The Big Picture - Spike Lee's 'Da 5 Bloods': The Most Important Movie of 2020

Episode Date: June 12, 2020

Released directly to Netflix during a bracing period of American tumult, Spike Lee's 'Da 5 Bloods' continues his mission as a politically minded and always entertaining filmmaker. Sean and Amanda are joined by Justin Charity to closely examine Lee's career as a celebrity director and to analyze his new movie, which tracks four Black Vietnam veterans as they return to the site of conflict in search of reckoning and buried treasure. Then, Sean and Amanda discuss the film's awards chances during this strange moment in movie history. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Justin Charity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the five bloods. Today we are joined by The Ringer's Justin Charity. Justin, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. This will be a conversation about Spike Lee's new movie. We will be spoiling details of this movie, but not right away.

Not until the end of this show. So please stick around. I hope you'll listen to this general conversation we have about the movie and Spike's career and where everything is going in the movie world at the moment. Earlier this week, I talked with some of Spike's collaborators about his work. Today, we're talking about his 23rd feature-length narrative film, The Five Bloods. Justin, I'm going to start with you. When I say Spike Lee to you in the year of our Lord 2020, what do you think of? What does he mean to you? Wow. Really iconic outfits. No, I'm kidding. I mostly think about the one time I met Spike Lee

at some sort of party that I can't remember the context for. And him being much nicer than various things about his reputation suggests he might be. He didn't, I didn't get the grumpy vibes that I always assumed I'd get from him. And otherwise just constantly I'm thinking about inside man. Why? Because you love it. I think I, because I know this makes me basic in some way, but it's,

it's my favorite Spike Lee movie. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Amanda, I feel like you're, you're, you're in good company there.

I have, we're going to talk about favorite Spike Lee movies, and I have a different answer. And Sean, I also would like to have a dialogue with you about the top five that you shared earlier this week, which we'll get to all of that. But I just wanted to encourage charity and stand with charity because inside man rules. It just rules. Yeah. And Justin, your thoughts about him maybe not being as grumpy as his reputation, I think is an interesting part of this conversation, which is what is the public Spike persona

and who is Spike the artist and who is Spike the guy? And those three things are not always aligned at all times. Amanda, what about you? When you hear Spike, what do you think of? I think about New York a lot because I think a lot of how I was introduced to Spike Lee's movies and and when I watched them was as a person who didn't live in New York and then who moved to New York and who has a lot of affection interrogate and reimagine what movies can be.

But I have been rewatching a lot of Spike Lee movies in the past couple weeks preparing for Five Bloods and for this conversation. And I was struck almost by a homesickness, almost for a place that I did not grow up, to be clear. But I did move to New York and feel a real, um, a sense of connection to it. And it has always been a major part of his movies as well as, as movies are a major part of his movies. Two things I really love. Yeah. I relate to that. When I, when I shared the episode earlier this week, someone tweeted at me, you need to get someone from New York on this show. And I wanted to say, sir, despite my California vibes, I am of New York. I promise you my family has been in New York for 200 years.

You know, he's in an interesting place right now, Spike. He's 63 years old. He is, even though he is still a vital filmmaker and seems kind of youthful in his disposition, he's kind of like one of the grand old men of American movies, which seems paradoxical because I feel like his career is a lot about destabilizing and defying some of the accepted greatness of quote unquote classic Hollywood. We saw like in Black Klansman, those opening scenes, interestingly, have gone with the wind, which has been in the news of late as it was removed by HBO Max and then may soon be replaced by HBO Max with some contextual information. I feel like Spike

in making his movies has basically been providing that context. You know, Justin, I'm curious for you when you say you were expecting a grumpy fellow, like what, what informs that? What do you think? What, what defines his persona? I don't know. I think that was just sort of influenced by the weird stretch where Spike Lee felt like he was sort of always being posited against other directors. You know what I mean? And in some sense,

positing himself against other directors. And yeah, I don't know. It's funny because there's obviously a lot of spike lee is like the shortest shorthand for a certain kind of mainstreamed or increasingly mainstreamed black radical you know director personality type uh and i think a lot it's it's easy for people to sort of take what he does in fact represent in that regard and sort of lean a little too hard on that caricature to make him out to be this asshole, for lack of a better word, that I don't know that he actually is.

