That was an excellent one.

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Excellent adaptation.

Blistering performances.

What blows me away the most about BlacKkKlansman was its ability to profitably blend such a serious and calamitous subject with an appropriate amount of comedy. Only a long-in-the-business, cinematic master like Spike Lee could pull off such a trick, and he does it without complication. It's also refreshing to see that Spike Lee avoids stereotypes even when depicting some of the more unpleasant and nefarious characters/groups, allowing the film to feel less biased and more grounded in reality with various angles interweaving. BlacKkKlansman contains one of the most hard-hitting, politically dynamic screenplays (right next to Blindspotting) of the year that had me infatuated with revelation. It certainly is one of Spike Lee's best joints in years, maybe even decades. (Verdict: A-)

Blackkklansman strongly depicts what was and still is wrong with america and the ideologies many still believe in.

You watch too many movies and have act plots memorized, know every cinematography bullet they teach in college, and got an idea for how audio should be mixed? Yeah, well, this movie breaks all of that and it is such a breath of fresh air. The cinematography is dramatic, but not distracting, it's artsy without alienating the not-artsy crowd (I usually hate artsy movies), the audio mixing is level except when it it counts the most. Without spoiling, there are times a telephone rings way louder than the rest of the movie, and there's a spot where the audio becomes gradually louder and more chatoic, but you don't notice until it suddenly drops absolutely dead quiet. This movie does such an amazing job setting mood that the theater was absolutely stunned at the end. It's damn easy to follow if you're the average movie goer, but breaks a lot of conventions that'd get a sigh from a critic. I take pride in that I know how much runtime is left in a movie based on what textbook bullet point on a three or two act structure the movie is on, but because this movie didn't restrain itself to a textbook, it flows so nicely, I had no idea when the movie was gonna end, and yet I was still stunned when it did.

My Movietown companion Cole is a Spike Lee fanatic. Not only has he seen all the venerable director's major motion pictures, he's also seen his stand-up films, documentaries, and specials, rarely giving any of them less than a stellar review. Therefore, I usually defer to him when it comes to Lee joints. However, for whatever it's worth, coming from a Spike Lee noob like myself, BlacKkKlansman is a bonafide masterpiece that will remind anyone who needs it that Lee is a certified genius of kinetic and alarming filmmaking. Telling the 70's story of a black cop who goes undercover to infiltrate the KKK, it seems to be a perfect fit for Lee's prolific 30-year career. It's a ridiculous story used to make a point about the black experience in America, bolstered by the fact that it all actually happened. The mixture of hyper-blaxploitation-style, insane reality and deft comedy begs comparisons to late-20th century classics like Goodfellas, not to mention the endless number of memorable scenes, bold performances, and strong language. Undercover cop lie detector scene? Tensely paced. Alec Baldwin racist-speech opening? Striking and uncomfortably funny. Black College Society speech? Movingly edited and uniquely beautiful. It holds together (with shocking and appreciated entertainment value) to show the dangerously powerful influence of popular media on personal beliefs and the complex nature of systemic racism. Never one to hide his point, Lee draws straight, dark lines from this story to our modern political world, which will inevitably split attentive audiences down the middle; but regardless of individual leanings, there's no denying that BlacKkKlansman is a stressful, sobering and powerful true-life good-time.