Do you remember the 2004 TV film “Sucker Free City?” Probably not. Despite being directed by Spike Lee, the film debuted with very little fanfare. But it did have a hell of a cast, including now-Captain America Anthony Mackie. And according to the actor, the project was set to be Showtime’s attempt to mirror one of HBO’s best series.

Speaking on Variety’s Actors on Actors, Anthony Mackie talked about how his career was supposed to take off 20 years ago when “Sucker Free City” was released.

Continue reading Anthony Mackie Talks Being Part Of Forgotten Spike Lee Project ‘Sucker Free City’: “All The Wheels Fell Off” at The Playlist.

Coming off his recent Best Actor nomination for “American Fiction,” Jeffrey Wright has landed a high-profile part opposite Denzel Washington and Ilfenesh Hadera (“Billions“) in Spike Lee‘s (“Da 5 Bloods“) “High & Low,” according to a report from THR. The ransom thriller is a remake of the acclaimed Akira Kurosawa film from 1963.

Continue reading ‘High & Low’: Jeffrey Wright Joins Denzel Washington In Spike Lee’s Remake Of Akira Kurosawa Ransom Thriller at The Playlist.

18 years after their last collaboration, director Spike Lee and Denzel Washington, one of the legendary filmmaker/lead actor duos, are teaming up again. This time, it’s for a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s classic crime thriller, the 1963 Japanese police procedural crime “High And Low,” which originally starred Toshiro Mifune.

READ MORE: Spike Lee Tells Bradley Cooper Says Denzel Washington Is “Done” Directing In New 46 Minute Filmmaker Talk

The project Apple Original Films announced the project today in collaboration with A24.

Continue reading Spike Lee & Denzel Washington Reteam On Remake Of Akira Kurosawa’s Kidnapping Classic ‘High And Low’ at The Playlist.

Two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington is clearly one of our finest actors (he’s been nominated ten times in total for various Best Acting and Best Supporting Actor turns). The actor, who has worked with many of the greats, Spike Lee, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Jonathan Demme, etc. is also a very fine director. Washington has directed four feature-length efforts, “Antoine Fisher” (2002), “The Great Debaters” (2007), the critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated “Fences”—arguably his biggest of all of them, nominated for Best Picture and winning Viola Davis the award for Best Supporting Actress—(2016) and “A Journal With Jordan,” a movie that kind of came and went in 2021.

Continue reading Spike Lee Tells Bradley Cooper Says Denzel Washington Is “Done” Directing In New 46 Minute Filmmaker Talk at The Playlist.

As awards season approaches, many consider “Oppenheimer” a frontrunner for all kinds of awards. But while Christopher Nolan and his film will undoubtedly be in the running for Best Picture and Best Director at the Oscars, the director is ready to leave the film behind. In a new interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, Nolan expressed that while he appreciate the film’s success, he wants to “move on” from the “very dark” and “nihilistic” tones of “Oppenheimer.”

READ MORE: ‘Oppenheimer’ Review: Christopher Nolan Majestically Turns The Manhattan Project Into American Myth

“I definitely– part of me wants to leave the story behind,” Nolan told the outlet.

Continue reading Christopher Nolan Says He’s “Quite Keen To Move On” From ‘Oppenheimer,’ Responds To Spike Lee’s Take On His Film at The Playlist.

Spike Lee has always been a filmmaker who is willing to critique other people’s art. And when you’re Christopher Nolan and you released one of the biggest films of 2023, you can expect everyone to have an opinion. So, it makes sense that the outspoken Lee would have something to say about “Oppenheimer.”

READ MORE: Paul Thomas Anderson Applauds ‘Oppenheimer’ & Its Massive Box Office: “I Would Call This Nature’s Way Of Healing”

In a new interview with the Washington Post, Spike Lee talked about Christopher Nolan’s massively popular (both critically and commercially) film, “Oppenheimer.” And though he has great things to say about the film, there is one bit of criticism he feels is warranted, given the subject of the film and its run-time.

Continue reading Spike Lee Loved ‘Oppenheimer’ But Thinks Nolan Should Have Added “Some More Minutes” To Discuss The Bombings Of Japan at The Playlist.

