Spike Lee is an important filmmaker of our generation. He carefully picks up the subject for his movies and turn them into something beautiful and significant. Upon the recommendations of Late Roger Ebert's Great Movies List, I managed to catch up with two of Lee's films: "Do the Right Thing and 25th Hour". Needless to say, Roger was right about them. They were doubtlessly good.
'Do the Right Thing' chronicles the lives of two teenagers who want to make up to marquee NBA draft. For those who know about NBA Basketball and American Society would also know that making into any of the big NBA franchise is a dream come true for any growing-up teenager in USA. This film gives us a detour of their college lives, societal lives, playing styles, struggles and triumphs and by triumphs, I don't mean that they make it to any of those NBA franchise in the end but how they finally learn their lives in peace. The movie was an outstanding success with both critics and audiences and became one of the talking points in 90s America. It's a feature film made in the guise of a documentary and stretches well over three hours.As far as I know about European and American Cinema, anything that goes above 105 minutes mark there, goes for a toss everywhere. Critics and audiences alike rarely show sympathy to these 'sticky dogs' and only a handful emerge as winners out of this 'pathetic, neurotic' struggle. Sergio Leone's epic 'Once Upon a Time in America' measuring 4 hrs and 20 minutes in movie time went into public trash and only until recently, Critics showered it with their new-found love. They term it as a classic now but it's earlier failure with popular audience ultimately pushed Sergio into depression and he never came out of it again. Remember, this was the guy who came up with the iconic western classic, 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' and made Clint Eastwood a cultural icon in USA. 'Do the Right Thing', being a docu-movie et al., did brilliantly well you would guess by now.
25th Hour came out in year 2002, almost 10 years after Do the Right Thing. It stars Edward Norton, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, Rosario Dawson, Anna Paquin, Brian Cox and many others. You see, for the top billed stars of this movie only, I would have watched it. I have already written at length about Phillip and Norton in my earlier blogs. Late Phillip, by the time he died tragically due to drug overdose last year, was already christened as the 'greatest character actor and arguably one of the greatest ever'. Edwardd Norton is hands down the better actor than Brad Pitt and Leonardo Di Caprio and is a proud successor of the lineage Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Gary Oldman and Sean Penn have embraced. It has been said repeatedly over and over that Edmund Norton doesn't act much, he just explodes and no movie stays true to this promise anymore in his carrier, barring perhaps 'Primal Fear' where on his debut and being only 16 years old, he knocks down Richard Gere in a classic acting duel. His legend got established that day only.
He portrays a mobster here who deals in drugs. He lives in an American society that is inclusive of everything: different national identities, different cultural habits and different set of truths and lies. He is an Irish himself like most of the present day White Americans but pissed off at the cultural malfunctioning of America. Spike Lee's films are known for depicting ethnic tensions and cultural clashes. Here too, Edward finds himself fighting the same issues. He throws out f-expletives in heaps out of the frustration in front of a mirror that stems from the realization that he has been 'touched' by police and is due to leave for Otisville, a nightmarish prison notorious for all types of heinous and unimaginable crimes. He fears that he wouldn't last there one day and probably on the very first night get raped by fellow prisoners. His friends and wife, Phillip, Rosario and Barry try to cheer him up by throwing him a grand party on last day of his freedom but all this time, he knows what's to follow next. His father insists that he drives Edward to Otisville. Edmund obliges him and on their way to Otiswille, his father suggests him that they turn their vehicle towards south and go to Philadelphia or even further, Albuquerque (New Mexico). There he tells Edward to start his life from scratch putting one step further at a time. Edmund thinks of his whole 'new' life in the back of his mind and through a sequence of stills, we are made to understand in between his father's commentary that he has indeed opted for it. But he is, in fact, in the vehicle only, bruised and battered, listening to all of zealous, passionate comments being made by his father. He still knows among all this talk of hope that there is in fact not any. He has done wrong all his life. He is to be punished. He cries, he retaliates, he fears but he gives up knowing he isn't right. Edward has always known and we now know it too that he is not to escape...................#Edmund Norton.........#25thHour........#NakedEmotions
