by Ran
While loads of critics loved Spike Lee's 2015 movie, Chi-Raq, hardly anybody else did. But if 2016's Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall and this year's BlacKkKlansman are any indication, the legendary director just might be back. Fellow producer Jordan Peele is certainly on a hot streak.
The film is loosely based on the memoir Black Klansman, by former Colorado Springs, Colorado police officer Ron Stallworth. Similar to 1966's The Black Klansman, the story centers on an African-American man's infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan. Unlike in the earlier film, Lee's protagonist has to settle for ingratiating himself to the group's members via telephone, using a white co-worker as his stand-in for face-to-face meets.
Star John David Washington is the son of Hollywood legend Denzel Washington, with whom Lee worked on four films (Malcolm X, The Inside Man, He Got Game and Mo' Better Blues), making the collaborative process multi-generational.
If you're a Prince fan, make sure to sit through the credits. His rendition of "Mary, Don't You Weep" is guaranteed to make your heart skip a beat.
The movie was released on the one-year anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The rally, a gathering of various racist hate groups, devolved into a riot and culminated with the murder of Heather Heyer. Heyer, who was on hand with other peaceful counter-protestors opposed to the rally's message, was killed when a self-proclaimed white supremacist drove his car into the crowd.
No comments:
Post a Comment