BlacKkKlansman

2018 Spike Lee joint

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 19/20)

Plot: Denzel Washington's son and Kylo Ren buddy-cop up and infiltrate the KKK.

I know making movies--from the writing to the casting and the shooting and the editing--is very difficult, but Spike Lee has made something that seems effortlessly brilliant here. I remember somebody saying after Trump's inauguration about how at least it will be fuel for artistic minds. I'm not sure if that's the case or not with Blackkklansman or however I'm supposed to type that title, but the troubling times we live in at the very least squeeze out more meaning from this story than would have been squeezed out if it had been made ten years ago.

First, I want to say that aside from the political relevance and timely messages here, Lee has made one hell of an entertaining movie. The movie is often really funny, it has dialogue that sizzles, and it builds dramatic tension naturally and effectively. The director isn't making a movie just to entertain, but it definitely does just that. One could ignore the didacticism and just watch a lively crime drama with some comedic elements if one wanted to do that.

But Lee almost makes that impossible. Always the provocateur, he relentlessly pokes at issues to bring them to the surface, and he does it in a myriad of ways. He does it with his images. The camera shows these characters--both the white and black characters--in ways that they wouldn't traditionally be seen. He does it in the writing, subverting the lingo of white supremacy and black power or sometimes juxtaposing them to give them entirely new meanings. And he does it with allusions, bringing in images of blaxploitation flicks from the 70s, shots from classic movies like Gone with the Wind and Birth of a Nation, and news footage where rhetoric makes intentions crystal clear. It's honestly a whole lot that we're asked to digest, and that's why I think this will be a movie that is going to be analyzed and discussed for a long time, even after our current political nightmare has ended.

Sure Lee is dealing with racism, both in a traditional and obvious sense with the old-school Klan and the more subtle ways that people who aren't the victims of the racism wouldn't even perceive. But I think he's also saying a lot about the language and images of popular culture, especially movies, and how their power has been used for nefarious purposes. And he's saying a lot about the power of language itself. There's loads to unpack here, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

I have some blindspots with Spike Lee that I probably need to take care of first though. I'm not sure I've seen any other movie he's directed in the 21st Century actually. [Note: I'm wrong about that. I just looked it up and have seen The 25th Hour and Inside Man.]

I didn't realize that John David Washington was Denzel Washington's kid, but maybe that's because I just don't pay that much attention. I'm really impressed with what he did here. There's a real wisdom exhibited with these subtle things he does with this performance. I always like Driver when I see him although I have trouble articulating why because I don't think the guy has much range. Alec Baldwin is frightening and hilarious and terrific in a brief cameo right at the very beginning of this movie. And I kept thinking that a guy playing another cop looked a lot like Steve Buscemi. Turns out it's his brother, Michael Buscemi! I didn't even know he had a brother. Topher Grace brings the right amount of ridiculousness and scary hatred to David Duke, and some guy named Jasper Paakkonen is great as the scariest of the KKK guys. The most overtly scary anyway.

Both my wife and I cried at one point. I shared that information with the guy I was telling you about in my Blindspotting write-up, the black guy who works across the hall from me who I desperately want to trick into thinking I'm cool. He told me to "rub some dirt on it," and now I'm afraid I've ruined my chances of getting him to think I'm cool. It was probably a lost cause anyway.

I can forgive a director for making me type a title that way as long as the movie is this good.