Spike Lee should have directed this
Does anyone else echo the same thoughts? He would've been great to tell the story of one of his idols, being from Brooklyn. I just feel his perspective might be more genuine than those of others
shareI don't trust Spike Lee to just tell a straightforward story. I don't know the last good movie he made.
shareWith Spike it would end up being almost three hours long,with the point hammered home over and over.As one of the Hughes brothers said years ago,Spike Lee went to film school.Now he need to go to film ENDING school.
"1)There is a God,and 2)Im not him."
I agree Spike should have directed this. I don't know what Spike did to blacklist himself from hollywood, but those wealthy powerful executives in Los Angeles hate him.
shareI do agree! I was thinking ths SAME thing when I first saw the commerical and came to the movie page. Such a SHAME! I do remember reading that this was one of the movies that he wanted to direct. Those so-called wealthy powerful executives just wanted to keep Spike Lee in his so-called place because Spike is/was so vocal about everything and he really let them (Executives) have it during the filming of Malcolm X and his career has not been the same since.
So I guess they were teaching him a long lesson. Those are some EVIL PEOPLE in POWER in Hollywood and if you don't play their game and keep your damn mouth shut, they will STICK IT TO YOU!
BTW, what is with the nearly all White Cast. Where are the Black Actors in this darn movie if it is supposed to be about Jackie Robinson? Won't be paying any money to see this shyt!
The Hughes Brothers would have been great directing this as well. They have a keen eye for directing movies.
NINA MAE MCKINNEY IS MAGNIFICENT
what is with the nearly all White Cast. Where are the Black Actors
It's not a story about black people. It s a story about ONE black man in a white man's world.
Otterprods, to keep those aquatic Mustelidae in line. share
good point. and did they forget all the black fans that were seperated from whites. some people should crack open a history book
shareAs much as I love Spike Lee's films, I don't think he had the subtlety to do this movie without it becoming preachy. Jackie was a quiet force to be reckoned with. Spike Lee's vision is more suited to a Malcolm X type film. I can't believe she even geared her freaking keyboard up to type that idiotic sentence "Where are all the black actors?" Seriously?! As a black woman it made me face palm to the highest degree.
shareRight after making Malcolm X, there was talk of Spike following it up with a Jackie Robinson biopic starring Denzel Washington as Jackie, but it never got off the ground. I think Spike would have done the subject justice, and Denzel certainly would have been a stronger lead. I do think the 42 movie was great, but it just covered the era from 1945 to 47. I would like to see somebody the breadth of his life, including the bus incident that got him court martialed from the Army (there was a movie made about this already) and his post baseball years when he had become a civil rights icon, and the diabetes that robbed him of his eyesight and eventually, his life. Spike Lee's best chance to have made this movie would have been with Denzel 20 years ago, but it was not meant to be.
As to the question of Spike Lee's last great film, I think it was the very underrated Inside Man.
It doesn't take someone evil to find Spike Lee an insufferable prick who overestimates his own talent. You can be vocal without being a horse's a$$, but Spike can't seem to help himself. If he's so brilliant, he should be able to make a decent movie without them as many independent filmmakers have.
As far as the nearly all-white cast, you do know that being the first black man allowed to play in MLB means you're surrounded by whites, right? And you're aware that that's what this movie's about?
Some good points about the content of the movie. Maybe if Spike were the director more of the movie would have been set in Jackie's neighborhood and the games would be seen from wherever his supporters sat. It is indeed about the one black man introduced to a white system, which is what makes him the underdog and a great protagonist.
I had been rooting for Spike to get his Jackie Robinson film made. He wore the 42 in Do the Right Thing. It would have seemed fitting. But he made what might have been an ego and politics driven decision when he said no to a lower budget that was the condition of greenlighting his project. For a while it looked like Redford was directing it, and that's when we heard no more from Spike on the matter. Quietly this writer of Conspiracy Theory and Knight's Tale has become the director. Maybe they were all different Jackie Robinson projects and Spike's is unrelated. But of course if he shot his own script now maybe it would be redundant.
In fairness, when he is a hired gun as a director (Inside Man) he can deliver a hit movie for the most Hollywood of bosses (Imagine Entertainment) or I think Clockers which involved Scorsese. In fairness to his early cinematographer Earnest Dickerson, we will never know what Spike's abilities were other than as a writer because the shooting was such a big part of his look.