Over the weekend, iconic director Spike Lee was at the Toronto International Film Festival to accept the Ebert Director Award, which is given out at TIFF’s Tribute Awards. And as you might expect from someone like Lee, who is not prone to biting his tongue, the opportunity to accept an award named after Roger Ebert allowed for the filmmaker to recall a pivotal moment in his career that was greatly affected by the legendary film critic.

Continue reading Spike Lee Remembers How Critics Claimed ‘Do The Right Thing’ Would Incite Riots While Accepting His TIFF Tribute Award at The Playlist.

It’s still unclear if a large contingent of actors will make their way to all the fall festivals this year due to the SAG strike, but the Toronto International Film Festival is confidently moving forward with its annual Tribute Awards. Recently added to the annual TIFF programming mix, the Tribute Awards honor not just actors (Michelle Yeoh was a recipient in 2022), but writers (who also may not be at TIFF due to their own strike), directors (who are available after a deal with the AMPTP), and other film industry contributors.

Continue reading Spike Lee & Pedro Almodóvar Set As TIFF Tribute Awards Honorees at The Playlist.

Jonathan Majors is on top of the world right now. Not only did he end 2022 with the acclaimed war film, “Devotion,” but his 2023 has gone better than expected. Not only did his performance as Kang the Conquerer wow audiences in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” but his newest film, “Creed III” exceeded all expectations and earned more than $100 million worldwide in its opening weekend.

Continue reading ‘Da Understudy’: Jonathan Majors To Star In Upcoming Spike Lee Film at The Playlist.

It seems to always be the case that Hollywood will seek out the biggest international hits and remake them for English-speaking audiences. Sometimes, such as in the case of “The Departed,” the remake is pretty great. However, most of the time, the English-language version is a poor copy of the original. Many would say Spike Lee’s 2013 remake of Park Chan-wook’s 2003 hit, “Oldboy,” falls in the latter category.

Continue reading Park Chan-Wook Says Watching Spike Lee’s ‘Oldboy’ Remake Left Him With A “Very Curious Feeling” at The Playlist.

Every Tuesday, discriminating viewers are confronted with a flurry of choices: new releases on disc and on-demand, vintage and original movies on any number of streaming platforms, and catalog titles making a splash on Blu-ray or 4K. This twice-monthly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching.

This week’s disc and streaming guide includes Oscar winners, Oscar nominees, a box set from one of the most respected distributors of our time, and a box set from one of the most disreputable filmmakers of her time. 

PICK OF THE WEEK: 

“Sony Pictures Classics 30th Anniversary 4K Ultra HD Collection”: As 4K UHD Blu-ray release slates broaden, studios are increasingly moving past the obvious titles, the bombastic show-off blockbusters and cult favorites, into more esoteric territory.

Continue reading The Best Movies To Buy Or Stream This Week: ‘Malcolm X,’ ‘WALL-E’ & Sony Pictures Classics At 30 at The Playlist.

Spike Lee may have a multiyear film deal with Netflix lined up since last December, but his next project will be with Amazon Studios. Deadline reports Lee will direct and co-serve as executive producer on an upcoming coming-of-age ROTC drama for Amazon. And while the project currently has no title, its story is steeped in real-life experience.   

READ MORE: Spike Lee To Direct A Docuseries About The Life & Career Of Colin Kaepernick

Writers Jalysa Conway and Rebecca Murga co-pen the script inspired by their experiences in the military.

Continue reading Spike Lee To Direct & Executive Produce Coming-Of-Age ROTC Drama For Amazon Studios at The Playlist.

Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage (“Leaving Las Vegas“) is having an overdue career resurgence thanks to recent films such as the psychedelic revenge picture “Mandy” and the performance-focused “Pig.” The actor has previously revealed that he’s out of debt and ready to make a big Hollywood return.

Cage’s hopes for the future were on full display during a recent Reddit AMA as the actor, who doesn’t have an online presence or social media accounts, answered various fan questions.

