Who said they weren’t allowed? No one in this thread that I can tell. To turn it around, are you saying that people in this thread aren’t allowed to disagree with the opinions of artists about other art?
The problem is, he made it into some kind of temper tantrum by, you know, having a temper tantrum.
No, that doesn’t mean his opinion of the film is not valid. But I think he is well-known and respected enough that he could have spoken about it calmly the next day and been taken much more seriously than his take-my-ball-and-go-home moment.
By the way, I’m not going to say “I didn’t see the film, but…” I didn’t see the film. And that makes anything I might say about the film itself irrelevant. I’m criticizing the way Spike Lee chose to voice his displeasure, which is not the same thing as defending the film.
Tell that to Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.
Spike Lee was going to shut down the Oscars entirely?
Or do you just not really get what “take his ball and go home” means?
At any rate, I at least appreciate the irony of complaining that someone’s being too dramatic at the Oscars.
Well, the film made dealing with the Jim Crow South all about the visiting white guy. For Og’s sake, a movie about suffering from racism won the Mahershala Ali a Best Supporting Actor award.
For one thing, there’s Wheelz, who keeps calling it a temper tantrum.
But, probably more importantly, the OP of the very thread you are reading.
Both are taking an act of protest and presenting it as a childish reaction in an effort delegitimize it.
The rest of us don’t all necessarily agree with Lee (many of us haven’t seen the movie), but we think it’s perfectly fine that he has this opinion and expressed it.
Nope.
I think he made himself look bad and detracted from whatever point he was trying to make. But I never said he wasn’t* allowed *to do anything.
I completely disagree that the film was all about the white guy. Also, and this is an honest question while I’m in the middle of typing this; was Viggo Mortensen nominated for male lead? Because that would be quite tacky, if for no other reason that MA’s part was more substantial and he outacted VM.
I liked the movie on a certain level but also got a sense of “well, isn’t this a nice black / white love/ hate redemption movie”. Had I not seen it alone, I would have immediately said out loud "now I understand why people had a problem with Crash (although I loved that movie).
So, I think the award for Best Picture had all kinds of agenda behind it but I also think SL acted like a tool. Note, I’m not saying he’s thinking like one.
Green Book was the only Best Picture nominee that I saw, mostly because MoviePass pretty much closed up shop so I have curtailed my movie-going. I thought it was great. Now, I’m a white 40-ish woman, so I probably came out of it with a different set of feelings than people in other demographics. But I didn’t see Tony Lip as being a ‘White Savior’ by any means. I also didn’t see Dr. Shirley as being the ‘Magical Negro’. It was, to me, more of an odd couple movie set in the Jim Crow south. Dr. Shirley was particular, and cultured. Tony Lip was a slob, and uneducated. Dr. Shirley helped Tony Lip to not be a boor, and Tony Lip helped Dr. Shirley get out of physically threatening spots.
Dr. Shirley’s family…well, I’m just not 100 percent sure how much to believe them. First, they have come out denying that they know anything about Dr. Shirley being bisexual or gay. It’s a real possibility that, if Dr. Shirley was bisexual or gay, that he would have been estranged from his family for some given period of time. His father was a preacher, it was Jim Crow era, and my understanding is that it has always been much harder to be a black gay man than any other race or nationality. The family has also said that Dr. Shirley would never have had a friendship with Tony Lip, as he would have kept things on an employer/employee level at all times. But, there is audio documentation of Dr. Shirley saying just the opposite.
I think the truth is somewhat in the middle. I think that the script was written from Tony Lip’s perspective, and I think that the road trip meant a lot more to him than it did to Dr. Shirley. Dr. Shirley had seen the world, and Tony Lip had barely left NY. Just like many ‘average’ people exaggerate their encounters with celebrities, I have no doubt that this became a family legend that grew beyond itself. I also believe that the family thinks they know a lot more about Dr. Shirley than they really do.
It’s a nice movie, surprisingly funny at times, about one guy who became…not, I think, less racist. But much more likely to talk about how he has a black friend. At least, he would be able to acknowledge that not all black men are exactly the same, which was, IMHO, the extent of his growth in the movie.
Yes, he was.
Ditto.
This was a movie about the actual real life person Tony Vallelonga and one episode in his life. Co-written by Nick Vallelonga, Tony’s son. The story therefore naturally centers on Tony!
There is no question whatsoever that Mahershala Ali was playing the second lead.
How many times does this have to be repeated?
Apparently, to the Academy, racism is like a tree falling in the forest: If a black man is brutalized for the color of his skin and a sympathetic white man isn’t there to react, can a movie be made about it?
We all get that it’s “Tony Vallelonga’s story.” That’s precisely the problem. When Hollywood tries to do something about race, it’s always the story of the white guy. When they make a movie about the assassination of Medger Evers, they make Alec Baldwin the lead. When they make a movie about the first black regiment in the Civil War, they make Mathew Broderick the lead. And when they make a movie about the Green Book, they make Viggo Mortensen the lead. That doesn’t mean that any of those films, individually, were bad movies, and in an environment where there was a surplus of movies dealing with racism that actually centered black people in the narrative, they’d be fine. But those movies don’t get made, and on the rare occasions when they do get made, the Academy snubs them for shit like Driving Miss Daisy.
Your right, lHollywood really needs to explore the white man’s experience with Jim Crow, Lee needs to wait his turn, maybe in the next century we’ll explore black people’s experience with it. Lee was uppity.
If only Spike Lee knew someone in the movie industry maybe he could convince them to make movies about black people’s experiences and not have to criticize those who actually make good movies.
Green Book isn’t a good movie.
Psh. Lee is a millionaire complaining about a movie that made millions starring a millionaire. At an awards ceremony that is mostly millionaires presenting awards to other millionaires.
Millionaires don’t get to play the race card and it shouldnt be played for him.
I’d love to see you say this in a large room of black millionaires.
Right to their face every fucking time. Same with a room of white millionaires. Asian…Indian…Native…oh wait. Well…I wouldnt scream at Native millionaires.
Why not?