And I feel like he's well served by it though, because Amanda, you will, you will understand this as a, as a historian of, of celebrity, um, you know, making noise and being iconoclastic as a, as a general approach typically works. It really works for film directors. And it obviously right now we keep hearing the phrase, and I probably uttered the phrase a few too many times of late, like this is the director or the film that we need right now. But we know that we can say something like that because we know what Spike represents in our imagination,

even if that isn't ultimately what he's like when you guys are, I don't know, sharing a Miller Lite at some mixer for a movie. But Amanda, I mean, I assume you agree that he's been kind of building that. Yes, of course. And it's so funny.

Justin Charity and I have had an ongoing dialogue pretty much as long as we've been working together and known each other about the value of celebrity and or the drawbacks of celebrity. And Justin and I are on opposite sides of it. So I do want to hear a little bit more from Justin on this, but I think it has certainly, I mean, the idea of Spike Lee has certainly brought attention to his movies at a time when throughout times where you really need attention to be paid to get people to see your movie.

I mean, some of it is just, I don't want to call it marketing at all because I think some of it is just kind of like part of the larger Spike Lee project of redefining what films are and what can be in them and how we think about them. But he it's hard to get people to see your movie really anytime and especially right now. And he has developed a way of like, an awareness that many other directors lack. I think it's fine to call it marketing. I think there are certain chapters of Spike Lee that, yeah, I think it's fine to give him that credit for the fact that he's really good at sort of branding his vision, right? I think I just, marketing always sounds like a pejorative of term. Like it's diminishing the work and I don't,

I don't want to diminish it, but go ahead. No. Yeah. I agree with that. I understand where you're coming from, but yeah, there does seem to be like,

I almost don't want to not give Spike Lee the credit for his commercial outlook, I guess is how I'd put it. That does seem important. It does seem important that Spike Lee is very good at making Spike Lee movies, while simultaneously being very good at being a commercially prominent Black artist.

Yeah, that's a really elegant segue, I think, to not just where he's at in terms of his career, but the choices that he's made and what the avenues are for someone at this stage. So obviously, film directors, as they get older, frequently get less opportunities. They're trusted less. They demand more in terms of artistic control. Mike obviously has had a pretty coherent and consistent vision for three or four decades now. But his commerciality is kind of a complex issue. Because on the one hand, this is Mars Blackman, who directed Jordan commercials, and who has made documentaries about Michael Jackson, and who is a person who is about the mainstream in many ways. But he's also somebody who has what once was perceived as radical politics that now obviously just seems like obvious foresight. And some of his movies have been really successful and big hits. And some of his movies have been total bombs. And

some of his movies have been completely ignored. They haven't even been like heard of or understood. I think if you look through the last 10 years or so of his career, there's a lot of movies that people just kind of like the sweet blood of Jesus does not have a big reputation among film audiences. And Black Klansman was an interesting comeback, if that's not too strong a word, because it certified him in the Academy. Even though he received an honorary Oscar a number of years ago, he won his first competitive Oscar.

But it's still hard for him to get movies made. And he talked about this a little bit in a Hollywood reporter piece that Rebecca Keegan wrote. And he mentioned that every single studio passed on five bloods, uh, and that Netflix was the last resort. And if they didn't want it, he wasn't going to be able to make it. And on, on this show, we talk a lot about the streamers and the way that they're, you know, companies like Netflix have leaned into auteurs and letting people like David Fincher and Alfonso Cuaron pursue their vision unencumbered in the way that other traditional studios might not. But Spike's kind of like way ahead of the curve on this. I mean, he was making documentaries for HBO 25 years ago. He has made docs for ESPN.

