Over seven years into my movie review website and BlacKkKlansman, this is the first Spike Lee-directed movie I’m reviewing. I realized this when I checked his category and saw that he wasn’t on my list. It certainly isn’t because I don’t enjoy a good Spike Lee movie. It’s more than one of my first 370+ reviews; more than 300 have been since 2010. And while Lee has certainly directed many films since 2010, I haven’t heard of nearly any of them. I did see (and enjoy) 2013’s Oldboy and am pretty surprised I did not write a review on it. It is a movie that I will go back and watch again and review. However, Lee is better known for the movies he directed over a 15-20-year period, starting with 1989’s Do the Right Thing and ending with 2006’s Inside Man. Shockingly, he does not have a Best Director Academy Award nomination to his credit and only has one actual nomination (as a screenwriter for Do The Right Thing). While Lee isn’t a Steven Spielberg, he has directed many memorable movies that people can immediately roll out of their mouths.
Category Archives: Year of Release
Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
Mission Impossible: Fallout could be a template for creating action movies. This is everything you want in a pure action movie, offering the same suspense, mystery, and comedic tones you expect from this top-of-the-line franchise. Tom Cruise (Born on the Fourth of July, A Few Good Men) reprises his most recognizable character (Top Gun came out over 30 years ago. Maverick is great, Ethan Hunt is the identifiable Cruise character, at least for anyone younger than 35). I’ve spent a good part of the last two decades knocking Tom Cruise for his choice of roles, wishing he would return to the types of roles that earned him three Academy Award nominations between 1990-2000. And honestly, at the time, I thought he was phoning it in for box office dollars. I understand an action flick here and there.
The Hurt Locker (2009)
“The rush of battle is a potent and almost lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” – Chris Hedges, author of War Is A Force that Gives Us Meaning.
2009’s The Hurt Locker is one of the finest movies ever. It was utterly gripping in its year of release and is a movie that will remain relevant until the end of time. It was monumental that director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Zero Dark Thirty) became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director and the first woman to direct a Best Picture of the Year. It only took 80 years. Just as impressive, and a significant credit goes to Bigelow, was the breakout performance for two future Hollywood A-listers in Jeremy Renner (The Town, Wind River) and Anthony Mackie (The Adjustment Bureau, Triple 9). Ironically, both have landed themselves as Avengers characters, something I will touch on later in this review. There have been many excellent movies about the war in Iraq (Stop-Loss, The Green Zone, The Messenger, Grace Is Gone, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, Jarhead), The Hurt Locker is second, falling just behind Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper. And it’s close. Each is a film that should receive multiple views. Each had a lead that hit his performance entirely out of the park, had incredible direction, and had a chilling score that could be listened to on a quiet night on the couch at home. It is, without a doubt, a movie that should be viewed by anyone who enjoys/appreciates war movies.
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
As my friend Tom would say, directing a Mission Impossible movie is like a doorknob. Everyone gets a turn. This is so true, but not really in a good way. While this franchise undoubtedly improves with each new installment, this wasn’t always the case. My biggest problem with the first four movies of the franchise was how different they were from one another. I have never watched a sequel that was so inherently different in directing, storytelling, cinematography, sound, and everything else from the original than Mission Impossible 2 was from Mission Impossible. John Woo’s Hong Kong-style martial arts action flick was so far completely different from the Brian DePalma intelligent, well-crafted, big-budget adaptation of the brilliant spy television series that ran for seven years in the late 1960s that it felt like the two movies weren’t even related. I don’t necessarily oppose changing a director (though I don’t love it), but I oppose changing styles. Plenty of franchises have had different directors that have made that work (most notably the James Bond franchise, which is similar to Mission Impossible), but many more haven’t.
Blindspotting (2018)
Blindspotting, one of the mid-summer hidden gems of a promising 2018, is a highly ambitious movie from two unknown actors who will likely be household names. It’s undoubtedly a breakout for the film’s stars, Daveed Diggs (who won a Tony for his role in Hamilton) and newcomer Rafael Casal, who also wrote the film. Adding to the virginity of this experience was first-time director Carlos Lopez Estrada. This movie has been a hit with critics and audiences alike (93% and 86% on Rotten Tomatoes). It is a good movie that teeters on the verge of being great. However, it feels like a few different films weaved into one. Worse, it goes back and forth between these different styles and intents and ultimately leaves us needing clarification as its two lead characters, but in entirely different ways. I could empathize with their situation and their confusion. What was hard to comprehend was the character’s rapidly changing thoughts, feelings, and actions. People can act differently in particular situations, but these two characters went through the complete gamut in four days. Ultimately, it left me with many questions to ponder. I also felt like I was watching a series of one-act plays rather than one cohesive movie.