I Guess I Like Spike (Sometimes)

I'll admit straight off that I greatly dislike a lot of things about Spike Lee. I find his movies overrated, his messages are typically too heavy-handed, his directorial signature shots are sloppy, and in many of his interviews he comes across as incredibly pretentious and uncomfortably militant. C'mon Spike, you call your movies "joints" but you still want to be taken seriously? I'll give you the hatred of Tyler Perry though. Anyone who has made a fortune off of unoriginal and creatively bankrupt attempts at "humor", be they black (Tyler Perry) or white (Seth MacFarlane), don't deserve the admiration they get. I know I'm not qualified to chastise Perry as a representative of the African-American community, but I still know the guy isn't funny. All of this aside, Malcolm X is one of the best movies I've ever seen and without a doubt Lee's best work.

It's weird that I can disagree with almost everything another human being does or says, but respect this single item from his body of work so much. There are probably other examples, but none so obvious. Maybe Tim Allen and Galaxy Quest, but for some reason I watched a lot of Home Improvement anyway so I must have liked something about him.

The opposite would probably be Hugo Weaving and Amanda Bynes. I have seen pretty much everything both have done, and always loved their performances, but I would be stupid if I pretended that Lovewrecked or Transformers 2 were watchable. Damnit, I don't even like Lord of the Rings all that much but he was still fantastic.

Deep down I guess I feel guilty for disliking Spike Lee considering I like Malcolm X so much. I'm not sure why, I love Martin Scorsese but hated Age of Innocence and kept falling asleep during Raging Bull. I suppose you just got to remember that they're real people and it's not an all or nothing thing. After all, James Cameron consistently delivers in my books but Avatar was still boring as hell.