SIDNEY****

SIDNEY is a beautifully constructed documentary about the life and career of the iconic black actor Sidney Poitier, directed by Reginald Hudlin, produced by Oprah Winfrey, and featuring a candid and moving interview with Poitier himself in the year before he died.

The film begins with Poitier's childhood in West Indian poverty - he describes with relish the first time he saw a car in the capital, or the first time in New York he took the subway.  We also see him come to New York and work in a diner before realising he could take acting workshops and then join a local theatre group. His career is interwoven with that of his long-time friend and sparring partner Harry Belafonte. Poitier's big Hollywood break comes from taking a part that Belafonte passed over. But once he got that break he didn't look back, transforming small parts into mesmerising performances and radically challenging Hollywood ideals of male beauty and black power. He became a bankable headline actor in a period when black men were not accorded respect or civil rights. No-one who has ever seen it will forget Poitier slapping Rod Steiger in IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT.  

In his personal life, we hear of Poitier's two marriages and many children. He seems to have taken the business of being a father and breadwinner seriously and it's moving to hear how he felt he couldn't go home until he had money, something that will resonate with a lot of migrants whose remittances are so important. 

But clearly it's Poitier as activist who is of most interest to the contemporary audience and this film benefits from interviews with his contemporaries who were also active at that time - notably Belafonte but also Streisand and Redford. It's also fascinating to see how Poitier was outcompeted by later cinematic trends, most notably Blaxploitation, and was accused of being an assimilationist Uncle Tom by naive fools who had no appreciation for the context in which he was operating.

The best thing about documentaries like these is that they make you wonder how much has really changed.  One of the key provocative questions it sparked in me was how far Poitier would've become a star had he not had his break in the era of black and white film. It does rather feel as though colourism remains rife, and standards of black beauty still tend to be centred on "white" features. Think Beyonce or Will Smith's face, hair, colour. It makes you realise just how unique and strong and talented Poitier was to make it, for decades, in this industry.

SIDNEY is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 111 minutes. It played Toronto 2022 and was released on Apple TV.

DAVID BYRNE'S AMERICAN UTOPIA - BFI London Film Festival 2020 - Day 8

David Byrne's American Utopia is the concert film we need right now.  It's hard to believe this guy is 68 years old. His voice is still so strong and his creative instincts still so full of energy and innovation.  A year ago he took his new album American Utopia to Broadway, mixing it up with classing songs from the Talking Heads canon.  But rather than have a flashy stage set-up or costume changes or a conventional band playing static on stage, he decided to strip everything back to 11 people, wirelessly hooked into a sound system, with the same grey suits.  The joy and excitement of the stage performance comes - then - simply from their movement, their music and a kick-ass lighting design.  I've never seen something so kinetic and organic and authentically brilliant.  The music and message speak to a kinder, more inclusive America.  And it's sheer joy just to see so much talent on stage.  Praise should also go to Spike Lee for knowing just when to show the choreography in full, or when to focus in on the artists, and for matching the energy of the show with his kinetic, flowing camera work.  

DAVID BYRNE'S AMERICAN UTOPIA has a running time of 105 minutes. It played Toronto and London 2020 and was released in the USA yesterday. 

ONE MAN AND HIS SHOES - BFI London Film Festival 2020 - Day 7

Yemi Bamiro's documentary is a kinetic, well-constructed and insightful look at the marketing genius of Nike to find a young Michael Jordan and turn him into a global brand. Rather than marketing an entire basketball team with a sneaker aimed at active athletes, Nike marketed an individual and aimed at the wider urban i.e. black youth market.  They were targeting kids with little money and no real stake in the American Dream with a brand that personified achievement and excellence and, indeed, rebellion. For sure, it was useful that the NBA banned its first shoe. But Nike marketing execs had the balls to lean into that and get Spike Lee to direct some cutting edge black and white ads that leant into the Air Jordan's coolness.  Is it the shoe? Or is it Mike?   And thanks to Spike Lee, being a sneakerhead became a thing.

On the way, the documentary shows how the Air Jordan became one of the most must-have products of its time, with queues for the new editions reminiscent of how Apple markets its iPhones today. In a sense, Nike set the template for brilliantly successful marketing campaigns. The darker side is that poor urban kids were robbing each other for their trainers, and apparently this trend of violence continues today. 

I was with the documentary right up until the final ten minutes. I loved the access to the key Nike executives at the time, and I loved Jemele Hill* - a phenomenal sports writer and cultural commentator - as a talking head. But I missed some things. It would have been cool to get a Converse marketing exec on to explain how they felt seeing Nike just blow them out of the water in the early 90s. And it would've been cool to get Michael Jordan himself. Of course that wasn't going to happen because the final ten minutes criticises Jordan heavily for not being a political activist or at the very least for not publicly commenting on the violence committed to steal Air Jordans.

