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For my next Spike Lee joint, we'll be diving into Lee's first collab with Denzel Washington, and the least social / political of the six that I've seen. This time, the movie covers something that I've spent the last ten years critiquing and writing about: music! This view is not only off the back of watching the second collab between Lee and Washington, but off of the back of Damien Chazelle's two music movies Whiplash and La La Land. I've got quite a few movies to compare aspects of Mo' Better Blues to, and I'm gonna stay in that mindset throughout the whole review.
We once again find our way to Brooklyn where Senor Love Daddy is preaching love while African-American culture takes its course, and this time we stroll into the jazz clubs where our Denzel Washington character Bleek Gilliam comes from a forced musical childhood and now leads his own band. But being a musician isn't all martinis and booties. His tenor sex Shadow (Wesley Snipes) wants to leave the band, his manager Giant (Spike Lee) is having trouble and HIS boss wants him fired, and Bleek can't get his crap together between two different women: Clarke and Indigo.
In comparison to the later films Whiplash and La La Land, I'd say that this movie covers a very basic ideal of the struggles of musicianship. Our man Bleek is essentially too focused on his music to truly care about anything or anyone else, and that bites him in the ass. Lo and behold, we have a movie. Maybe it's because this is Lee's first dive into a mostly music-central movie, but this doesn't hold a candle to Whiplash in that regard. Having said that, Damien Chazelle's debut feature film was in fact Whiplash, and after that was La La Land.
So maybe Chazelle's passion is more musical while Lee's is more social.
But among the generic romance is another level of philosophical and psychological examination. The scene where our man Bleek visualizes both of the women he's sleeping with break down his behavior while he struggles with replies and eye contact is one of the most enlightening scenes about our leading man's character. However, almost nobody except for Bleek and Giant get any serious character development that makes them stand out as characters. Example: I noticed that Lee makes a lot of commentary on his own height in this movie. I once heard something about Do the Right Thing actually being a self-commentary about Spike Lee's height, which I think is kind of ridiculous, but this movie DOES prove that Spike Lee could be bothered by it.
The movie features lengthy scenes of jazz sessions, which, for a jazz fan like myself, is a very good stylistic choice. However, I noticed that this could make the movie much harder to enjoy for the non-converted. This means that the music and the story were not one and the same as they were in Whiplash. Other stylistic choices are hit or miss depending on their scenes, whether it be the deep and colorful lighting or the spinning cameras. Usually the moments where these techinques go hand in hand with the psychological aspects help a lot.
As far as the story goes, I can't really say I'm impressed. For the first two acts, it kinda goes through the same few elements as if I was playing with a Viewmaster: music, sex, let's talk money, I grew up with Giant, music, sex, let's talk money, I grew up with Giant. But the third act takes a major shift and sets up everything for a happy ending despite all of the pain, even though the movie is still stretching length.
Mo' Better Blues was one I was really looking forward to as a music fan. Still, even if I hadn't compared this to Whiplash or La La Land, I'd still be comparing the one-sided characterization to the honest and mutli-faceted representation of Malcolm X in his biopic. Malcolm X made the most of the three-hour runtime when the story here was overlong with a two-hour length. Still, I'm not at all disappointed and I appreciate the more mature stylistic attempts.
= 69/100
Mo' Better Blues
(1990) - Directed by Spike Lee
--------------------------------------------
Drama / Music
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" l know what l want. My music. Everything else is secondary."
(1990) - Directed by Spike Lee
--------------------------------------------
Drama / Music
-------------------------------------------------
" l know what l want. My music. Everything else is secondary."
For my next Spike Lee joint, we'll be diving into Lee's first collab with Denzel Washington, and the least social / political of the six that I've seen. This time, the movie covers something that I've spent the last ten years critiquing and writing about: music! This view is not only off the back of watching the second collab between Lee and Washington, but off of the back of Damien Chazelle's two music movies Whiplash and La La Land. I've got quite a few movies to compare aspects of Mo' Better Blues to, and I'm gonna stay in that mindset throughout the whole review.
We once again find our way to Brooklyn where Senor Love Daddy is preaching love while African-American culture takes its course, and this time we stroll into the jazz clubs where our Denzel Washington character Bleek Gilliam comes from a forced musical childhood and now leads his own band. But being a musician isn't all martinis and booties. His tenor sex Shadow (Wesley Snipes) wants to leave the band, his manager Giant (Spike Lee) is having trouble and HIS boss wants him fired, and Bleek can't get his crap together between two different women: Clarke and Indigo.
In comparison to the later films Whiplash and La La Land, I'd say that this movie covers a very basic ideal of the struggles of musicianship. Our man Bleek is essentially too focused on his music to truly care about anything or anyone else, and that bites him in the ass. Lo and behold, we have a movie. Maybe it's because this is Lee's first dive into a mostly music-central movie, but this doesn't hold a candle to Whiplash in that regard. Having said that, Damien Chazelle's debut feature film was in fact Whiplash, and after that was La La Land.
So maybe Chazelle's passion is more musical while Lee's is more social.
But among the generic romance is another level of philosophical and psychological examination. The scene where our man Bleek visualizes both of the women he's sleeping with break down his behavior while he struggles with replies and eye contact is one of the most enlightening scenes about our leading man's character. However, almost nobody except for Bleek and Giant get any serious character development that makes them stand out as characters. Example: I noticed that Lee makes a lot of commentary on his own height in this movie. I once heard something about Do the Right Thing actually being a self-commentary about Spike Lee's height, which I think is kind of ridiculous, but this movie DOES prove that Spike Lee could be bothered by it.
The movie features lengthy scenes of jazz sessions, which, for a jazz fan like myself, is a very good stylistic choice. However, I noticed that this could make the movie much harder to enjoy for the non-converted. This means that the music and the story were not one and the same as they were in Whiplash. Other stylistic choices are hit or miss depending on their scenes, whether it be the deep and colorful lighting or the spinning cameras. Usually the moments where these techinques go hand in hand with the psychological aspects help a lot.
As far as the story goes, I can't really say I'm impressed. For the first two acts, it kinda goes through the same few elements as if I was playing with a Viewmaster: music, sex, let's talk money, I grew up with Giant, music, sex, let's talk money, I grew up with Giant. But the third act takes a major shift and sets up everything for a happy ending despite all of the pain, even though the movie is still stretching length.
Mo' Better Blues was one I was really looking forward to as a music fan. Still, even if I hadn't compared this to Whiplash or La La Land, I'd still be comparing the one-sided characterization to the honest and mutli-faceted representation of Malcolm X in his biopic. Malcolm X made the most of the three-hour runtime when the story here was overlong with a two-hour length. Still, I'm not at all disappointed and I appreciate the more mature stylistic attempts.
= 69/100