Brooklyn Week is a week at Cool Black Media devoted to artists from Brooklyn, New York. The first Brooklyn Week is devoted to hip-hop, but you never know it may be expanded in the future.
Brooklyn week is actually Monday-Friday, but Imma start it off with someone who wasn't born in Brooklyn (pretty much a prerequisite), but who reps Brooklyn to the FULLEST. And to answer your question Cool Black was BORN IN BROOKLYN!
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) (pictured left) is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. He also teaches film at New York University and Columbia University. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983.Lee's movies have examined race relations, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues. Lee has won an Emmy Award and was nominated for an Academy Award.
Cool Black's Favorite Five Spike Lee Joints
1. Do The Right Thing
2. Malcolm X
3. Bamboozled
4. Jungle Fever
5. School Daze
Read more about Spike at Wikipedia
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JUNE 1, 2011
I recently added reviews of two books Mr. Lee wrote to GoodReads. Those reviews are below.
By Any Means Necessary: The Trials and Tribulations of the Making of Malcolm X by Malcolm XMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I don’t even know why I bought this book about the film ‘Malcolm X’ (1992) but if you ever want to know how hard it is to get a film made in Hollywood ESPECIALLY a period piece epic, this is the book you should read. Even if you’re not that interested in how a movie is made, it is STILL an interesting read as a tale of “Trials and Tribulations”.
By Any Means Necessary is not just a means to piggyback on brother Malcolm’s famous phrase, but it crystallizes exactly the mentality Mr. Lee had in mind when making this film. To me the narratives in this book were just as engrossing as the film itself.
PS: For the record the famous quote is-
"We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary. ” — Malcolm X, 1965
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My rating: 4 of 5 stars
‘Do the Right Thing’ is my FAVORITE “Spike Lee Joint”. Don’t know why it took me so long to get this book, but it did. Probably because I owned, and poured over all of the extras on the 2 Disc DVD. What more could I learn right? Turns out a lot more. Yes the DVD was very detailed, but much insight is to be gained in this book mostly curated from his journals while making this DTRT.
For most of all of his early films, Spike Lee published an accompanying book. This was also mostly before DVDs with all of their commentaries and extras. Even back then it seems that Mr. Lee knew that other filmmakers like me were interested not only in his films, but the stories behind them as well.
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