Now this took me back to my viewing of ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI... earlier in the festival where Leslie Odom Jr as Sam Cooke powerfully argues that if the aim of the civil rights movement is respect and economic freedom, well Michael Jordan leads by example. He doesn't have to do anything else.  On Nike, I just feel that you can't criticise a company for doing what it SHOULD do - maximise sales.  Where the criticism lies, for me, is the wider societal systemic issues and personal family structure issues that lead to young kids having a) access to guns b) such little self esteem that they think sneakers are worth killing for and c) such a lack of family values being instilled to know you don't rob and kill someone for sneakers.  Indeed, Jemele Hill speaks to the second point very effectively indeed. 

ONE MAN AND HIS SHOES has a running time of 83 minutes. The film was released on TV in the USA in June. It is currently playing the BFI London Film Festival 2020.

* Fans of The Wire should check out her podcast that deep dives into that show episode by episode alongside Van Lathan - The Wire - Way Down In The Hole.

BLACKKKLANSMAN

BLACKKKLANSMAN is a superb, searing, angry film from a very angry film-maker. The astonishing thing is that the film-maker - Spike Lee - manages to command such self-discipline despite his anger, and manages to fashion a film that is both brutal and funny. How many film-makers could straddle that line so expertly? How many could command such a knowledge of film history as to weave classic depictions of racism in a film that feels so authentically of the 1970s, and yet so seamlessly builds to Charlottesville and contemporary racial violence?   To say BLACKKKLANSMAN is a tour de force is an under-statement.  It is provocative, goofy, feel-good, feel-distraught, bloodied but unbowed.  This is cinema at its most heightened, powerful and disturbing.  

The movie opens with a provocation that may have passed some viewers by. Spike Lee spends much of this film both indicting and redeeming mainstream Hollywood films from their role in normalising racism. He opens with GONE WITH THE WIND - a film that depicts subservient slaves oh-so-happy to be taken care off by their paternalistic owners, and actually has a couple of them saye a white girl from rape.  He then has one of Hollywood's most famous black activists - the magnificent Harry Belafonte - indict THE BIRTH OF A NATION for resuscitating the popularity of the KKK. Belafonte shows how the film inspired a lynching, and was praised by then President Woodrow Wilson as "history written in lightning".  Belafonte/Lee show us explicit photographs of what happened to the victim.  Lee  then intercuts this with footage of the KKK recruits being inducted, complete with white hoods, in the 1970s of the main action of the film.  Finally, Lee takes his fictional film and directly connects its subject matter to contemporary America, showing footage of the racial violence in Charlottesville and Trump's mealy-mouthed false equivalence between the white supremacists and those opposing them. It's as if he's saying to us - remember that one president who said how the KKK looked amazing in that super popular film. Well, now I'm taking back your cinema screens and showing you another president, a hundred years later, being similarly racist, and you WILL watch and be shocked and provoked. And boy was it shocking.  Even when you see this footage on twitter videos, or on the news on TV, it's just different - visceral - seeing it on the big screen, especially after the two hours of build up that Spike gives it.

So back to the plot. The film is based on the almost absurd true story of a black cop who infiltrated the Klan back in the 1970s. He did this by ringing them up and asking for info and pretending to want to join.  He even got so far as to speak to David Duke! Of course, when he needed to actually attend those meetings and get enough evidence to arrest people he had to send in someone who was actually white - in this case an actually Jewish cop. So the Klan was doubly fooled.  John David Washington (son of Denzel) gives a quietly powerful portrait of the black cop - Ron Stallworth - and it's actually worth noting his defense of being a cop in the first place to his radical girlfriend. It's a message many in contemporary America need to hear.  There's something noble in being a cop - not all cops have to be racists. Adam Driver is similarly impressive as the Jewish cop who has never particularly felt the power of his race or religion and is forced to address his "passing" when he hears explicit anti-semitism of the first time. 

As the film progresses we see the imposter inducting into the Klan - a Klan that is planning bomb attacks against its enemies. The superficial tension comes from whether our cops will be exposed, and whether the attack will go ahead. And it works. But the real tension comes from Lee taking us right up against the most horrid racism, and keeping us there for 2 hours, and seeing if we will flinch from seeing it play out to its contemporary climax. When it comes it feels earned, brave and bold.  

BLACKKKLANSMAN played Cannes 2018 where it won the Grand Prix. It was released in cinemas this summer and is now available to rent and own. The film is rated R and has a running time of 135 minutes. 