He has used Amazon's money. He raised money on Kickstarter to make films. He is also way more progressive when it comes to the means of production than almost anybody else from his generation. And it's interesting because Black Klansman was a hit. It was basically a movie that cost like $15 million and it made $100 million. And he won an Oscar. And he was basically more famous and seemed like a more important celebrity director

than he had ever been. And he still couldn't get this movie made, which is kind of remarkable. Justin, what do you think that indicates about maybe the industry and also Spike standing in it? I don't know. I mean, that's where I feel sort of more at a loss as somebody who is not the big

British film people that you and Amanda Dovins are, right? I don't know. I mean, I, I mostly understand Spike Lee's movies and his longevity. Um, I always just sort of understand it as being about a sort of distinct personalized quality, uh, that has persisted. How old am I? I'm 32, right? You're still us. I'm 32, right? And

you talk about documentaries, right? And you can take something that's... You can take a documentary, you can take the more over-the-top Spike Lee movies, and there's a distinct quality in all of them that feels like a quality that you can spend, spend a literal lifetime tracking,

right? Like keeping an eye on and, and feeling like you're growing alongside of it. No, no, no. To me, it just feels like it's that sort of a mortal creative quality at the center

of the thing. And I can't really speak that much to the commercial elements of Spike Lee's longevity. I just know that I've been following this distinct quality in this guy's work

and the scores, even the consistency, right? With Terrence Blanchard, it feels like that music like whenever i remember watching black klansman even in the beats of the stings the musical stings in that movie and the fact that i reckon those stings carry directly over from when the ladies broke and inside man it creates this weird texture on top of the entire my entire lifetime of watching Spike Lee movies that makes it feel like this very weird Spike Lee singularity in which I'm I'm always living I guess

Amanda I wonder if that is actually if that explains why it's a struggle for him because he is essentially working on individual projects but he is trying to make them consistent with a body of work. And in order to do that, you need to get people to sign on to all aspects of your vision. You need to get them to sign on to the composer you want to use, the director of photography that you want to use, the marketing campaign that you want to use. Like all of those things go into being a celebrity filmmaker.

I wonder if, you know, we're just speculating, but I wonder if that's a part of why he still struggles. I'm sure that it is. And I think, you know, we know that throughout history, but especially now, Hollywood is not really willing to sign on like fully to any vision that isn't like a major franchise. You know, they're only willing to commit to consistency of, you know, characters with saleable action figures or toys to go along with them. I was recently rereading a 2008 New Yorker profile of Spike Lee by John Colapinto. And it is so it's after Inside Man, which was also a hit. And it talks about these same issues of funding and how independent filmmaking or, you know,

auteur directors and basically directors who aren't working on like major tentpole franchises have problems with funding and how, you know, 2008, Spike Lee is saying in the piece that he thought Inside Man and the box office success of Inside Man might help further some other projects that he wanted to work on, one about the life of James Brown and the other about the riots in Los Angeles sparked by the acquittals of the police officers who beat Rodney King, I'm reading from the piece. And here, the next line is, but I could not get financing for those films, Lee said. So I think it's both a reflection of this particular moment that Five Bloods is on Netflix, because Netflix is the only place that would pay for a movie like this from a director that's just not a franchise with a larger budget.

But I think that this is the way that Hollywood has treated projects like this and directors like Spike Lee for a long time. Yeah, the long history of the unmade Spike Lee movie is so fascinating because I look at some of the movies that he did get a chance to make. And I'm like, why did the sweet blood of Jesus or she hate me happen? But we couldn't get his Jackie Robinson movie. You know, we couldn't get his LA riots movie because those actually do feel like while they're about, I guess, theoretically, like potentially controversial subjects. Those are movies that have a chance to be commercially successful.

And maybe it's because some of those movies he's made are on a smaller scale. It's all, it's all each individual circumstances different than another, but it's so strange because it feels like he basically never got a chance to exit out of being a quote unquote independent filmmaker. Whereas so many of the people that he came up with in the early eighties and then through the mid and late eighties essentially adopted the kind of studio work and Spike made a lot of movies for Universal, but they were always very much on Spike Lee terms. It's a little bit unknowable. The Five Bloods is, on the one hand, I think a very commercial movie, and we'll talk about that when we start getting into it. And on the other hand, there's a lot about it that is deeply uncommercial. And so I guess you can kind of see why there might have

been some concern about it. But I do think that a lot of studio heads will look at this movie that he made and realize that there's probably a missed opportunity here in terms of audiences the same way there was with Black Klansman. I mean, Black Klansman was effectively marketed. And even though, like to me, it's in the bottom half of Spike's films. And that feels like the praise for it was like rectitude for overlooking his work for so long, as is so often the case. It's still like a very fun and entertaining movie, which is something we don't talk about as much with Spike because he comes bearing all of this meaning and significance as a filmmaker. But, you know, Justin, you mentioned that your favorite is Inside Man. Like Inside Man is just an out and out fun movie to watch. And that's true of almost all of

