Red Hook Summer (2012)

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.

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.

A middle-class boy from Atlanta is forced to spend the summer with his deeply religious grandfather in a poor housing project in Red Hook, Brooklyn.Spike Lee wrote and directed this boring tale. This rambling tale gets very tiresome. Did Spike Lee turn anti-religion? The story turns even uglier with a twist that comes out of nowhere. I'm uncertain about what is happening to Spike Lee. After great successes in the 90s and the 2000s, is he on the road to big time experimentation? What is going on? I don't get it. This movie is a mess. Maybe it's some kind of personal project. But even then, I'd expect more skills than he's showing here.

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.