I first learned about Spike Lee from his starring role as Mars Blackmon in Michael Jordan’s Nike commercials of the late 1980s. The shoe company used the character Lee created for his very first feature film, She’s Gotta Have It , which he shot in two weeks and spent less than $200,000 to complete. Then, when Lee made the incredibly controversial Do the Right Thing in 1989, I and the rest of the country knew he’d arrived. Since then, he’s directed more entertaining and controversial films about race and class relations in America — movies like Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Clockers, He Got Game, Bamboozled, 25th Hour and Inside Man. Spike Lee’s latest “joint” also has the issue of race at the forefront. Miracle at St. Anna is a World War Two drama about four “Buffalo Soldiers” trapped behind enemy lines in Tuscany. The movie stars relatively little-known actors but tells a powerful and spiritual story. It’s based on the novel by James McBride, who also wrote the screenplay. Miracle at St. Anna opens this weekend across the country.
Click here to see the film’s trailer.
-Chad
Dear Mr. Edwards,
I enjoyed very much your interview with Spike Lee. And I want to re-enforce his comment on who will win the election. I agree completely that that for those who have hope for a new country and a new way of conducting ourselves, any thought other than Barack Obama’s victory is out of the question. I, too, refuse to give the possibility a single wasted moment.
In the meantime, I do what volunteering work I can at our local Obama headquarters in Fairfax Drive in Arlington, Va. And I write, when I can, for my own blog and for TalkingPointsMemo, Daily Kos, Salon.com, and RaisingKaine.com (Progressive Va. Dems.) and Diatribune.
Would you consider reading my latest post at Daily Kos (also on my site)? It’s called "Purple Thumb There, Will Mine Be Counted Here?" about voter suppression in the U.S., and how we tout our ‘growing democracies’ overseas with free and fair elections, while political snakes here in the U.S. use fear and threats and convoluted process to strip many minorities of their voting rights. Leaving their candidates of choice stripped of their lost/cheated/fear-induced votes.
Posted at Purple Thumbs There – Will Mine Be Counted Here?