Spike Lee: Collection [DVD]

Description

Nine Spike Lee joints. 'Mo' Better Blues' (1990) concerns a handsome and accomplished jazz trumpeter, Bleek Gilliam (Denzel Washington), who divides his spare time between two women: an aspiring jazz vocalist, Clarke (Cynda Williams), and Indigo (Joie Lee), a down-to-earth school teacher. 'Crooklyn' (1993) is Lee's autobiographical homage to his own youth, growing up in 1970s Brooklyn. Alfre Woodard stars as Carolyn Carmicheal, mother of five children and wife to an unemployed jazz musician. She has to struggle to hold the family together - and when she dies, the resposibilities fall to the only daughter, Troy. Denzel Washington stars in the crime thriller 'Inside Man' (2006) as tough cop Keith Frazier, who finds himself drawn into a tense hostage situation when master criminal Dalton Russell's (Clive Owen) planned bank heist goes drastically wrong. Trying to negotiate the release of the hostages, Frazier begins to realise that something isn't quite right with the whole set up, and when enigmatic Madeline White (Jodie Foster) arrives on the scene, he realises that he's stumbled onto something a lot bigger. In 'Clockers' (1995), Strike (Mekhi Phifer) is a clocker (24-hour drug dealer) who becomes implicated in the murder of a rival after a tip off. Two cops investigate, Mazilli (John Turturro) - looking for a quick solution, and Rocco (Harvey Keitel) - looking for the truth. When Strike's brother confesses to the shooting, Rocco decides to find the real killer. In the teen comedy-musical 'School Daze' (1987), Lee himself plays the lead role as a school geek determined to lose his virginity and thereby gain entry to the powerful high school fraternity. Larry Fishburne co-stars. Anthony Mackie stars in the irreverent comedy 'She Hate Me' (2004) as Jack Armstrong, a biotech executive who gets fired from his job for whistle-blowing. Unemployed and desperate to find a way to make a living, Jack accepts an unusual offer from former girlfriend and now lesbian Fatima (Kerry Washington): she offers to pay him handsomely if he impregnates her and her girlfriend. Soon, Jack is inundated with requests from the lesbian community to deliver a similar service, and his bank balance is looking healthier than ever. But things get complicated when his former employers attempts to frame him for security fraud - and the implications of his dubious fathering activities start to hit home. 'Do the Right Thing' (1989), the study of racial tensions that made Spike Lee's name, takes place on the hottest day of the year in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York. The film charts the increasing tension between a black pizza delivery boy (Lee) and his Italian bosses, the local folk and yuppy newcomers, and builds inexorably to a violent confrontation. In 'Get on the Bus' (1996), a diverse group of twenty black men board a bus in South Central Los Angeles to travel to Washington in time for a protest march. They consist of a quarrelling father and son who are chained together, a devout Muslim and a pair of gay lovers. Along the way, the men endure various trials and tribulations, tackling racism and homophobia head on, and finally come to regard themselves as a band of brothers. Finally, in 'Jungle Fever' (1996), a married black architect (Wesley Snipes) begins an affair with a white temporary secretary (Annabella Sciorra) from his office, causing turmoil in their social worlds. Spike Lee plays Snipes' best friend Cyrus, who counsels against succumbing to the temptation of 'jungle fever'.