Clockers

Clockers is, without a doubt, the most underrated movie of all time. One of the few instances where the movie is just as good as the book, if not better. The movie is as perfect as a movie can be; not a bad line to be found, characters perfectly cast and 100% believable (I think I've seen a million kids like Scientific since I became a journalist in Baltimore), and a deep, thought provoking message. It's a movie that should be seen by every aspiring director, every inner city kid of promise, every inner city politician and homicide detective, and every citizen who is unaware of the problems that people like Strike, Tyrone, and Victor face every day. It is a documentary masquerading as a murder mystery, and because of that, I applaud Misters Price and Lee on this masterpiece of cinema and storytelling.

Spike Lee is an unfortunate instance of a very talented filmmaker who's obvious talent in craftsmanship doesn't come across in contemporary mainstream cinema because of issues having nothing to do with cinema itself. I realize that in becoming great at anything in one's life, other things have to suffer, and with him it seems, at least to me, that for everything he has undoubtedly accomplished in the filmic realm, it's created a type of 'idiot savant' (it's simply an existing term--I certainly don't mean it pejoratively)--that is, in social skills, at least pertaining to self-marketing, or getting across one's persona in the field, he is lacking--and it negatively impacts his cinema. And that's a dirty rotten shame, because this was a fine film. He and his excellent approach to cinema remind me of the Heisenberg principle and make me: a) wish Lee could find more happiness in his life, so that he can come across better, and thus have his personality not negatively influence cinephiles like me; and b) wonder, like in 'A Beautiful Mind', if he was happier and more pleasant, if it would negatively impact his filmmaking? 'Clockers' worked for me. Keitel was really on a roll when he worked in this, with 'Bad Lieutenant', 'Reservoir Dogs', 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Smoke' all around this time. It was certainly a great vintage for him, and a fine time to sample his acting.