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Recently Released In Theaters Reviews
Public Enemies Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs The Hurt Locker Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen The Proposal Year One Whatever Works Dead Snow The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 Away We Go The Hangover Land of the Lost Up Drag Me to Hell Night at the Museum Battle of the Smithsonian Recently Added Spotlights Paul Rudd Jason Segel Nicolas Cage Rose Byrne Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore Jared Padalecki Amanda Righetti Clive Owen Naomi Watts Joaquin Phoenix Steve Martin Renee Zellweger Liam Neeson Maggie Grace Dustin Hoffman |
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 Spike Lee
Interview By: Benjamin Lee Without doubt the most influential African-American director of our time, Spike Lee is best known for his racially charged dramas, known as ‘Spike Lee joints’. But for his new film, When the Levees Broke, released on DVD this month, the drama is all frighteningly real. When the Levees Broke is a harrowing documentary which details the tragedy that befell the residents of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit last year. It’s a controversial film, which tackles not only the victims but also the alleged perpetrators. Lee, who has recently appeared on TV to defend his views, puts forward the idea that the Republican Government were to blame for the levees breaking. The documentary is also damning of the poor response the Government had. Lee is sure that had things been different politically, the tragedy would have been diminished. ‘I think if someone else was in office it would not have taken five days for the federal Government to show up’ Lee believes, ‘It would not have taken that president twelve days to set foot in the mud in New Orleans.’ What Lee is pleased with, is the recent election results. ‘I think that the American public have finally seemed to have stopped falling for the “okey-doke’ and the rigmarole of the Republican regime.’ When it comes to addressing the problem as it is, Lee is glum about the current state of affairs. ‘People are still in distress’ he states, ‘All this money that Bush has talked about and promised, no one has seen’. Lee does stress the important effect that the documentary has had on the general public. ‘A lot of people have told me personally that they saw the stuff in the news but they didn’t know the magnitude of what’s been happening in New Orleans’, he expresses. But he also states that the likeliness of a political effect is slim. ‘I don’t think that there’s anything I can do to push the United States Government.’ The documentary takes a brave stance and dares to voice many of the theories people believe concerning the Republican Government at the time of Katrina. It’s especially daring considering that Spike Lee works within an industry, traditionally run by Republicans. When asked if he’s had any negative feedback from his peers, Lee answers ‘not me personally’. But he claims he did have one voice of dissent amongst the viewers. ‘There was the TV critic from the New Orleans Times’ Lee recalls, ‘And his complaint was that it only told the African-American side of the story but last time I looked New Orleans was a predominantly African-American city. But I think that many people are represented in the film, black and white.’ Despite the powerful content, it’s a documentary which hasn’t caused any form of political revolution or increase in aid toward the South. ‘I’m not happy that nothing has come out of it but the film stands as a document alone’ Lee expresses, ‘We did our part and ... |
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