SPIKE LEE: Chi-Raq (2015)
“Repeat after me: I will deny all rights of access or entrance.”
CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of homicide, gun violence, racism, gang wars, gangs, drug use, sex, misogyny, death of a child, grief.
We’ve jumped ahead to Spike’s new era of films for a movie we absolutely should have seen so much earlier. Why? Because it’s a Spike Lee Joint adapted from one of the most important Greek comedies ever written, and it happens to be pretty hilarious at how good a job it does. The problem is when Spike and new collaborator Kevin Willmott stray from the source and take themselves a little too seriously with an incredibly silly premise. Especially for Greek drama and comedy, allowing the structure to play out without interruption is the only way to go. We discuss 2015’s Chi-Raq this week on Macintosh & Maud Haven’t Seen What?!
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Intro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.
Excerpt taken from “Chi-Raq” written by Rico Cox, Robert Amparan, Leroy Griffin, Jr. and Nick Cannon, and performed by Nick Cannon. Copyright 2015 Da Chi Picture Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
