Spike Lee is one of the most striking and aggressive voices in cinema today. He exploded into the film firmament in 1989 with the legitimately important Do the Right Thing – a film that many feared would incite riots – which would be nominated for two Oscars (for Supporting Actor and Screenwriting). Since then, despite having made other great, striking, probing, and deliberately provocative films like Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Get on the Bus, He Got Game, The 25th Hour, Bamboozled, and Red Hook Summer, Lee has only been nominated for one other Oscar, for his documentary 4 Little Girls.
When it comes to racial issues in America, Lee has never been one to be shy or subtle. In almost all of his joints, he looks at the way race has been handled in the modern idiom, and sees that there are still problems on a very fundamental and social level. Beyond that, Lee is equally unflinching about moral dilemmas, sex, tragedies, and ethically sticky two-way streets.
Check Out: Crave’s Review of Red Hook Summer
At the next Academy Awards, as announced in USA Today, Lee will be awarded an Honorary Oscar, which are given “to honor extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement, exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences, or for outstanding service.” Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs made a statement that Lee and his films are vital and important for future generations.
Hear hear.
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
