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She Hate Me
Other // R // July 28, 2004
List Price: Unknown
Dear Lord in Heaven...where to start? Spike Lee's newest picture, She Hate Me, feels like three or four films in one, each one as unintentionally hysterical, ridiculous, and desperately reaching as the other. Though Lee defenders will claim the film audacious and ballsy (and, as you will learn, it's certainly ballsy, in every sense of the term), Lee's scathing social and political commentary alone do not a good movie make.
Working with his large, over-extended canvas, the director is sooo all over the place, the film makes Bamboozled look like a tight little polemic (OK--I won't go that far.) Here, Lee attempts to not only explicate black men's sexual prowess but also lesbians, whistle blowing, AIDS, President George Bush, Enron, modern families, the Mafia, congressional hearings, and the Watergate Break-in. It's like a muddled college thesis about corporate and family values in America, laced with tons of crystal meth. As he zig and zags all over the place, we can't help but wonder if Lee truly thinks he's making a clear point. Did he just figure that if he threw tons o shit at the screen, then SOMETHING would stick? Well, the shit sticks--that's for sure.
Lee's hero is Jack Armstrong (Anthony Mackie), the 30-year-old black vice president of a pharmaceutical company working on a vaccine for the AIDS virus. They are on the verge of becoming the first company to market the vaccine, but when the FDA withholds approval, the company's genius researcher kills himself by diving head first into a NYC hot dog cart. When Jack looks at the scientist's files, he learns all kinds of dirty company secrets—from the typical shredded documents to false information and all kinds of data manipulation.
Well, he decides to be a "whistleblower" (a term used so much here you get sick of it—OK, we get it!) and after confronting his blonde-bitch bosses (Ellen Barkin and Woody Harrelson), he's fired. OK, so here we have a movie about a man who stands up to the system. What do you think will happen next? Uh…lesbians all over the city will want to bear his children? Yes! Jack's ex-fiancee Fatima (Kerry Washington—in a stiff bit of acting) drops by for a visit after she broke his heart into a million little pieces. Turns out she was a (Oh my GOODNESS!) lesbian and he had caught her in bed with her current squeeze, Alex (Dania Ramirez). Now, these hot, lipstick lesbian career women yearn for more in life—chiefly children—and they, as they say, "don't want to look for Gucci at Wal-Mart." They want some prime sperm, and Jack's just the ticket. They offer him $10,000 each for impregnating them, and the now-broke Jack reluctantly agrees.
But when the train starts rolling, he, to reference another Lee picture, gets a sort of "Lesbo Fever." But damn! No Stevie Wonder song!
Since Jack's sperm is so potent and Fatima (shown having a whale of a time with her ex during the sexual act) apparently, has a LOT of lesbian friends, the word gets out that Jack will successfully knock up any lesbian willing to shell out the bucks. We are then treated to numerous scenes of, at first, lesbians that appear in male fantasy, having sex with Jack, moaning in ecstasy.
Oh sure. It never occurs to Lee that perhaps some of the them would just lie back and take it. Maybe they would NOT orgasm. But once a stud gets with a lesbian, sexual orientation be dammed. In a "funny" scene Jack must copulate with butch lesbians (according to Lee these types hang out in packs) and though they are overbearing and bark orders (you know, they're butch); they STILL have a grand old time with Jack, riding him on top like they've been practicing on a hobby horse. In fact, there seems to be not one lesbian who doesn't have a fantastic experience. Really--You'd think if they had THAT much fun, they'd come back for more s-e-x. Most straight women don't moan that much. Well, many of them fake it--are these lesbians doing that? Not in Spike Lee Land.
Things get really hinky when Jack impregnates one of cinema's most gorgeous visions of the Sapphic, Monica Bellucci. After the act, he must talk about it with her father, a Mafia Don (played by John Turturro—it's hard to believe that he's the father of Bellucci), in a scene that's so painful, we don't know whether to cringe or laugh. Sitting with "The Godfather" novel on his outdoor table, Turturro reenacts one of The Godfather's famous scenes, complete with Marlon Brando/Corleone voice. Oh...so the Mafia admire The Godfather--no shit? It took Spike Lee to enlighten us with this... Oh but wait, this is satire, right? Or wait, SERIOUS stuff happens here...awww...who the hell knows?
And on the film goes in its obnoxious, unclever, over-the-top merry way. We get to Jack's regrets (his wholesome family convinces him that impregnating ALL those women was wrong—oh--he NOW feels badly about it...why, we ask?), and then to Jack's arrest, and finally to Jack's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment. What the F?
Again, is this satire? Does Lee really perceive modern lesbians as women who WANT to stare at Jack's member? Or does he just dream about this while watching the Playboy channel? And though it's perfectly fine to make convoluted connections as a polemic, Lee's so scattered, you feel at times you're watching a really long skit on Mr. Show— which is much more politically important than this mess.
Lee cannot paint on a large canvas. He simply cannot. Though many will argue for Malcolm X and 25th Hour and his often great use of actors (Sam Jackson in Jungle Fever, John Leguizamo in Summer of Sam) the director fared greatest with his smaller, tighter polemic, Do the Right Thing. But that was in 1989. She Hate Me has been getting raves from critics like Roger Ebert and defense by people who normally froth at their PC mouths over pictures like Basic Instinct an Cruising (a true, misuderstood masterpiece) but since Lee isn't a white devil, he's getting a pass. Now it would be great if the film really WORKED at being offensive, but its just too unclever for that. Makes me wish Vincent Gallo had starred and directed the thing, then we'd see how many Eberts out there would defend the film.
