Red Hook Summer

Red Hook Summer

I normally hate every crappy movie that Spike Lee comes into contact with so I thought this one would be horrendous with me zoning out as well, but it was good. This film is about poor inner city people's blind faith in God and that life will still hit you in ways you could not imagine being religious or not. It also shows that even if you hide behind religion you can still be shown for what you truly are on the inside. Like everyone else is saying, the final act really brings it all together. I will admit some of the actors are not the absolute best, but some shine on their own so it isn't a big deal. Spike Lee is a racist so he won't use diversity in his films he will only hire African American actors so he didn't have as large of pool to choose from. The little girl's mother isn't very talented, but the little girl and boy did a great job and so did the grandfather.

The acting was horrible and the songs sucked. Also the story made no sense why did a well off mother send her vegan normal child to live with her poor God obsessed molester father who he never meet for a summer in the hood? It wasn't good It feels like they are trying to say something but the acting is so bad you can't feel it. Your better off talking to your grandmother and thinking about it your self because this is a confused moral with a movie made around it and it should be the opposite. We should be trying to understand the characters the reasons why they made there choices and the reasons why they think the way they do. The mother should of been shown at least once in the beginning to give some exposition on why she is leaving her son there or even why he never meet his grandfather and if it's because he is a molester then why did she send him there? The boy should of had more personality then just being a smart mouth that doesn't want to be there and I don't blame him. Also the scenes when they just talking, should be touching moments it just feels like they are reading out of a book. low budget or not this is horrible.

I can see why Spike Lee keeps succeeding in the face of so much critical negativity. This movie may not reflect your life, your upbringing or circumstances, it does however reflect an otherwise hidden existence that Spike Lee brought to life. Well done. Worth watching.

...Clarke Peters (Freemon from HBO's "The Wire") should get an Oscar nomination for this. His performance is at once over-the-top and understated as a Brooklyn pastor who seemingly is a righteous pillar of a community that continues to wane under material violence and generational malaise. However this 'man-of-black-jesus' is hiding a terrifying secret that lifts what is at first another half-cliché movie about coming-of-age into unexpected darker and deeper territory. It makes "Red Hook Summer" into a risky, uncomfortable film and a film quite necessary in this day and age when institutions will blanket even the sickest of monsters to save their own public rep (I won't get more specific, but the contemporary story I'm alluding to concerns a man who's last name rhymes with 'Sam Clusky'). Aside from Peters, the film is worth watching for the loving touches Spike Lee brings to the setting. The music (by Bruce Hornsby), design and photography perfectly capture Brooklyn in the summertime in the same way "Crooklyn" did. Although Lee's approach, which here resembles Cassavettes at times, will upset some due to the obvious shot-on-the-fly-digital look and the after-mentioned below-par performances of the child actors.

Don't even pay attention to the rating on this movie. It was good. Some might say the movie is not worth watching after the first few minutes, but I would challenge them to watch the movie a bit longer. This movie was very well written, it was classic Spike Lee style (but written better than some of his old movies), and it even had a surprise twist (which I won't divulge). This movie is not like one of those gospel stage plays or even some of the movies that you would find on Netflix. This is much better. A person needs to really give this movie the 2 hours it deserves and have a good time. It may make you cry (when the secret comes out), but this movie is not a waster. It certainly deserved a better rating than it received. Please give it a chance, and you will not be disappointed.

Just awful. Every shopworn ghetto cliché packed in. Woody Allen's movies were crap in the beginning, but then they got better. Lee's movies where wonderful in the beginning, but then they got crappier and crappier. When you first see this old Bible-toting fool you cringe and say to yourself, "Oh, God," don't tell me the movie is about him." And why a movie about some dumb kid? Why does Lee think dumb kids and old Bible- toting fools are something to make a movie about? This all goes back to a certain psychology that's infected the black community for ages -- our fascination with failure and stupidity. The first question that pops up is how can a mother be so stupid as to place a child with a grandfather who's obviously a failure and fool? The building the old fool lives in reeks with urine; everyone above 13 pushes drugs. The mother and kid are from Middle-class Atlanta. Why on earth does she take him out of middle-class Atlanta for a summer in drug and crime infected Red Hook? This reflects Lee's increasing disorientation about things. I mean, what kind of grandfather takes 14 or 15 year to see his grandkid? Such a dumb premise. I watched 10 minutes of it and wanted the $5 I spent on the bootleg copy back.

Gone are the days when Spike Lee "wants to shove blackness down the throats of white audiences" (the vein in which black filmmakers are viewed when they tell the truth in colors other than rose). Though his films are not seen,promoted or viewed with the same verve as his earlier work--like Malcolm X and Do The Right Thing--this has more to do with Hollywood politics more than a falling off in skill. In fact, Spike's finest work, in the eyes of this critic, have been his latest works including The 25th Hour, Chiraq.Old Boy and Miracle at St. Anna. Red Hook Summer fits comfortably into that pack, Like the aforementioned films, it is more emotion-focused rather than characterized by keen cinematography. It is thought-provoking, rather than a release of anger, as his critics typically accuse him of. The story centers on a teenage boy (Flik) and his relationship with his preacher grandfather,who hides a horrible secret. The subplot features his interaction with a young female friend--a "thing" centered more on curiosity than romance, and Flik's navigation of an unfamiliar hood far tougher than the one he comes from.. It is a compelling coming of age tale, featuring a wonderful performance by Toni Lysaith as Chazz, a girl unafraid to speak her mind and who is the only one who "gets" Flik. There is none of the syrupy, blossoming love that hamstrings so many other films, just exploration of the burgeoning friendship between two people, who in that simple process discover something different. I caught this via On Demand and was glad I took a chance on it. Spike deserves better than he gets, and having to fund films via kick starter is definitely sand kicked in the face of one of the great filmmakers, black or white, of this generation.

Just watched this on Netflix so this may be a bit outdated. Anyway, I was born and raised in Brooklyn and generally enjoy Spike Lee's movies. Yes, he can be a bit cliché in the messages but what Spike does best is give the viewer spectacular cinematography. I also watch mostly documentaries, and as someone who works in urban education I'm drawn to movies that are set in realistic environments. I'm also a huge fan of Clarke Peters since The Wire. With that said, I was excited to see the movie and expected to be impressed. Yeahhh...not so much! Here are my issues with this movie: I was highly disappointed in the main actors as their performances were often overly-dramatic and they delivered extremely stereotypical lines that, at times, made me roll my eyes or raise my eyebrows in a moment of sarcasm. When 'Chazz" pronounced "liked" as "likedd-edd-ed," I found that so unbelievable. Wasn't she supposed to be a girl who grew up in the church listening to sermons and proper English? Didn't make sense why she would sound so ignorant. She was overall very extra and inauthentic. "Flik's" character came across as whiny and unemotional as I was unmoved by his performance. The "thug", played by Nate Parker, was also unconvincing. Casting wise, the only plus was Clarke Peters (a real actor) who gave an emotionally charged performance. Also, the script was heavy on delivering subliminal messages about life for many individuals living in any urban or struggling area. While I happen to think there was validity in those messages, it started feeling redundant by the middle of the movie. Not to mention it took forty minutes into the movie before we got to the thick of the plot. Bottom line is, there was a decent movie hidden somewhere among all the preachy, whiny, and clichéd dialogue-- if you can stand the bad acting!