Quendrith Johnson

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent

Sometimes a listicle is better than a... review. Thought it was going to be a blue rhyme, didn't you? 

Spike Lee's new film for Netflix has many baffled, so without further ado, let's add some more blood in the water of discontent.

The June 12 release has been dubbed a visionary essay, a visual screed, even a disjointed "joint" from this legendary auteur. However?  

No matter how many mechanical issues one can find with the cinema pastiche of styles and genres in DA 5 BLOODS, it is a film for our times like no other. 

And we have 5 reasons to recommend it for you...

by Screenmancer Staff

You’re going to watch Netflix’s presentation of Spike Lee’s New Joint DA 5 BLOODS. which was released on June 12, right? So here’s the Top 5 Things you should know beforehand.

Number one?

Spike Lee knows more than you do about filmmaking so don’t bitch about the kooky structure, the Jurassic Park music, ages of the Bloods in flashback, a 1948 Treasure of the Sierra Madre Bogart feel via 1951's The African Queen, or especially the break-the-fourth-wall polemics of Delroy Lindo.

Spike Lee, DA 5 BLOODS set - courtesy NETFLIX 

What you should do as a viewer? Send Oscar Nom vibes for Lindo. Go ahead, ask why.

Never mind. Just scan this list.

Read on...

TOP FIVE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE YOU SEE “DA 5 BLOODS”

5. You get Angela Davis, Kent State, MLK, pre-woke race riot, and other historic footage that is da b0mb, though a different kind of incendiary device.

4. Since you likely missed Spike Lee’s Joint MALCOLM X, you gotta watch that for West Indian Archie Lindo to contrast DA 5 BLOODS Delroy Lindo. (Hint? Oscar nom.)

3. CHI-RAQ (2015) would have prepared you for #BLM 2020, George Floyd, though you and everyone else gave it a miss - so now, see CHI-RAQ ASAP Rocky. (Note actual mothers of Chicago street gang dead on film, hence 2.0 version of real/unreal used in DA 5 BLOODS).

2. #BLM t-shirts and chants at the end of DA 5 BLOODS, BAM! Hashtag? Prophetic.

1. ‘Gun-violence epidemic’ film CHI-RAQ called attention to the problem to stave off a powder keg, though now DA 5 BLOODS, which is actually 10 movies in one (be patient), tries to contextualize the apocalypse (now), foreshadowed in Chicago’s apocalypse then.

SPIKE LEE INVITES YOU TO HIS NEW JOINT - “DA 5 BLOODS” (Netflix)

*BONUS: MLK’s assassination during the Bloods tour in Vietnam is a glimpse rarely seen of the “Charlie Don’t Surf” clichés made popular by Kubrick. 

Watch it here and sign up for wiki fandom here.

CAST: Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock Jr. Chadwick Boseman, Mélanie Thierry, Paul Walter Hauser, Johnny Nguyen, Jasper Paakonen, Y. Lan, Lam Nguyen, Sandy Huong Pham with Jean Reno.

A SPIKE LEE JOINT

Presented by NETFLIX

Written by:

Peace Out.

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