Spike's movies. What else is in your list of great Spike work, Justin? I'm trying to... You know how I feel in general about ranking things, right? You don't have to rank

anything. I'm trying to think of a way. I don't even know. It's weird because outside of that, you know, I'm very, I always feel like I'm cartwheeling out to volunteer. What feels like my very millennial take that the best spike movie is inside man.

But beyond that, he's weirdly a director who I don't really feel this sort of compulsion to rank things. Like, I guess the, the movie, the movies I think about the most are i think i i mostly think about when the levy's broke i would say for certain like that that i guess

that's more of a that's a mini series right um like in the past decade i i've thought about inside man and when the levy's broke the most most in terms of just the Spike Lee stuff that sticks with me and feels like it's the most sort of essential, not just to, I don't know, liking a lot of Spike Lee movies, but also essential to processing the history and politics of like this century. Right. Yeah. I think maybe when the ladies broke, I'd go with the documentary and I am not a person who, who watches that many documentaries. Yeah. It's a good pick. It's interesting because spike,

I think originally when he was going to make four little girls in the nineties for HBO originally intended to make that as a narrative feature film and then started interviewing people and speaking to people and realize that it was better fit as a documentary. And I think the same goes if he had tried to dramatize that story. And when the levees broke, I don't think it would have been nearly as powerful as the movie that he ended up turning out. Um, Amanda, what about you? Do you, you, I know you're, I know you're team inside man. What else? I'm team inside man. So I'd like to talk a little bit about your top five

um so this interview process no i thought it was pretty good i mean you know i think like do the right thing is his masterpiece um and i think everyone is is agreed on that and i really recommend the rewatchables that you did with wesley morris if people haven't listened to it and i was glad that you had Inside Man on it. I think we're all agreed here. This is the Inside Man fan club. There was, there was, I also, I hope we'll get to talk a little bit more about Crooklyn. But which I also rewatched. And when you talk a little bit about the, the homesickness that I was mentioning at that one really, really affected me on rewatch, um, as a,

as a grownup, I guess it might be a little bit also like child of, of parents who are not quite getting along and also like some only childless there anyway, um, a beautiful movie, but, um,

Sean, there was one movie that was not on your list and you mentioned it. And I, like I, I have, um, had conversations with other people about it not being on your list and I'm here to confront. It's fine. Mutual friends. It's okay.

This is a nice space. But that movie is Malcolm X, which, um, is extraordinary. And I, I just, I think it has to be in the conversation. It's on Netflix right now, so you can rewatch it, which I did as well. But in terms of Spike Lee examining history and also taking really established genres and Hollywood and a big studio way of making movies and just completely revitalizing what a genre movie can be and what a movie about history can be. It's extraordinary. An amazing Denzel Washington performance. to make it and fighting with Warner Brothers and even having to get some independent financing

is, I think, also kind of just important to the story of Spike Lee and Hollywood. And I do really like biopics, so I guess that's part of it. I mean, we should admit our biases, but it's, it's amazing. An amazing movie. Yeah. I mean, I imagine trying to defy the opinion that Malcolm X is amazing from an asshole like me. Like that will not happen. You mentioned it. And we also, you know, I, now that I got to take you to task now, I mean, list making is, um, uh, an art, which is, I know why.

