A Movie for Our Times (Unfortunately)

Rating: 9/10 (30 November 2018)

I broke my embargo of Spike Lee movies to see "BlackkKlansman" and was pleasantly surprised to discover one of the best movies of the year.
I had long ago decided Lee wasn't ever going to make another good movie (the last one being "Do the Right Thing" way back in the dark ages of 1989). His movies have always been angry, which isn't what bothers me, since he has a lot to be angry about. But they've been hectoring and preachy, hammering away at the same point over and over with a sledgehammer. They've alienated me, not with what they have to say, but with how they've said it. But "BlackkKlansman" gives us a more mature, nuanced Spike Lee, one who's not so much angry (though he's still that) as much as he's sad and tired that a story set in the early 1970s has as much to say about our country now as it did then. Oh how far we haven't come.
"BlackkKlansman" is perfectly timed. It's the best movie I've seen yet that captures the disbelief people like me feel that white supremacy can still be so predominant in our culture. It's funny, but its comedy has teeth. And though some may feel Lee overplays his hand at the end by bringing in real footage of recent events and our dear national leader, I think he's saying things that need to be not just said, but screamed from the mountaintops.
Grade: A