Spike Lee Throws Punches at Coens, Clint Eastwood

Spike Lee is 100% right about everything he said at the press conference. Fort Greene, Brooklyn knows whats up.

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Spike Lee lost all credibility when he actually tried to sue the Spike network because he thinks the word Spike is his intellectual property. I wish he would just concentrate on films. He is a talented director. He films speak volumes by themselves. He only does them bad when he opens his mouth.

The Eastwood arguement is just stupid. Flags Of Our Fathers was about 3 soldiers who happened to be white & Letters From Iwo Jima happened to be about the Japanese. That's the fact Spike. Just get over it. Speaking of Mr. Eastwood, he did cast Morgan Freeman in a role (in Unforgiven) that didn't place emphasis on race. Ned could have just as easily been white.

Mr. Lee just needs to shut up or quietly go away. I'm still baffled by his "Do The Right Thing" main arguement. I love "Do The Right Thing", but if we are to believe him, Mookie actions at the end were started because he watched "his best friend" (I'm quotating Mr. Lee from his Criterion Collection interview) Radio Raheem get beaten to death by police. They only have 1 real scene in the film together & in NO WAY does it make clear they are best friends. If that is the case, this is poor writing & direction on Spike's part.

Forgive this rant. Just felt compelled to say something.

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When no one else is concentrating on race, and you are he only one who focuses on ace, wouldn't that make you the racist one...just saying. Spike Lee may have made a few good movies, but he's the most racist guy in Hollywood. But of course, if anyone actually had the balls to point that out to him, he'd chalk it down to people being against him because he's black. *sigh* There's no hope for people like him.

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Spike Lee is a damned idiot and frankly, his movies are less than mediocre. Maybe he’s just now starting to realize that and finds attacking much better filmmakers than him by whipping out the race card as his only saving grace? I do not believe Idiot Lee ever picked up Bradley’s book of his father and fellow Iwo Jima flag raisers or even eyeballed the famous photo of the flag raising because if he had, Lee would see there are no black men in that photo. Heck, there isn’t one black man in the not-so-famous photo of the first flag raising. If Eastwood had placed a black character in his film “Flag of Our Fathers” just to have one, then he would have been made a fool by not being true to an incredible story.

Brandon mentioned Eastwood placing Freeman in “Unforgiven”. Need I add his future production biopic of Nelson Mandela with Morgan Freeman in the main role? When that movie comes out, I hope Idiot Lee apologizes to Eastwood and all of us!

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I hate to admit, but I get what he is saying about the Coens and how they treat death and inventive killings. In ways, the Coens have used grindhouse tactics and mixed it with quirky artsy-ness for comical purposes. It is an interesting topic as to why we like to see death so much. However, I am not quite sure why he felt the need to single out the Coens. Yes, he is still bitter.

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Just because he's the only one talking about race, doesn't mean it isn't an issue. As a black director who sees few contemporaries, he is frustrated. I agree that the Coens Brother comment is an issue of nuance; however I don't think he is crazy to question the presence (or omission) of blacks during many war films. It seems crazy to whites because he is the only one saying it. I think that if we had more prominent black directors, producers and film critics, questions like that would get asked more often. I don't think Spike Lee is saying that Clint Eastwood is a racist, these are questions black people ask themselves every time they go to the movies.

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I have a feeling that he'd get upset if the black soldiers--if they were in a WWII movie--were killed or maliciously murdered.

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If I didn't know what it's like to live in Mexico where last weekend's death toll in the war on drugs came to about 20 plus bodies, I would maybe consider the Coens take death for granted. Yet, the central theme of No Country For Old Men is that violence and death has always been part of our lives and for every new generation is escalating to incomprehensible levels. I think Spike Lee should quit living in his self indulging super star world and spend some time in the streets of Tijuana to see that the Coens might have actually come in short of the reality of the world.

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WAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! I haven't made a movie that made any money in a long time... WAHHHHH!!!!!!

Shut the fuck up Spike.

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Two pointless comments. Thanks, Spike.

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I won't speak to the violence, but I will speak to race. His point is that often in WWII movies the reality is that race is never addressed. In fact, most whites -- including this blog (which I like by the way) really never address the white elephant in the room. For example, the fact that all of your writers are white does means on average affect your coverage. You probably have noticed how white WWII moves have you? You don't need to be an expert to notice that. Just observant of the lack of their exist in these movies. This remains me one time when I talked to a friend about Woody Allen movies. I told him I always found them difficult to watch because in his version of New York no other races exist. If you live in NYC, of course, you realize just how ethnically diverse the city really is. I see this as Hollywood continual issues with race.

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Again, I don't think that Spike Lee thinks Clint Eastwood is a racist. He is asking a serious question about the lack of black faces in historical films, especially war films. Instead of taking an honest look at this question, people have chosen instead to bash Spike Lee and make jokes. Again he is not alone in his thinking, I'm sure a poll of blacks working in Hollywood would echo his sentiments. As for Tyler Perry, personally I don't like his films but here is a man that makes positive, uplifting and PROFITABLE films about black people, yet he is an outsider in Hollywood. You would think studios would be beating down his door, instead they make garbage like Who's Your Caddy? I think Spike Lee's frustration is more than justified.

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Not all of Brooklyn knows what's up. I'm from Brooklyn and I'm a Spike Lee fan...actually I'm a fan of the 1988 to 1994 Spike Lee. To be honest, Spike should stop whining like a baby and actually make a good film. Clint's not a racist and no one can touch the Coens. As long as the Coens make good films, I'll watch blood spray outta foreheads and extended bowling dream sequences any day.

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Spike Lee didn't call Eastwood racist. He criticized him for only including white soldiers in both films. Now, my guess would be that this is the result of institutional racism - not of Eastwood (he's not an institution) nor of Hollywood, but of the US Army, which was segregated until Korea. Spike must know this. So you couldn't have the microcosmic platoon yet. Now, why he didn't have an all-black platoon might seem to be a mystery, but since the focus of Flags of Our Fathers was on a (real-life) white platoon - there just wasn't an all-black platoon at the time that also got photographed raising the flag on Iwo Jima, damn racist history - rather than the racial makeup of the US Army, I really don't find the choice as objectionable as I would find the inclusion of blacks for no reason other than 'SEE! THERE WERE BLACK FOLK TOO!'

As for his comment on the Coens, it's definitely the case that they care more for aesthetics than content, and so that results in the action and its presentation being more entertaining than moral. So if you look for moralism in your art, then I'd agree that the Coens aren't where you should go. So I'd say I agree with him, if we limit ourselves to a particular viewpoint. But since it's not a viewpoint I actually hold, while I still don't think it's a ridiculous thing to say, I do think it's a rather narrow view of the world.

And as for Do the Right Thing - when I first saw the movie, I thought Mookie had done the right thing by deflecting the crowd's violence on the pizzeria rather than allowing it to be unleashed upon the men who owned and worked in it. It seemed to be the only safe way to let out all the violence that needed to be dealt with. Then I saw it again and realized that his entire reasoning for throwing the trash can was 'I was angry.' And I wondered how that relates to he Malcolm X quote claiming that self-defense is 'intelligence.' But I didn't waste my time wondering too long.

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Aha, I noticed there weren't any black people in Flags of our Fathers. Saying the Coens don't care about life or whatever just because of their films is pretty...stupid. Thats a bad word, but its a bad opinion.

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