And, and, and involves making tough choices, which is, I know why charity doesn involves making tough choices which is I know why charity doesn't always like it so I I know that but Malcolm X I I think that's that speaks to even what Justin is saying about the Spike experience or any experience where you're evaluating culture and what it means to you like I I like to use the word favorite and while Malcolm X is no doubt a triumph it isn't my favorite. It's just not the movie that I like to watch more than Crooklyn or Clockers or 25th Hour. And that doesn't mean that it isn't a hugely important film. It might be number six or seven or whatever. I'm just, you know, I'm always thinking about the zag, you know, got all that that that magazine editing

training, all that that bad editorial brain where I'm like what can I do that isn't just do the right thing Malcolm X you know like right succession of importance and importance is important but to me it's not everything about about his career which is I think part of the point I was trying to understand when I was thinking about my top five but part of part of like what it makes me think about is that I feel like I then have the opposite of that magazine brain. And I feel kind of embarrassed

that my favorite Spike movie is Inside Man because it feels like it's a wrong answer. No, I don't think so. No, I don't think so. It's really up there for me. And, you know, in quarantine, when everyone was just looking for movies that you just were watchable at home and were a sense of escapism and really could hold your attention. Inside Man was one of the first on the on the list for us because it really is.

It's just a whole world and so expertly done. So don't feel bad. Yeah, I don't think you should either. I feel like a lot of his movies are soaring eagles with deep, profound messages. And Inside Man's like a little carrier pigeon. You know? Or it's like a hummingbird. And it does have a lot to say

about the way that New York works in particular. In the same way that we'll talk about with Defy Bloods, where he essentially jerry- rigs these pre-existing properties to serve his ideas i think that that's just as meaningful as a movie that that proudly announces that it is about um uh an important historical black figure you know like those two things both matter yeah yeah yeah i wouldn't even say escapism because it's like, I just like capital S significant movie and, you know,

something you have to talk about in the span of Spike Lee's career, I do find it really watchable. Like that is a movie star performance at the center of it. And it is really engaging with, you know, there's that, like that, that musical sequence in,

in, in the first part that is just referencing a lot of old Hollywood films. It is like a Hollywood movie as well. So I'm not, I'm not trying to be like the Miss important person here at all. No, I don't, I don't think you are.

And I think part of what's informing my thinking around Malcolm X is that it is widely considered one of the great Oscar travesties that Denzel didn't win, that it wasn't justly nominated in all the categories that deserve to be. And so because of that, it has been for, that's what, 92? I mean, almost 30 years, it's been a cause celeb for Oscar pundits, of which I guess I am one. And so I feel like very comfortable with the information about Malcolm X, but I literally hadn't watched Crooklyn since like 1998. And so when I watched it, I was like, holy shit, I'm, I'm old now. You know, I've lived in that neighborhood in Brooklyn for years. Like I understand that lifestyle. The performances were much deeper than all the things you said

about Crooklyn. I totally identified with Amanda. And so those movies just, I think kind of worked on me more, but I'm sure if I watched Malcolm X tonight, I'd be like, time for me to rerecord my list. It's okay for these things to be evolving. I wanted to ask you guys, before we talk about the details of The Five Bloods, since we're all still in quarantine, what it's like to receive a movie like that at home and watch movies like this at home, which is a frequent topic of conversation on the show, but this one in particular being this big, bulky, 200-minute film. Justin, for you, what is it like to watch a Spike movie after, I assume, seeing many of them in theaters for years, seeing something like this in this format? Yeah. And I watched it at six o'clock in the morning too. I watched it at a very weird time. Why? Because sometimes what I'll do, especially

if I'm reading non-fiction history books, is I'll get up early and I'll try to do my aspirational old man thing of making coffee and reading non-fiction at 6.30 in the morning. And so I tried to make The Five Bloods comport with that

lifestyle. And I actually feel like that was ideal for me. That was like an ideal way processing that book. Like it's part of my aspirational midlife, you know, newspaper subscription having, you know, homebody consumer lifestyle. How did it go down at seven o'clock in the morning? It was great. I loved loved it it woke me up a lot of a lot of alarming by eight o'clock i think i woke like roommates up other people in the building yeah

what about for you amanda how was um how was watching this one at home so we can talk about this more in specifics when we talk about the film, because I'm conscious of spoilers and there are some elements of it that, like the actual filmmaking choices are pretty literal. And the fact how you receive the film. But I will say I watched it once. I got the big TV. One night I was like, the big TV is mine.

