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I was just talking with my Dad say, two weeks ago and remarking how I'd like to see Spike Lee cover this area in history with Black Vets. How fortuitous! I can't wait to see what he does with the subject.

Spike Lee on Instagram - dropping June 12th globally on Netflix.

The poster is a graphic designed rip-off of Kerry James Marshall’s painting style, down to the skin tone used.

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote: Thu May 07, 2020 9:02 pm The poster is a graphic designed rip-off of Kerry James Marshall’s painting style, down to the skin tone used.

Hasn't Lee lifted ideas for posters before? (For example, Clockers was originally based off of Saul Bass's poster for An Anatomy of a Murder.)

Never Cursed wrote: Mon May 18, 2020 1:47 pm Trailer

I'm always hesitant to get my hopes up on a Spike Lee joint until I see the final product, but this looks terrific

It really does look rather good and got me wondering if Netflix might have more of a leg up than usual this awards season because of theatrical delays.

That looks stellar. Cheers to all filmmakers who were able to wrap up principle photography before the lockdown.

An especially timely time for a Spike Lee movie.

Reviews are trending very positive with effusive notices coming from Roeper (who is somehow back at the Sun-Times) and Roger Ebert's website. Also, I'm glad someone slipped a reference to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre into the press kit for this, because that means we get the hilarious spectacle of every single review crowbarring in a comparision between this film and that one

Kohn's a critic I read and admire but his rating seems a bit off to me.
Reads like an A- or even an A to me, though I read it very quickly, but he gives it a B.

Nasir007 wrote: Wed Jun 10, 2020 2:38 pm Kohn's a critic I read and admire but his rating seems a bit off to me.
Reads like an A- or even an A to me, though I read it very quickly, but he gives it a B.

It's an interesting review, but I think it reads as Lee's doing great work even if the script isn't always. Some of the content makes me think there are notes such as Once Upon A Time In Hollywood's "twist" at the end, but this lands better (for the most part). It's been a bit since a Netflix original's excited me, but I can't wait to see this one.

smccolgan wrote: Wed Jun 10, 2020 3:26 pm

Nasir007 wrote: Wed Jun 10, 2020 2:38 pm Kohn's a critic I read and admire but his rating seems a bit off to me.
Reads like an A- or even an A to me, though I read it very quickly, but he gives it a B.

It's an interesting review, but I think it reads as Lee's doing great work even if the script isn't always. Some of the content makes me think there are notes such as Once Upon A Time In Hollywood's "twist" at the end, but this lands better (for the most part). It's been a bit since a Netflix original's excited me, but I can't wait to see this one.

I haven't read any reviews but going off your comparison, my hypothesis is

Spoiler

the soldiers find and give the gold as reparations for slavery in America, since white folks won't

Totally random, based on nothing beyond your post, but I'll be thrilled if it's true.

I don’t think I have seen something this bad and on-the-nose in a long time. It was a chore after 30 minutes. Is the script still in the first draft phase? I’m so disappointed.

Well, that was.. interesting.

After going through Lee’s entire filmography a few years back, I found that I 'liked' a small portion but respected basically everything. Like BlackKklansman, a film I did really like a lot, Lee knows exactly what he’s doing here and is only using contrivances to serve his more complicated presentation of ineffable enigmatic truths. First, this film is so timely it's impossible not to contextualize the themes into a space perhaps more emotionally impactful than if it was made five years ago. But this film wasn't, and probably wouldn't be made then, so that lens is necessary to access what Lee is professing.

There are strengths to the narrative curves and tonal shifts, as well as weaknesses. From the first scene following the opening doc footage, the rapport between the men is immediately felt as an organism of affection, yet inherently fractured by time. What follows is a spacious meditation on the fantastical catharsis and realistic pain of reconciliation with nostalgia, suffocating shadows born from divided memoirs of personalized history contesting with shared history. This begins as a Hawksian hangout movie, and before the end it's spilled itself into practically every genre and mood imaginable.

I loved the dissection of politics as a bandaid for sustained oppression and a hurting for self-preservation, where even a Trump supporter has valid reasons. The ‘me and mine’ vs liberal empathic positions are a course of study in this riff on familiar homages. The idea of believing in flesh-and-blood people instead of religion to get a sense of spirituality is powerful- and how that can die for Lindo is a tragic reality of the jaded social states in an overwhelming cesspool of powerlessness.

