long before he came on the project.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-15 04:39 am (UTC)Well, To Infinity, and Beyond !!, that's what I say !
Hey, dude, been a while! Yeah, it's really me, still alive and all that. Amd here you are, you and shadowkat mostly, it seems, so not too much different from the last time I posted, which was well over a year ago.
A bit tired at the moment, so I'll stop back later this week and maybe follow up on some more of the posts here. But so good to see you're still doing some variety of your thing!
Take care, miss ya'all!
-- the Other CJ / OnM
no subject
Date: 2025-09-15 01:23 pm (UTC)I tried with She's Gotta Have It - but I couldn't get into it for some reason and have no memory of why. And I know I saw Crooklyn but can't remember it? Malcolm X - also saw but can't remember it.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-16 02:30 am (UTC)Missed you, too!
Always nice to hear from you. Feel free to drop in anywhere, anytime!