'Do the Right Thing' chronicles the lives of two teenagers who want to make up to marquee NBA draft. For those who know about NBA Basketball and American Society would also know that making into any of the big NBA franchise is a dream come true for any growing-up teenager in USA. This film gives us a detour of their college lives, societal lives, playing styles, struggles and triumphs and by triumphs, I don't mean that they make it to any of those NBA franchise in the end but how they finally learn their lives in peace. The movie was an outstanding success with both critics and audiences and became one of the talking points in 90s America. It's a feature film made in the guise of a documentary and stretches well over three hours.As far as I know about European and American Cinema, anything that goes above 105 minutes mark there, goes for a toss everywhere. Critics and audiences alike rarely show sympathy to these 'sticky dogs' and only a handful emerge as winners out of this 'pathetic, neurotic' struggle. Sergio Leone's epic 'Once Upon a Time in America' measuring 4 hrs and 20 minutes in movie time went into public trash and only until recently, Critics showered it with their new-found love. They term it as a classic now but it's earlier failure with popular audience ultimately pushed Sergio into depression and he never came out of it again. Remember, this was the guy who came up with the iconic western classic, 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' and made Clint Eastwood a cultural icon in USA. 'Do the Right Thing', being a docu-movie et al., did brilliantly well you would guess by now.
25th Hour came out in year 2002, almost 10 years after Do the Right Thing. It stars Edward Norton, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, Rosario Dawson, Anna Paquin, Brian Cox and many others. You see, for the top billed stars of this movie only, I would have watched it. I have already written at length about Phillip and Norton in my earlier blogs. Late Phillip, by the time he died tragically due to drug overdose last year, was already christened as the 'greatest character actor and arguably one of the greatest ever'. Edwardd Norton is hands down the better actor than Brad Pitt and Leonardo Di Caprio and is a proud successor of the lineage Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Gary Oldman and Sean Penn have embraced. It has been said repeatedly over and over that Edmund Norton doesn't act much, he just explodes and no movie stays true to this promise anymore in his carrier, barring perhaps 'Primal Fear' where on his debut and being only 16 years old, he knocks down Richard Gere in a classic acting duel. His legend got established that day only.
He portrays a mobster here who deals in drugs. He lives in an American society that is inclusive of everything: different national identities, different cultural habits and different set of truths and lies. He is an Irish himself like most of the present day White Americans but pissed off at the cultural malfunctioning of America. Spike Lee's films are known for depicting ethnic tensions and cultural clashes. Here too, Edward finds himself fighting the same issues. He throws out f-expletives in heaps out of the frustration in front of a mirror that stems from the realization that he has been 'touched' by police and is due to leave for Otisville, a nightmarish prison notorious for all types of heinous and unimaginable crimes. He fears that he wouldn't last there one day and probably on the very first night get raped by fellow prisoners. His friends and wife, Phillip, Rosario and Barry try to cheer him up by throwing him a grand party on last day of his freedom but all this time, he knows what's to follow next. His father insists that he drives Edward to Otisville. Edmund obliges him and on their way to Otiswille, his father suggests him that they turn their vehicle towards south and go to Philadelphia or even further, Albuquerque (New Mexico). There he tells Edward to start his life from scratch putting one step further at a time. Edmund thinks of his whole 'new' life in the back of his mind and through a sequence of stills, we are made to understand in between his father's commentary that he has indeed opted for it. But he is, in fact, in the vehicle only, bruised and battered, listening to all of zealous, passionate comments being made by his father. He still knows among all this talk of hope that there is in fact not any. He has done wrong all his life. He is to be punished. He cries, he retaliates, he fears but he gives up knowing he isn't right. Edward has always known and we now know it too that he is not to escape...................#Edmund Norton.........#25thHour........#NakedEmotions
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