THE SYNDROME: April 2008

Master or Menace: Mr Spike Lee

Posted on 4/21/2008 06:47:00 PM No Comments

Last month I was finishing up principal photography for a short I've been producing for the last 8 months. In between takes we were critiquing various films, actors and directors. Mark, my DP cited Stop-Loss as the best film of 2007 (if only it had actually been released in '07), I was still bashing Crash and feeling unsure about this year's Coen Brothers landslide. I don't know how we got to it, but eventually the conversation turned to Spike Lee. Mark said, categorically, that Spike Lee's films are racist.

"Damn, could this be true?" The only truth I can currently rely on is that I have only seen 5 Spike Lee joints: Inside Man, 25th Hour, She Hate Me, He Got Game, and Four Little Girls. The rest of Lee's oeuvre is, I'm somewhat ashamed to say, somewhere in my Netflix queue, sandwiched between The Last Waltz and Philadelphia, the latter of which I have already seen.

Since moving Mo' Better and Daze and Do the Right Thing up in the queue is against my personal policy regarding Netflix, the only thing I could think to do as part of this investigation into Spike Lee's polarizing work was to read as much as I possibly could about Spike and the common allegation against him: that his work is racist and filled with bigotry.

I haven't come to any conclusions yet but I'm about to finish this book and I'm beginning to put together a thesis about why my friend Mark is wrong.

Title of Lauren's thesis:

Let's Talk About Tarantino

Got an opinion on Spike Lee? Post it here.

Coming Up: Casting Notes

Posted on 4/16/2008 12:30:00 AM No Comments

The Heaven Project:
Paul Walker, Linda Cardellini, Piper Perabo, Bob Gunton
... weird.

Just Add Water:
Dylan Walsh (the Nip/Tuck guy), Danny DeVito (the short guy), Justin Long (the Mac guy), Jonah Hill (the Apatow guy), Anika Noni Rose (Dreamgirls ring a bell?)
... random.

Fireflies in the Garden:
Julia Roberts, Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hayden Panettiere, Ioan Gruffudd
... interesting.

Nothing is Private:
Aaron Eckhart, Toni Collette, Maria Bello
... awesome.

RSA's Exquisite Corpse

Posted on 4/04/2008 10:14:00 AM comments (1)

Last year Ridley Scott and Rhea Scott launched Little Minx's Exquisite Corpse series, a group of 5 shorts by 5 emerging directors that were produced under the following circumstances: each director picks up the last line of text from the previous director's script and uses it as a jumping off point.

Check out the shorts at littleminx.tv

I'm really liking she stares longingly at what she has lost and with the eyes of every man riveted upon her. The cinematography in she walked calmly disappearing into the darkness is also worth a special note. Not surprising given who directed it -- Malik Hassan who's shot for Spike Lee and Kubrick.