What a fantastic debut. Spike Lee is one of my favorite filmmakers and since he has a new movie coming out, I thought I’d do a deep dive into his filmography. Unfortunately, Highest 2 Lowest is only getting a limited theatrical release so I will have to wait until it hits streaming on September 5. My Spike Lee marathon might be a little premature, but I was really eager to start watching more of his stuff. Anyway, She’s Gotta Have It is pretty damn good. The first thing that really grabbed my attention was the black and white cinematography, it’s gorgeous. By the way, the one scene in color is brilliant for obvious reasons. The main quartet of actors are brilliant as well. Nola Darling is a fabulous character who has an apartment that we are ALL jealous of. I’m really glad with the decision she ultimately made, all of those men were pretty shitty. I expected more from Jamie. I was shocked at first that Nola wanted to be with Jamie and only Jamie, especially after what he did to her, but that ending was great. Who are those guys to decide what’s best for her or whose best for her? Like she said, “It’s really about control, my body, my mind. Who was going to own it? Them? Or me?”. Now this is far from being Spike Lee’s best work, but it’s still a good movie and it’s his first one no less. One of my favorite things about it is the dialogue. I also love Mars and I really loved the dancing scene. Overall, there are some rather difficult parts of this to sit through, but it has some good ideas and some of the sex scenes early on portray the human body in very beautiful ways that reminded me of moments from Do the Right Thing. It’s crazy to think Spike Lee made that only three years after this.
What a fantastic debut. Spike Lee is one of my favorite filmmakers and since he has a new movie coming out, I thought I’d do a deep dive into his filmography. Unfortunately, Highest 2 Lowest is only getting a limited theatrical release so I will have to wait until it hits streaming on September 5. My Spike Lee marathon might be a little premature, but I was really eager to start watching more of his stuff. Anyway, She’s Gotta Have It is pretty damn good. The first thing that really grabbed my attention was the black and white cinematography, it’s gorgeous. By the way, the one scene in color is brilliant for obvious reasons. The main quartet of actors are brilliant as well. Nola Darling is a fabulous character who has an apartment that we are ALL jealous of. I’m really glad with the decision she ultimately made, all of those men were pretty shitty. I expected more from Jamie. I was shocked at first that Nola wanted to be with Jamie and only Jamie, especially after what he did to her, but that ending was great. Who are those guys to decide what’s best for her or whose best for her? Like she said, “It’s really about control, my body, my mind. Who was going to own it? Them? Or me?”. Now this is far from being Spike Lee’s best work, but it’s still a good movie and it’s his first one no less. One of my favorite things about it is the dialogue. I also love Mars and I really loved the dancing scene. Overall, there are some rather difficult parts of this to sit through, but it has some good ideas and some of the sex scenes early on portray the human body in very beautiful ways that reminded me of moments from Do the Right Thing. It’s crazy to think Spike Lee made that only three years after this.
