Group: Member Post Group: Elite Member
Posts: 373
Status:  |
Spike Lee is in the house.
The director is back making features, after years of documentaries. Back to a tightly-scaled story, after the ambitious wanderings of “Miracle at St. Anna.” Back in Brooklyn.
And it’s a strong return.
“Red Hook Summer,” his new and very indie feature, is set in that borough, and it has some ties to Lee’s classic “Do the Right Thing.” There are the bright, primary, almost African colors. The sense of community, and a sudden, startling act of violence.
And yes, Mookie is here, too - very briefly - still, rather surprisingly, delivering for Sal’s Pizzeria.
But “Red Hook Summer” is its own movie. And while it also has its own problems - primarily with some of Karen Millen Dresses its young, non-professional performers - it’s Lee’s most accessible work in years.
The film begins as Flik, a tween from upscale Atlanta, is sent North to spend a summer with his preacher grandfather, Enoch. (Why he’s being sent is never explained, and remains one of the film’s plot holes.)
It’s a definite clash in cultures.
Flik loves his IPad, vegan food and getting his own way. His grandfather - a courtly man in the neighborhood, a charismatic man of God in his tiny church - loves tradition, and religion.
This is going to be a long, hot Karen Millen Outlet summer.
But far from pushing conflicts, for most of its running time, the film sits back and watches, giving scenes and shots the time to play out. It takes in the beauty of the Brooklyn waterfront, the formal manners that the old generation clings to, and the thuggish behavior of the younger crowd coming up around them.
And it revels in the words, and the music, and the true and literal communion that can take place in church.
Where Karen Millen Sale it falters, occasionally, is with some of its performers, particularly Jules Brown, who plays Flik, and Toni Lysaith, who plays Chazz, the young Brooklyn girl he meets. Both are amateurs, and too often it shows. Brown’s performance has no texture to it; Lysaith too often sounds as if she’s merely repeating carefully memorized lines.
The older actors, however, carry things.
Clarke Peters, a veteran Cheap Karen Millen of “Treme” and “The Wire,” is a fiery presence as Enoch, fulminating in rich rolling cadences from the pulpit (or trying, delicately, to negotiate a truce with a gang member). And as his perpetually drunken deacon, Thomas Jefferson Byrd is a wry, wiry delight.
Particularly striking, too, is the look Karen Millen Outlet of the film. Low as the budget might be, Lee sticks to his careful, classic style; there’s very little handheld work, and the scenes in the church are filled with subtle movement (except, of course, for Lee’s signature and still goofy backwards dolly shot of people seemingly floating towards a retreating camera).
Exciting as those church scenes are, some of them go on for too long (unlike the members, we really don’t need to stay for the whole sermon). Some of the musical score is off and intrusive, too - like the Bruce Hornsby piano tinklings which always seem to be threatening to turn into a song, but never do.
And then there’s a startling dramatic turn the movie takes in the third act, one that seems out of step with the movie’s mood and certainly out of character for one of the people we’ve met. It isn’t really set up, and it isn’t really resolved.
But even this controversial development doesn’t mar the movie - and allows Lee (who worked on the film with “The Color of Water” author James McBride) to introduce the topics of guilt and sin and possible redemption, all unfolding in a world he knows by heart.
Welcome back, Spike. It’s good to see you again.
Ratings note: The film contains violence, strong language, drug use and sexual situations.
|
August 11, 2012, 6:27 am