Review of Red Hook Summer (2012) by Ellis P — 11 Aug 2012

This would be a decent, not great, student film. The only interesting character is the drunk deacon. Everyone else is written like it was done by high school kids I worked with at new York film academy. The characters are paper thin stereotypes that you'd expect if a white academic in iowa was writing about inner city black people. The script is lazy, tired, and sloooow. Other than Clarke peters and Thomas Byrd the acting is sad. Either the actors, director, or editor should be shot. And certainly the writer, so surely spike lee is done for in that equation.

I have loved most of his films. This one reeks of a an older man who has lost his drive and connection to what he got famous for. Spike lee writing about the ghetto today is like Cheryl teigs writing about being a model, you only have your shredded memory to work from and this movie shows that his visceral memory ia shot and only the labels and words are left. None of the dialogue sounds real or even cohesive. I thought maybe it was an older director making a film for his kids then it goes real dark and I realize its just bad.

I was sad and angry watching this film. Spike lee doesn't know what to say at this point and this movie shows that. If he would have realized that before he started writing this movie he may have done something interesting. As it is, it's an old man with a hazy memory, trying to relive a great fuck with a now old woman, with his now limp dick.