Many people gripe that hit movies about race usually are about the good white people who helped out. Where would Django Freeman be without King Schultz ? Where would Amon Gothe's Jewish factory workers be without Oskar Schindler? Where would Cinque be without his lawyers Matthew McConaughey and Anthony Hopkins? But the fact is that progress is not often made of any substance without involvement of someone the "in" group of the time, in this case Branch Rickie (Harrison Ford). The message of maintaining dignity and not fighting back and instead focusing on the job is interesting in a time where we want immediate gratification and every taunt to be met with a punch in the face.
http://www.twitter.com/Jawsphobia
You know, perhaps like yourself, I do get tired of these ridiculous comments implying that a film is racist because it doesn't have enough blacks in.
Well, equally, I want to see film with indigineous speaking Welsh folk and there's few about too. So perhaps everyone, everywhere is racist too!
As you say, it's a film about a single black guy in a dea of white men. There may be a clue to the casting there.
Are the Welsh a race?
Sister, when I've raised hell, you'll know it!
A race? No more a race than the Belgians, the French, the Canadians, the Portuguese or Argentine.
Do you mean nationality which, may or may not, have their own culture and language?
When it comes to human beings there are not that many races within that nomenclature and none, as far as I am aware, have the names of any country within the race names.
Would you care to clarify?
First I want to say that Spike Lee is/was a talented director, he has made good movies, no one out there can say he hasn't. That said, recently few of his past films have bombed back to back and to say that Hollywood is racist because he didn't direct this movie is completely retarded.
In Hollywood its all about the MONEY, no white or black. If you make the studio money they will keep giving you work. As they say in Hollywood, you're only as good as your last picture. Spike Lee hasn't made profit for years now on his movies so that's why he hasn't gotten big films yet to direct.
And by your post, I would say you in fact seem racist by saying only a black director could make a movie about an icon black American. completely racist. And the reason there are alot of white characters in the movie is because, if you know the story and actually look in what the movie is about, you'll see that he was the FIRST black african-american to play in the Major Leagues so of course there would be alot of white people in the movie.
This day and age no one (most anyway) don't see black and white, heck we even voted in a black president (not because he is black but because he was the better candidate).
Stop with this false racist ideas, we aren't living in the 60s or before.
Btw '42' was a great movie, you should see if (but you said you won't because of too many white people in it, that in itself says everything we all need to know about you, you racist assh*le)
BTW, what is with the nearly all White Cast. Where are the Black Actors in this darn movie if it is supposed to be about Jackie Robinson?
You don't really understand how a movie about the FIRST Black man in baseball is supposed to work, do you? Were they supposed to have a bunch of Black people on the team, or something? share
1) None of his movies make money
2) Spike is a douche
Inside Man made more than $100Mil
shareAssuming it was an average movie, it had a $30-40 million marketing budget, and that combined with its $45 million production budget made its box office haul of $185 million a disappointment. It sounds like the film still made ~$100 million, but when you consider theaters probably got about $40 million of that (if not more), then $60 million profit on an $85 million dollar movie isn't actually considered a big success, only a meager one.
shareSpike Lee is an icon to millions of African-Americans.To them he is a voice to a medium that tends to be intolerant to the black cohort of America.
shareSpike Lee could have made a movie about Jackie Robinson if he really wanted to. He's not some unknown filmmaker without any clout. A period epic, made non-union would cost about $20 million. He could have funded it himself, outside the Hollywood system with some of his buds helping him (i.e, Jordan, Barkley). It wouldn't have been easy but great filmmakers find ways to make their passion projects. Francis Ford Coppolla basically risked his entire fortune (made from the Godfather movies) to pay for Apocalypse Now. Orson Wells did the same thing. If Splke did indeed want to make a Jackie Robinson film, he can't blame "white Hollywood" for his inability to make it. I'm not saying it wouldn't have been any good. On the contrary, it probably could have great, However, he can only blame his own lack of guts for not trying.
shareThey hate Spike because Spike hates everyone who isn't black. He got mad at Clint Eastwood because there were no black soldiers in his WW2 film about the 5 white guys and 1 native American who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Like really, the movie isn't about black people, so why whine. Spike just likes pointing the finger at every white guy and call them racist, when in reality that mentality makes him racist.
shareThere's another reason why there were no black soldiers in Flags and Letters: Flags was about the Marines and Corpsman who raised the flag (Soldiers are from the Army) while Letters deals with the Japanese side of the story.
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Once upon a time, we had a love affair with fire.
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"They hate Spike because Spike hates everyone who isn't black." Wow! What a ignorant misguided statement. I guess that is why so many talented white actors want to work with him, huh. So they can bask in his hate.
shareAgreed, Spike Lee should maybe not direct anything ever again, he should stick to making an ass of himself at Knicks games.
share