And my husband watched it with me. And then I rewatched a good portion of it on my computer. I'll just be very honest. I watched a film by a great director on my computer, like many people of my age and particularly younger than me at this point do. And we talked so much on this podcast about, quote, what is a Netflix film? And I think we overinvest probably in that question and really probably reduce some of the films we're talking about, trying to fit them in these boxes that

correspond to our understanding of the industry and the trends. But there are aspects of this that really do make sense in watching it certainly a second time and revisiting and this idea that the film will live on and be accessible and you can go back and you can watch certain aspects of it. You can check things that you maybe missed the first time. And I think that really added to my experience of it. You can check things that you maybe missed the first time. And I think that really added to my experience of it. And that is not, you can't always do that for, for movies that you see in theaters. You like actually can't. So I don't know whether the movie was made with that in mind and that, you know, I don't, we don't need to get into intent here. We're like, we all, we never need to have those wars again. But it was really interesting. And I thought ultimately the Netflix of it added to my experience. Yeah, I can relate to the repeatability.

I think I might've mentioned this when the Ballad of Buster Scruggs came out, but I was like, one of the coolest things about this is I can finish this Coen Brothers movie, which I've been waiting two years for, and just fire it up again and watch it. And because that was an anthology movie, I could bounce around to the sequences that I liked. And this was very similar. This was, I watched it the first time. It's very enveloping, but a big, long movie that has a lot of different set pieces and has a lot of history laced into it and some things you'd want to return to, and maybe some things you don't want to return to, candidly. But it was nice to be able to go back and watch it again, which I think,

maybe overstating things, but could radically alter film criticism. You know, like 30 years ago, film critics working for newspapers and magazines could see a film a couple of times before they wrote about it. Pauline Kael would see a movie a few times before she wrote about it,

which is why she could write these incredible 5,000 word, you know, exegeses about great films and they would have tons of depth and detail. But more commonly right now, the writing about and the podcasting about and the coverage of these films is frequently on the back of one screening at 7 p.m., 48 hours before deadline. And so you don't get this depth of thought. And I'm not saying that I necessarily have a kale-esque ability to unpack this movie.

So I don't want to mistake that. Yeah, you're promising a lot. Yeah. No, I won't be responsible for it, but maybe you guys can be. But I do think that it provides a new way, a better way to evaluate it, honestly. On the downside, this is a big, grand production. And it's a war movie. It's an adventure film.

It's got all the hallmarks of stuff you want to see big and it's a it's a war movie it's an adventure film it's got all the hallmarks of stuff you want to see big and loud in a theater and so you know we'll probably lament this every time a film like this comes along basically in perpetuity because that's just where the the industry is going but i i'm it's i felt like it was in this case it was particularly bittersweet so perhaps we should talk about the movie itself. So for anybody who's been listening this long and doesn't know what Defy Bloods is about, I'm happy to provide just a brief synopsis. It's about four men, Vietnam veterans, who return to Vietnam to theoretically retrieve the remains of their squad leader who was killed in action in the early 1970s, it seems. But there is a kind of double mission to the mission that that is the

stated reason for their return. But in fact, during their mission, they discovered some gold and that gold was then buried. And now they are returning to retrieve that gold and bring it back. So you've got a movie that is one part Apocalypse or the dirty dozen one part treasure the Sierra Madre, which Spike has said over and over again is his favorite movie of all time. One of those great kind of ethical dilemma movies that he likes to make. You know, I saw a couple of other films in there like Stand By Me is kind of feels like a framework a little bit. Dead Presidents, the Hughes Brothers movie, seems like there's some shades of that movie. All Spike Lee movies are about other movies in a way, and we even see other movies in his movies. This feels like a very meta-conscious movie about history and about

other movies. It's informed by Bloods, which is an oral history of Black veterans of Vietnam by Wallace Terry. There's a story actually about that on TheRinger.com that Eric Ducker wrote. You can check out right now. This is like a pretty involved premise for a film. It's a pretty naughty story, even though it's an easy sell. Let's just

from a plot perspective, Justin, do you think that this works as a movie? Yes. To your points earlier, like both of your points, right, about watching this on Netflix and what's being taken away from the viewing experience, I think you just set up the premise.