The tender depiction of mental illness as an isolating experience beyond comparison, that separates one from support, is sensitively portrayed, as are the imperfect responses from the gang- for how does one truly support another when the disease is individualized. PTSD ties mental health to environmental stressors, a relevant micro-piece of reality that is also an emblem of the effects of macro persecutions on black souls. The first interaction with the French woman at the bar touches on the dark historical trauma of imperialism, systemic oppression via unequal distribution of wealth, and physical reminders of the past inescapable today- through the profession of landmines that continue to plague the country and keep everyone trapped in war.

The tension may be consciously triggered by imposed devices, but Lee shows it brewing throughout the movement of broken men populating the same frame, engaged yet worlds apart. It’s a conflicting duality that composes the essence of individuals belonging to both groups and themselves, and is evidenced by one of the most suspenseful and heartening demonstrations of teamwork in the middle with a unified rope-pull, followed by an agile reversion to the ‘me and mine’ survivalist mode.

Always the contrarian to show just how complex social responsibility has amounted to, Lee has an unsettling scene where the Vietnamese counter the black soldiers with images of just how tattooed the blood is on everyone’s hands. His empathic objective eye for equality in perspective orbits around the sun of his subjective passion, two opposing truths that cannot exist in a movie that’s not an uneven amalgamation of messy dynamics itself. Lindo may represent that empowerment, the anger to fight America, the Me and Mine of blackness, the Malcolm X side of Lee (those last two contradictions themselves, no doubt intentional and in step with Lee's own admitted dense dissection of American blackness)- while the rest of the troupe may represent liberal utilitarianism, empathy, kindness, and the ability to let go and move on.. both are resilient and valid, and neither is as simplistically bifurcated as those comparisons suggest.

Lee has made a melting pot of physical, emotional, and spiritual conditions of individuals coping in a world stained with permanent and unforgettable social history. As convoluted as the psychological strategies we use to stomach guilt, shame, and life are, Lee leads us to a message of Forgiveness: that which comes from the self, is what will make us strong, and allow us to band together to fight against the real enemies. Maybe that forgiveness can help the isolated, hopeless man to join his brothers- as a spirituality we can all access in our own way if we dare to emerge from our drowning self to contest with life and work through the pain.

These are deep, challenging, murky beliefs- so I was able to forgive the ridiculous sections (I'm still working on the big finish..) because, like his last film, they serve at heightening the imagination using cinematic exaggerations to underscore hope through idealism. Lee's ending celebrates goodness after walking through the trenches of realistic barriers manifesting as burdens in ways I can only imagine as being genuine, but he also ends with a deafening message that refuses to let the audience off easy with an optimistic sense of achieved empowerment. Nothing is finite, we need to be aware and take action, and work at it to make this endgoal come even partway true.

I dunno, the movie- like every Lee movie (save one)- has a heap of problems, but I also think it's brilliant. And its brilliance is often a direct result of those tangled emotions and ideas, because they're authentically inexpressible- and kudos to Lee, who feels a moral obligation to try.

I'm astonished by how bad this movie is. The fact that it currently has a 91% on rotten tomatoes is mind-blowing to me.

Not ready to pronounce on "greatness" -- but I found it interesting (and timely). I was perplexed by a fundamental chronological inconsistency, however. The ages of several younger characters clearly pointed to a setting of 1995-2000, yet the film is cleearly intended to be happening some time after 2016.

TheKieslowskiHaze wrote: Sat Jun 13, 2020 2:58 am I'm astonished by how bad this movie is. The fact that it currently has a 91% on rotten tomatoes is mind-blowing to me.

So this isn't a Miracle at St. Anna redemtpion?

black&huge wrote: Sat Jun 13, 2020 3:22 amSo this isn't a Miracle at St. Anna redemtpion?

I was fully ready for it to be such. It is not. It may be just as bad.

Michael Kerpan wrote: Sat Jun 13, 2020 3:03 amThe ages of several younger characters clearly pointed to a setting of 1995-2000, yet the film is clearly intended to be happening some time after 2016.

Can you elaborate on this a bit?

I definitely noticed it too—the most significant one would be be Tien's daughter, who, if the movie's set after 2016, would have to be in her 40s at least, but looks about 25.

senseabove -- all the characters who were children of participants/victims of the war shared this same problem. Tien's daughter was the most glaring example, however. It was almost as if this was based on a source written around 2000 (or specifically set then) -- but which was plunked into the near-present without thinking through all the necessary subsidiary adjustments.