Isn't it interesting how the DVD cover and all the home-release marketing is totally different now suddenly? Hrrmmm

I am trying my damndest not to make a Rarity joke.

yeah, and funny how he only seems to take issue with cultural appropriation when it isn't buying him Lakers tickets.

Spike Lee buy Lakers tickets? He's a Knicks fan.

Spike Lee is one of the greatest American directors. Do The Right Thing is one of the greatest films of all time.
He gets a lot of hate for making people feel uncomfortable about racial issues.

fuck, you're right. i am racist against bball.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/05/13/alg_kobe.jpg

BUT IT WASNT THAT BIG OF A MISTAKE

Spike Lee directed a documentary about Kobe and he has a lot of respect for him. If you actually watched his films you'd see how much love he gives the Knicks in them.

yes, that is the connection I was trying to draw as to why I said he was a Lakers fan.

also, i've seen plenty of Spike Lee films, I just normally prioritize a few elements of a given movie ahead of "what basketball team the director must like"

Spike Lee makes films about racism, that's certainly true.

They are not all terribly good films, because Spike Lee is not a very interesting filmmaker. He's a shoddy director with some good work who is able to capitalize on his success to protect his success.

He is a brand, he has branded himself as The Voice of Black People in film, which is unfortunate. On one hand he pushes 0 basketball shoes (made by slaves!) to kids who can't afford them, on the other he cries injustice. Spike Lee's major accomplishments appear to be as an advertiser of Spike Lee, not as a artist that brings intelligent characters and stories to the screen.

Furthermore, Spike Lee's female characters are flat. I don't think he likes or understands women. The problem is, if I were to say this in a film forum, he would point a finger back at me and say that as a white guy I don't understand black women. That's kind of his schtick, and one of the reasons why he has been able to cruise along free from the lambasting he so deserves: Spike Lee is a mediocre filmmaker.

I wish there were more black directors in this country given money to make movies about black people, and that they were making hard hitting, non-sentimental, nuanced studies of racism. Unfortunately, Spike Lee is not the guy to bring it to us.

Spike Lee hasn't made hard-hitting, non-sentimental, nuanced movies about racism? Are you a fucking lunatic?

It would be nice if they weren't priced out of the neighborhoods they grew up in so they could enjoy all the improvement.

I'm not sure you've seen what true gentrification looks like if you think the racial makeup stays intact. You're not exactly going to see the darkest hues walking around Bedford.

Yes, but dairy has an ignorant rant on his hands, and those things don't spew themselves.

Crap. I didn't mean to 5 star this; I'm not sure what I think of the actual clip. Oh well.

Yeah I knew it was a gem rant when I read, "Spike Lee has no clue what he's talking about with gentrification. I should know because I've never been to the place he's talking about but I did grow up in a suburb!"

Seems there is a lot of racism towards Spike Lee. Its sad this day and age when people try to have their racism ignored, by calling the person who sees racism racist.

My neighborhood's experiencing the worst kind of gentrification right now. Literally there's condos growing around me every day in my little slum of an apartment complex and unless I pull some sort of occupy thing, I'll probably have to move because the landlord's probably going to raise the rent.

The M Night Shamylan twist? It's gentrification in the face of YOUNG HIPSTER WHITE PEOPLE IN PORTLAND OREGON! Yes, those of us who think 8 dollars is too much for a show, like Bahn Mi for 2.99 and nurse a single PBR all night because we wanted to feel a little bit social, and worried about how we're going to pay the 5/mo rent are getting pushed out by other white people, those who would drop for Animal Collective, drink 12 dollar martinis and pay 9 dollars for Bahn Mi willing to drop 750k on a condo, so they can be closer to a new public transportation bridge they will never use.

I agree with Lee, but at this point it's not about race. I'm proud to be a part of my neighborhood for as long as I have been, and as a result I'm being punished by seeing more and more "hip", "bike-friendly," "Portlandia"-style places pop up for people who work in the suburbs, drive everywhere except on sunny sundays and listen to shitty music. I work my ass off at shitty jobs because I busted my ass through school to pay for a Philosophy/Music major, and mostly get 12/ho jobs because if it. I'm not complaining about that, but we built this city (especially my neighborhood) on a DIY aesthetic that these condo-buying fuckers appreciate on the boob-tube but don't want to actually see.

Go rent Training Day.

Buying an eight figure mansion and then putting it on the market for a higher eight figure amount really doesn't fall under the kind of gentrification pushing ordinary families out.

But sensationalist, pedantic sites sure are trying their hardest to paint Hatch House like that. This one is my favorite, suggesting that it's all proper turnabout after those darn blacks moved into historical white man neighborhoods and turned the places into ghettos.

No really

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/spike-lee-lives-i n-32-mil-manhattan-townhouse-complains-about-white-people-gentrify ing-brooklyn/

It's all crap sites like that reporting on this, and all of it - and I mean every single mention - originates from that quote by CNN anchor Errol Louis. This whole thing stinks of a pundit echo chamber.

In the full excerpt from Louis, he lists a bunch of sales by Lee. There's Hatch House (which doesn't even count as a residential property if you don't have a nine figure networth). There's a Fort Greene townhouse he bought for 0k in 1990 and sold ("to a banker married to an attorney", like that's supposed to make it extra sinister) for million in 1999, which is a jump but not outrageously so given inflation over 9 years (and again it's a single home luxury property that doesn't fall under the kind of gentrification being talked about). Then he claims that Lee put his 40 Acres headquarters up for sale for million, but not only is no original price listed for comparison, the article he links to as a source says Lee never even owned the building. Then in a continuation of the CNN report, some twat professor from NYU (which is like expecting Harvard Business School to identify with the plight of the poor) that all the renovated properties in Harlem and Brooklyn were just empty buildings going to waste so there's no problem!

Yeah, bullshit "calling out" of Lee.

That's a really good point. Growing up in Atlanta you see nothing but sprawl. Its a good thing people are moving back into the city.