Continue reading Nicolas Cage On His Directors Wishlist: Working With Christopher Nolan, Ari Aster, Robert Eggers & Spike Lee at The Playlist.

Over his long career, Spike Lee has always jumped back and forth between documentaries and narrative features. It seems as if the filmmaker doesn’t necessarily think about what people expect from him and just does what he wants. That probably comes from being one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of the past four decades. Regardless, his next project seems to be a new docuseries about the controversial sports figure/activist, Colin Kaepernick. 

Continue reading Spike Lee To Direct A Docuseries About The Life & Career Of Colin Kaepernick at The Playlist.

Film fans are notoriously hard to shop for: hoarders by nature, obnoxiously opinionated, and weirdly unpredictable in our tastes. But the good news is, there are so many options for the movie lover on your gift list – so many must-have box sets, 4K discs, deep-dive books, and other essentials – that only the rich ones (and seriously, how many rich movie nerds do you know) could possibly have them all, already.

Continue reading The Playlist’s 2021 Holiday Gift Guide at The Playlist.

Next month marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and Spike Lee‘s HBO docu-series “NYC Epicenters 9/11-2021½” landed itself in hot water after it was revealed episodes featured conspiracy theories on the Twin Towers and what “really took down the buildings.”

READ MORE: Facing Rising Pressure & Criticism, Spike Lee Is Recutting 4th Episode Of ‘NYC Epicenters’ That Gives The Spotlight To 9/11 Truthers

While three of four episodes were given to the press initially for review, it wasn’t until the fourth and final episode appears in HBO’s screening portal that some journalists notice the doc devoted 30 minutes to debating how the Twin Towers fell and giving airtime to several members of the conspiracy group Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

Continue reading Spike Lee Completely Removes 9/11 Conspiracy Theories From HBO’s ‘NYC Epicenters’ Doc Series Following Outrage at The Playlist.

God bless, Spike Lee, seriously. And 3/4ths of this “‘NYC Epicenters 9/11➔2021½’” HBO documentary is pretty incredible. Though, in the words of Lee himself, one smells some troubling skullduggery and bamboozling. “NYC Epicenters” is a tribute to New York’s resilience and looks at the way New York has been a target over the years (9/11, the World Trade Center bombing in 1993), and epicenter to much pain and suffering (the COVID-19 pandemic that rocked New York in the Spring of 2020 and how the Black Lives Matters protest inflamed from that event).

Continue reading Facing Rising Pressure & Criticism, Spike Lee Is Recutting 4th Episode Of ‘NYC Epicenters’ That Gives The Spotlight To 9/11 Truthers at The Playlist.

Nobody loves New York like filmmaker Spike Lee, obviously. We know this because of his many, many films so intrinsically tethered to New York City, Da People’s Republic of Brooklyn, and the five boroughs, his many photo ops courtside at home team NBA games, and his larger than life presence in Fort Greene (arguably kind of quiet, actually, but his vibrant 40 Acres & A Mule HQ is hard to miss). We also know that because Lee has to ask seemingly every one of the over 200 interview subjects of his new four-part doc series, “NYC Epicenters: 9/11→2021½,” about their allegiance to the Knicks or the Yankees and whether or not someone is a Red Sox fan (the series begins airing this weekend on HBO, Sunday, August 22, and then ends, fittingly enough, with the final episode on September 11, 2021, on the 20th anniversary of the fateful day).

Continue reading ‘NYC Epicenters: 9/11→2021½’: Spike Lee Pays Tribute To New York Resilience In Poignant HBO Doc Series [Review] at The Playlist.

The prodigious Spike Lee doesn’t sleep. Following the one-two punch of back-to-back hit films in 2020—”Da 5 Bloods” and the live-concert doc, “David Byrne’s American Utopia“—Lee is back yet again and with a pretty monstrous project. The four-episode, 8-hour doc series for HBO and HBO Max, “NYC Epicenters 9/11➔2021½,” is epic and vast in the same manner as some of Lee’s previous docs series like the Oscar-nominated “4 Little Girls,” and the Emmy and Peabody-award winning “When The Levees Broke,” and “If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise.” A sprawling cultural doc about the various horrors New York and New Yorkers have had to endure, 9/11, the COVID-19 epicenter pandemic outbreak of 2020, the Black Lives Matter protest of last summer and more, ‘NYC Epicenters’ is a major look at the way, New York often receives the brunt of calamities in America and how New Yorkers always show great resilience in the face of it.