So Mr. Lee? Direct a one-act play. Maybe then we'll see the talented, provocative filmmaker create something tight and powerful again. For now, we can simply be hatin' on She Hate Me.
Read More Kim Morgan at her blog Sunset Gun
Working with his large, over-extended canvas, the director is sooo all over the place, the film makes Bamboozled look like a tight little polemic (OK--I won't go that far.) Here, Lee attempts to not only explicate black men's sexual prowess but also lesbians, whistle blowing, AIDS, President George Bush, Enron, modern families, the Mafia, congressional hearings, and the Watergate Break-in. It's like a muddled college thesis about corporate and family values in America, laced with tons of crystal meth. As he zig and zags all over the place, we can't help but wonder if Lee truly thinks he's making a clear point. Did he just figure that if he threw tons o shit at the screen, then SOMETHING would stick? Well, the shit sticks--that's for sure.
Lee's hero is Jack Armstrong (Anthony Mackie), the 30-year-old black vice president of a pharmaceutical company working on a vaccine for the AIDS virus. They are on the verge of becoming the first company to market the vaccine, but when the FDA withholds approval, the company's genius researcher kills himself by diving head first into a NYC hot dog cart. When Jack looks at the scientist's files, he learns all kinds of dirty company secrets—from the typical shredded documents to false information and all kinds of data manipulation.
Well, he decides to be a "whistleblower" (a term used so much here you get sick of it—OK, we get it!) and after confronting his blonde-bitch bosses (Ellen Barkin and Woody Harrelson), he's fired. OK, so here we have a movie about a man who stands up to the system. What do you think will happen next? Uh…lesbians all over the city will want to bear his children? Yes! Jack's ex-fiancee Fatima (Kerry Washington—in a stiff bit of acting) drops by for a visit after she broke his heart into a million little pieces. Turns out she was a (Oh my GOODNESS!) lesbian and he had caught her in bed with her current squeeze, Alex (Dania Ramirez). Now, these hot, lipstick lesbian career women yearn for more in life—chiefly children—and they, as they say, "don't want to look for Gucci at Wal-Mart." They want some prime sperm, and Jack's just the ticket. They offer him $10,000 each for impregnating them, and the now-broke Jack reluctantly agrees.
But when the train starts rolling, he, to reference another Lee picture, gets a sort of "Lesbo Fever." But damn! No Stevie Wonder song!
Since Jack's sperm is so potent and Fatima (shown having a whale of a time with her ex during the sexual act) apparently, has a LOT of lesbian friends, the word gets out that Jack will successfully knock up any lesbian willing to shell out the bucks. We are then treated to numerous scenes of, at first, lesbians that appear in male fantasy, having sex with Jack, moaning in ecstasy.
Oh sure. It never occurs to Lee that perhaps some of the them would just lie back and take it. Maybe they would NOT orgasm. But once a stud gets with a lesbian, sexual orientation be dammed. In a "funny" scene Jack must copulate with butch lesbians (according to Lee these types hang out in packs) and though they are overbearing and bark orders (you know, they're butch); they STILL have a grand old time with Jack, riding him on top like they've been practicing on a hobby horse. In fact, there seems to be not one lesbian who doesn't have a fantastic experience. Really--You'd think if they had THAT much fun, they'd come back for more s-e-x. Most straight women don't moan that much. Well, many of them fake it--are these lesbians doing that? Not in Spike Lee Land.
Things get really hinky when Jack impregnates one of cinema's most gorgeous visions of the Sapphic, Monica Bellucci. After the act, he must talk about it with her father, a Mafia Don (played by John Turturro—it's hard to believe that he's the father of Bellucci), in a scene that's so painful, we don't know whether to cringe or laugh. Sitting with "The Godfather" novel on his outdoor table, Turturro reenacts one of The Godfather's famous scenes, complete with Marlon Brando/Corleone voice. Oh...so the Mafia admire The Godfather--no shit? It took Spike Lee to enlighten us with this... Oh but wait, this is satire, right? Or wait, SERIOUS stuff happens here...awww...who the hell knows?
And on the film goes in its obnoxious, unclever, over-the-top merry way. We get to Jack's regrets (his wholesome family convinces him that impregnating ALL those women was wrong—oh--he NOW feels badly about it...why, we ask?), and then to Jack's arrest, and finally to Jack's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment. What the F?
Again, is this satire? Does Lee really perceive modern lesbians as women who WANT to stare at Jack's member? Or does he just dream about this while watching the Playboy channel? And though it's perfectly fine to make convoluted connections as a polemic, Lee's so scattered, you feel at times you're watching a really long skit on Mr. Show— which is much more politically important than this mess.
Lee cannot paint on a large canvas. He simply cannot. Though many will argue for Malcolm X and 25th Hour and his often great use of actors (Sam Jackson in Jungle Fever, John Leguizamo in Summer of Sam) the director fared greatest with his smaller, tighter polemic, Do the Right Thing. But that was in 1989. She Hate Me has been getting raves from critics like Roger Ebert and defense by people who normally froth at their PC mouths over pictures like Basic Instinct an Cruising (a true, misuderstood masterpiece) but since Lee isn't a white devil, he's getting a pass. Now it would be great if the film really WORKED at being offensive, but its just too unclever for that. Makes me wish Vincent Gallo had starred and directed the thing, then we'd see how many Eberts out there would defend the film.
So Mr. Lee? Direct a one-act play. Maybe then we'll see the talented, provocative filmmaker create something tight and powerful again. For now, we can simply be hatin' on She Hate Me.
Read More Kim Morgan at her blog Sunset Gun
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