Cinema Basement

A review by Brooks Rich This is the film that made Spike Lee a serious filmmaker. With his third outing Spike knocks it out of the park with a stunning examination of racism and police brutality set over the course of one hot sweltering day on a block in Brooklyn. He crafts a film that is both deeply entertaining as well as a startling observation on racial tensions. This film explores not just the tension between African-Americans and whites but also tension between all the races. It's hard to watch this film and not feel your stomach drop when the films climaxes with a cop killing a black man with a choke hold. The film is thirty-one years old and still speaking to the state of our country. It's hard not to see this film now and not be effected by a character dying while being held in a chokehold by police. Do the Right Thing echoes with more truth than some of Spike's more recent films. On a technical level Do the Right Thing is Spike Lee going from a solid student...

A review by Azzam Abdur-Rahmann Malcom X I rewrote this review about thirty times over the course of this month. It was borderline impossible to write because while brother Malcom himself was highly influential in my life this film exists in a dark space for me. Malcom X is one of the few figures in our history who wrote his own way. His autobiography should be required reading for all humans but this film drives me crazy. It runs the plot of Malcom autobiography to his death as any other bio-pic would but something about it has rubbed me the wrong way my whole life. And that is why writing this has been so freaking hard, how do you explain a feeling that is built on a connection developed by your religious and ethic foot print? One that feels so strange to even attempt to verbalize. When I was a kid it was Denzel who a disliked. Denzel is one of the strongest actors to ever walk the face of this planet but he is not Malcom X. He does not make angry and ready for violence. Playi...

A review by Brooks Rich I love movies about journalism. All the President's Men . Spotlight . His Girl Friday . The Front Page . The journalist is a fantastic character, always striving for the truth no matter what he or she might be up against. Today we highlight a journalism film from 1994 that has slipped through the cracks and has been relegated to the forgotten corner of cinema.  Michael Keaton is Henry Hackett, the metro editor of a small New York City newspaper called the New York Sun. His wife is pregnant and  due in two weeks   and the paper is facing the embarrassment of having been outscooped the day before. With the city wrapped up in a double murder, Henry attempts to get the paper an exclusive while also balancing his personal and professional life.  The cast in this is outstanding. Michael Keaton always makes a good journalist, whether it's a fiction one like Henry or real journalist, like Walter Robinson in Spotlight and Robert Wiener in...

A review by Brooks Rich Da 5 Bloods dropped on Netflix earlier this year and I went completely cold. That sometimes happens with me when Spike Lee releases a film. I hear nothing about it and all of a sudden one day there's a new Spike Lee movie. This is always a good thing. Here Spike Lee makes a men-on-a-mission movie that also serves as an indictment of the Vietnam War, our current political climate, and the treatment of African-American soldiers after the conflict is over. Four Vietnam vets return to Vietnam in the present to recover the remains of their fallen comrade. The men had been part of a unit called the Bloods and consider themselves brothers. Their friend was lost during the war and they want to give him a proper burial. But they have an ulterior motive as well – to recover gold they had buried back during the war. The character work in this is fantastic. Spike always has fascinating characters. Even with all his political and racial statements, his characters are ...

A review by Brooks Rich Spike Lee's first film is very much a first film but that's not a bad thing. With a black and white film school look and a smooth as shit jazz score, She's Gotta Have it is an intimate look at relationships and what it means to commit to someone and break that commitment. Through a mix of regular filmmaking and talking head interviews, the film chronicles the relationships Nola Darling has with three men, Mars, Jamie, and Greer. All three of them want her to commit to them but also are willing to share with the other two just to be around her. She's Gotta Have It is Spike Lee's first shot across the bow for the world of film. Rarely does a filmmaker immediately make a startling impact with their first film. Lee's real atom bomb in the film industry was 1989's Do the Right Thing but She's Gotta Have It is a solid first film. It's a film to capture everyone's attention before blowing them away with Do the Right Thing. Th...

A review by Brooks Rich I hate that more people have not seen this film. Antoine Fuqua is one of the most talented action directors to come out of the 2010s'. People might think Training Day is his best film but I content this film is easily his best. I think people ignored this film because it was a remake of a television show. This is more than a remake. This is stunning character study hidden in a taut action thriller. Denzel Washington plays Robert McCall, a man with a mysterious past who works at a big box hardware store in Boston. At night he goes to a local diner where he interacts with a young prostitute played by Chloe Grace Moretz. When she is viciously beaten by her employers, McCall tries to buy her freedom from her life of prostitution. When they refuse McCall kills them. He soon has the Russian mob after him as he's killed one of their main hubs of their Boston network. The mob drastically underestimates McCall however. Denzel isn't just playing a myster...