CHI-RAQ - BFI LFF 2016 - Day 11

CHI-RAQ is Spike Lee’s most vivid, audacious and successful film since MALCOLM X. It’s a tour-de-force adaptation of Aristophanes Lysistrata set amidst the gang violence of contemporary Chicago - a place with a deal toll higher than that of US forces in the Iraqi and Afghan wars. Both that play and this film posit a world in which the women are so sick of war that they impose a ban on sex until the men make peace. Lee keeps the plays basic plot structure and somehow manages to balance the tonal shifts between raucous sex comedy and domestic tragedy with such confidence and success it makes the head spin to think of it. And so we have Samuel L Jackson cast as the narrator, dressed as a Harlem pimp, complete with cane and crocodile shoes, delivering rhyming couplets with such charisma, panache and, as appropriate, anger, as to make this almost a career-best performance. (It’s edged out for me by DJANGO UNCHAINED). And we have the Trojans and Greeks recast as rival gangs run by Wesley Snipes as Cyclops (a sadly relatively slight role) and Nick Cannon as Demetrius, the most recalcitrant gang member and lover to the modern-day Lysistrata - an outstanding and award-worthy performance by Teyonah Parris. Now wouldn’t that be something? If the Academy overlooked the more conventional dramatic performances that beg for nominations - Amy Adams in ARRIVAL I’m looking at you - in favour of something as balls-out brave, funny, and strong as this role? And while, we’re on the subject of adulation - how about awards for Spike Lee and screenwriter Kevin Willmott in what has to be one of the most intelligent and verbally dexterous modern day adaptations of an ancient text. To the point where I can’t wait to get a copy of the screenplay and indulge in all the in-jokes and clever rhymes I missed in the film because they were coming so fast. To be honest, there’s nothing to criticise in this film. Perhaps it could be a bit shorter in its middle section. But I can forgive a film almost anything if it features THE WIRE’s Senator Clay Davies uttering an on-screen personal best “sheeeeeet”. Thank god for Spike Lee still making films this visually compelling, intelligent, angry and emotional. How much more effective and entertaining to have John Cusack’s priest tell us that “mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow” than watching Ava Duvernay’s dry documentary, 13th. And how angry-making that it took a year for this film to be shown in the UK. If #BlackLivesMatter, can someone - anyone - get this film out there, NOW!

CHI-RAQ has a running time of 127 minutes. The movie was released earlier this year in the USA and played Berlin, Toronto and London 2016. It will be released in the UK on December 2nd.

London Film Festival Catch-Up - MIRACLE AT ST ANNA

MIRACLE AT ST ANNA is a big, baggy war epic about the African-American experience in World War Two. Writer-director Spike Lee tackles big themes intelligently and just about keeps a hold of all the complex material in the movie.

The key question the movie asks is what stance African-American soldiers should have taken during the war. After all, in the US they were facing extreme racism - as shown in a pivotal scene in the centre of the film in which German POWs are treated better than African-American serving officers. And even when they were fighting, we see white commanding officers treat the African-American troops with disdain - actively putting their lives at risk because they fundamentally don't accord them the same value. So how far should the African-American soldiers identify with and support the war effort? The argument is played out in the conflict between Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy) and Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke). Bishop is in the war for what he can get - which is a good time where possible. He isn't going to try to get on with his white senior officers. By contrast, Stamps sees the war as a means to self-advancement. He wants to do well and get ahead, believing that the war will fundamentally change attitudes back home.

A second question the movie deals with is how far we should take direct action for a just cause when innocent people will be hurt by it. The Italian partisans in the movie are fighting against the Germans, but the villages they hide out in are subject to vicious retaliation. The partisan leader, Peppi Grotto (Pierfrancesco Favino) feels immense guilt for having indirectly caused the massacre of innocent villagers.

The third question the film deals with is the question of faith. Throughout the film, one of the most apparently dim-witted of the soliders, Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller) believes that the marble statue that he is carting around is a lucky charm. It's easy to mock train because he's such a dolt, but the statue does serially provide a sort of protection to whoever is holding it. It even allows one of the soldiers to survive the campaign and live to a ripe old age in New York when, in the movie's framing device, he finally takes revenge on the partisan who betrayed them.

The guts of this film are well executed and intelligently told. Spike Lee is at his best when he's confronting the subtle tensions in race politics. But there's too much romantic sentimental jibberish that muddies the movie. Most egregiously, the relationship between Train and a little Italian boy he's taking care of is sweet - and speaks to the mythology of the statue - but is deeply distracting. It's also weird that in a movie of subtle conflicts and flawed characters, Spike Lee has created a mythic simple-minded good guy. Train seems two-dimensional compared to everyone else in the film. The second major flaw is the denoument - which is pure unadulterated schmaltz that seems about as realistic as the final scene in Shawshank (which I think everyone agrees was unnecessary.)

MIRACLE AT ST ANNA played Toronto and London 2008 and was released last month in the US.

INSIDE MAN - a solid thriller

This review is posted by guest reviewer, Professor007: Who would have thought that yet another flick about a bank robbery can come up with so many new turns and twists? After a hard day’s work, I went there with the mindset of addicting myself to a well-done but 100% predictable story. But already Clive Owen's cool introductory monologue indicates this it ain’t gonna be as obvious as one might have thought. And indeed, quickly a funky story unfurls, with everybody running around in Phantom-of-the-Opera-esque masks, and the police being led up the garden path repeatedly. In a nutshell: solid entertainment for a good two hours. Only downside is the lack of hot chicks. You can’t have it all.


INSIDE MAN is on global release.