With the recent re-release of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing on DVD to celebrate its 20th anniversary (see the review in CL‘s View from the Couch column here), now seems like an appropriate time to look at the highs and lows over the course of the maverick filmmaker’s career.
Best Film: Do the Right Thing
Best Actor: Denzel Washington, Malcolm X
Best Actress: Annabella Sciorra, Jungle Fever
Best Supporting Actor: Danny Aiello, Do the Right Thing (Honorable Mention: Ossie Davis in the same film)
Best Supporting Actress: Angela Bassett, Malcolm X
Best Original Screenplay: Do the Right Thing (Lee)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Malcolm X (Lee & Arnold Perl, adapted from The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley & Malcolm X)
Best Original Score: 25th Hour (Terence Blanchard)
Most Underrated: Clockers
Most Overrated: Jungle Fever
Best Technical Innovation: Lee’s signature camera zoom (and its variations) that keeps the character in front stationary while the background moves, and vice versa (Do the Right Thing, Inside Man, etc.)
Worst Technical Innovation: The distorted aspect ratio sequence in Crooklyn
Least Deserving “Forgotten” Film: Get on the Bus
Most Deserving “Forgotten” Film: Girl 6
Film (By Any Director) That Best Captures Post-9/11 New York: 25th Hour
Good Idea Unfortunately Bungled: Summer of Sam
Bad Idea, Period: She Hate Me
Biggest Commercial Hit: Inside Man
Biggest Disappointment (Commercially & Critically): Miracle at St. Anna
This article appears in Jul 7-14, 2009.
