Rising Celebrity: Spike Lee

Showing posts with label Spike Lee. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Spike Lee Returning To "Mookie"

Spike Lee is reprising his 'Mookie' character--the pizza delivery man at the center of Lee's epic 1989 film Do the Right Thing--in a new film called Red Hook Summer that has already begun production.

Do the Right Thing is arguably Spike's most acclaimed film and featured Public Enemy's classic anthem "Fight the Power."

Described as a story about an "adult from Atlanta who comes to spend the summer in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, NY," the film was announced by Lee via Twitter.

“Wake Up. I been up since 430am. On the way to the set of THE NEW SPIKE LEE JOINT.Today is 1st Day of Shooting. Awwwwwwwwwwww Sheeeeeeeeeeeeet.”

Lee has also been announced as director of an upcoming remake of the famous South Korean film Oldboy.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Clifton Powell Blasts Spike Lee

Veteran actor Clifton Powell had some harsh words for director Spike Lee. While being interviewed on The Russ Parr Show, Powell blasted Lee's criticisms of director Tyler Perry, and Lee's hiring practices.

"I don’t like Spike, for real," Powell said during the interview. "I’m just saying it publicly on the radio. Spike is a hater. He was doing all these movies, Sam and all these guys know he’s a hater. He kept all the money, there was lawsuits against him.[...]I’m from the streets and you gotta carry your people. We talk about what “The Man” does; Spike need to go sit his punk a– down, and stop talking about Tyler Perry."

"Tyler Perry was homeless about 10, 12 years ago and Spike wasn’t writing him no checks," he added. "I think it’s wrong, and I shouldn’t do this, but I don’t like Spike Lee because I don’t like his politics as it pertains to how he deals with African Americans. I’ve auditioned for Spike several times, he kept all of us waiting for hours. It was insulting. He’s made people fly across country, pay for themselves and come to auditions. Spike is the worst, and he needs to go sit his punk a** down. If you got a problem with it, Spike, I’m right here and I’ll beat your punk a**."

"He has never hired me," Powell continued. "I don’t really care, because I would never want to work with him.[...]Tyler has found his genre. The problem with being African-American in film as a producer, you have to be so worried about stepping on toes. We have just a few outlets in terms of the dimensions we are as a people. [...]We zero in because there are not enough dimensions of what we do.”

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Tyler Perry: "Spike Lee Can Go To Hell"

Tyler Perry finally had enough of Spike Lee taking potshots at him. The directors have never seen eye-to-eye, and Lee has gone so far as to call Perry's work 'coonery.' Tyler finally fired back in a round of media interviews for Madea's Big Happy Family.

“I’m so sick of hearing about damn Spike Lee. Spike can go straight to hell! I am sick of him talking about me. I am sick of him saying, ‘This is a coon, this is a buffoon.’ I am sick of him talking about black people going to see movies. This is what he said: ‘You vote by what you see’ — as if black people don’t know what they want to see."

“I am sick of him. He talked about Whoopi, he talked about Oprah, he talked about me, he talked about Clint Eastwood. Spike needs to shut the hell up!” Tyler added. “I don’t even understand it. There [are] so many people who walk around, and this is where the whole Spike Lee [issue] comes from — the negativity, ‘This is Stepin Fetchit,’ ‘This is coonery,’ ‘This is buffoonery’ — and they try to get people to get on this bandwagon with them, to get this mob mentality to come against what I’m doing.”