Comments on: Million Dollar Movie

By: Boatzilla

Boatzilla — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 00:26:16 +0000

The Inside Man reached the end zone and beyond. There’s nothing wrong with that movie. To me it has good as it gets. Not a blockbuster, but a great little movie.

By: RagingTartabull

RagingTartabull — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 20:06:37 +0000

(9) it’s real good. Of his recent stuff I enjoyed that, Inside Man, and Red Hook Summer the most.

I’ll still see anything he does, I just feel like he never quite lived up to his potential. And I think this Kickstarter thing is ridiculous.

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 19:53:06 +0000

I’d like to see “The 25th Hour.”

By: RagingTartabull

RagingTartabull — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 18:58:24 +0000

(6) that’s a great quote. I think of Tarantino, who to me is so similar to Spike in a lot of ways but just seems more able to “close the deal” with each movie. I feel like Spike’s career is made up of “two thirds of a great movie” over and over again.

Think about Jungle Fever. There’s a movie that is good, great at times. And then there’s the last ten minutes…the last shot. And it turns itself into a punchline. For no discernible reason. He does it over, and over, and over again. It’s like if Scorsese never found Thelma Schoonmaker. Someone willing to say “no.”

By: lentnej

lentnej — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 18:28:30 +0000

Some of them at least are memorable. DTRT is because we’re still talking about it. “The 25th Hour” and “Clockers” I remember. I would say Lee has been a raw talent all his career. The 10 yard line sums it up well.

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 17:27:39 +0000

5) Agreed. And Aiello alludes to some of the limitations.

I think Pete Dexter hit the nail on the head in a 1992 column:

“To me, the movies are competent but not especially memorable; all of them reaching for something that is beyond the famous filmmaker and tennis-shoe salesman’s grasp.

Giving him what’s due, he knows it’s there.

Cutting through all the social posturing, he can’t find it.”

By: RagingTartabull

RagingTartabull — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 16:07:13 +0000

(3,4) but isn’t that whole argument over the insurance line, Spike’s entire career in a nutshell? All it would’ve taken was that one little wrinkle to give the entire final act of that movie a whole different level of resonance. But that would’ve meant a) letting reality intrude on Spike’s stylized BedStuy and b) making Mookie just THAT MUCH less of a sympathetic character. It would’ve meant Mookie/Spike not having the last word, and there’s no way Spike could’ve allowed that to happen. It’s ego.

I love Spike, I do, but I feel like his entire career he’s within the 10 yard line of greatness and he just can’t get into the endzone.

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 15:56:12 +0000

3) I think it also speaks to Spike not making a realistic movie like the 1970s movies. His version of Bed Stuy was stylized in every way.

By: Chyll Will

Chyll Will — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 15:40:57 +0000

[1] Agreed. Respect is more important than anything out in the streets; for what it’s worth, Aiello seems to have never lost sight of that. For better or for worse.

[2] true, but I bet a good portion of the audience still wouldn’t understand the impact; it certainly would have brought a lot more questions about his character alone and perhaps Spike didn’t want that, only they know. The line he did use was great, I certainly understood what it meant to him.

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 15:26:27 +0000

The bit about the insurance is a great detail and it would have made the entire scene more complex had Spike left it in.

By: RagingTartabull

RagingTartabull — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 15:12:59 +0000

there’s a scene in the Making of Do The Right Thing documentary (it’s on the Criterion DVD) where Spike and Danny are arguing over Sal is a racist, apparently to this day they still disagree over it.

Personally I think Sal probably was racist, but not in some cartoonish Bull Connor way. More like “I’m good to these people…as long as they know their place.”