Review of Crooklyn (1994) by Steve M — 13 May 2008

Anticlimactic considering his previous film, Malcolm X, Spike Leeâ??s seventh feature (originally scribed by two of his siblings, Cinque and Joie Lee) is an autobiographical one and the directorâ??s least successful to date, making back only $13 of its $14 million-dollar budget. Hardly cinematic material, Lee attempts to justify the telling of his own banal childhood with a slew of Soul Train references and a swinging oldies soundtrack (which, not surprisingly, ended up being more successful than the film itself).

*Alfred Hitchcock once infamously said: â??What are movies but life with the dull bits cut out?â?? Well had Spike Lee taken this observation to heart, Crooklyn would have the shortest running time in film history.

â??But it really happened!â?? This is perhaps the worst justification for translating meager â??real lifeâ?? events to the screen. Example: This morning I woke upâ?¦I shuffled out of bedâ?¦I went to the bathroomâ?¦I showered, shaved and dressedâ?¦I went to the kitchenâ?¦I made a bowl of cerealâ?¦I sliced some bananas in the cerealâ?¦I ate the cerealâ?¦I drove to workâ?¦I worked from nine to fiveâ?¦I drove homeâ?¦I had dinerâ?¦I watched a few movies then I went to sleep. Now, do we make a movie about any of that? â??It really happened!â?? Of course not, itâ??s not interesting â?? at least not for an audience. Same goes for Spikeâ??s childhood â?? while personal and significant to Lee, for the average moviegoer, it just doesnâ??t translate. The mere fact that Lee followed the overcoming life story of civil rights leader Malcolm X with his own trivial-by-comparison childhood is in itself laughable. Despite some decent performances, Crooklyn is Leeâ??s worst film yet â?? a self-fulfilling prophecy for a director who forgot his audience. But hey, at least the soundtrack was jamminâ??!

Boredom to tap your foot to.