Continue reading ‘NYC Epicenters 9/11➔2021½’ Trailer: Spike Lee’s New 4-Part Doc Reflects On Decades Of New York Resilience at The Playlist.

Spike Lee is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers in the world. Still, some of his best work, his profound and solemn humanist documentaries, are relatively unsung next to his more flashy narrative works, comparatively at least. Docs like “4 Little Girls,” and HBO’s Katrina docs “When the Levees Broke,” and “If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise,” have been lauded the world over (“4 Little Girls” was nominated for an Oscar and the HBO docs are Emmy and Peabody award winners) but never quite get their due in the same manner and they really should.

Continue reading Spike Lee’s New 4-Part Doc ‘NYC Epicenters 9/11➔2021½’ Debuts August 22 ON HBO at The Playlist.

Spike Lee has never been one to shy away from directing and appearing in a commercial. Back in the ‘80s, you had Lee show up with Michael Jordan to direct the iconic black and white commercials for Nike. At the time, a Black filmmaker directing and appearing in a commercial with a Black athlete was seen as revolutionary. But in 2021, it appears Lee is ready to put his name and legacy behind another cause—cryptocurrency.

Continue reading Spike Lee Directs New Cryptocurrency Ad & Says “Old Money Is Out. New Money Is In.” at The Playlist.

CANNES – A celebratory press conference for Spike Lee and the 2021 Cannes Film Festival jury took a decidedly serious turn quicker than anyone might have expected. After jury members, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Tahir Rahim, and filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho admitted this was the first time they will have seen a movie in a theater in 15 months, a Georgian journalist used her moment at the microphone to give an impassioned plea for the world to pay attention to the crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights in her country.

Continue reading Spike Lee & Cannes Jury Tackle Georgian Activist Crackdowns & Women Directors at The Playlist.

To understand the reception to Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever” when it hit theaters 30 years ago, it’s important to understand the evolution of Lee himself – not just as a filmmaker, but as a public figure. When he burst onto the scene five years earlier with his debut picture, “She’s Gotta Have It,” he was dubbed, by more than one publication, “the Black Woody Allen.” It was a reductive label, to be sure (and these days, an insulting one), but it wasn’t a complete stretch; it was based on one film, and that was a black-and-white, jazz-scored, New York-set picture with a keen interest in the male/female dynamic.

Continue reading Spike Lee’s ‘Jungle Fever’: A Jigsaw Puzzle Of Lives, Races, & Boroughs That Might His Most Underrated Film [Anniversary Appreciation] at The Playlist.

It is truly beginning to feel like we’re in a time loop. It was only a year ago when the Cannes Film Festival announced that Spike Lee would be the Jury President for the film festival. Of course, that event was canceled due to the pandemic. Now, a year later, Cannes once again announced Spike Lee is the Jury President, and the event is just as confident as ever that the festival will begin this July.

Continue reading Spike Lee Named Jury President For The Cannes Film Festival… Again at The Playlist.

Fresh off the successful debut of his recent concert film, “David Byrne’s American Utopia,” it appears Spike Lee is ready to keep his relationship with HBO going strong with another project, a new docuseries focused on New York City and the events of the past 20 years, “NYC Epicenters 9/11→2021½.”

READ MORE: Delroy Lindo Revisits ‘Da 5 Bloods’ & Chadwick Boseman’s First Day On Set [Interview]

According to HBO, production has already begun on Spike Lee’s next documentary project, “NYC Epicenters 9/11→2021½.” The docuseries is set to take a look at New York City and how the location has risen from a variety of issues dating back from the 9/11 attacks back in 2001 to the most recent COVID-19 pandemic that is still causing problems.

Continue reading ‘NYC Epicenters 9/11→2021½’: Spike Lee To Direct A New Docuseries For HBO at The Playlist.