The premise is naughty. It's an easy sell, but it's naughty. But I think the thing is, the dynamic that makes it work is that it's... I do think it's a good hang. I think the actors who have to carry this premise bring a lot of energy to it that feels very casual and middle-aged and fraternal. And I think that energy, just in those performances in the movie, does a lot to make the movie feel...

And maybe, I suspect Amanda might disagree with me about this. I don't know. But I think their fraternal energy and their sense of just being four old black men makes the movie feel less complicated than it otherwise is.

What do you think, Amanda? I think that's definitely true. I mean, the sense of it being a great hang, I don't, are we allowed to get into like early plot points or scenes at this point? I, you know,

I want to respect the spoiler. I'm always the one who spoils everything, but also, you know, there was an early scene when they have made it to vietnam and they go to a club that i believe is literally called apocalypse now but then it's the four of them just dancing to marvin gaye and they're just going down i mean that's just great like that's and and that is just like that's fun it is like it is fun to watch you want to watch them

you want to be a well i don watch them. You want to be a, well, I don't know. I do want to be a part of it, but I don't want anyone to be filming me because I can't dance like that. Um, great old guy moves, you know, they've, they've got it. So you immediately want to be a part of these people. And it is, I don't, you know, a buddy, a hang experience, I think. And that does ease a lot of the tonal shifts because without spoiling things um things change and I there the the tonal changes are maybe what I had a hard time wrapping my head around the first time I watched it and are something that made a lot more sense to me once I had seen the whole thing. But I, but I agree with you, Justin, that part of it is that you want to spend time with these people and, and, and that that is the emphasis. I think of like the first 30 to 45 minutes of the movie of, of just these four guys, um, that kind of does that

draws you in. Yeah. I'll just say before we go any further, the actors that we're talking about are Delroy Lindo, who people will know from a great many things in the 1990s. He's currently starring on the good fight. He was the star of Crooklyn and he was in clockers and he was in Malcolm X. He's an old Spike Lee collaborator, Clark Peters, memorably Lester Freeman from the wire. Who's also worked with Spike before Norm Lewis,

who is primarily a theater actor. And I don't think many people will recognize. He hasn't done a lot of film work. Then, of course, Isaiah Whitlock Jr., Clay from The Wire, who's also appeared in a bunch of Spike movies. And then Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther, plays the squad leader, who is this kind of spectral presence throughout the movie. And I totally agree with you, Justin. I feel like these guys, not only are they well-cast, but they are like, it's so pat to say that they've transformed into these characters. But I just, within the first second

in that meeting in the hotel, I was like, oh, they're friends. These guys are friends. They have a relationship. They know each other. They're real people to me right away. And you need those relationships to work because of what you're describing, Amanda, which is, you know, the movie goes from, um, you know, like old,

the old, like grumpy old GIs version of girls trip very quickly into like a Michael Bay movie. And then back into like a, uh, this sort of complex ethical drama. And then back again to something else. It's kind of, and a lot of Spike movies do that, right? A lot of Spike movies are like, here is a comedy. And then there's like 30 minutes of the film that are deathly serious. And I personally love that about him

that he kind of always blows up the conventions of genre. It's one of his best skills, but it is something that in the past when he's made films and people have been like, this just doesn't work. That's been the thing that they point to. You know, the origins of the film are interesting too. The guys

who wrote The Rocketeer, Danny Bilson and Paul DiMeo wrote this script originally in 2013. And Spike and his collaborator, Kevin Wilmott came in and clearly rewrote it, made all the characters black. Wilmott also co-wrote Black Klansman and Chirac, and he's been working with Spike primarily on the writing side for the last few years. Do you want to see the white guy version of The Five Bloods, Justin? I don't... No, because the first

10 minutes of the movie, the fact that the energy that those guys have just greeting each other and slapping each other's backs in a hotel lobby. Right. Like even before you get to the club that I'm in is talking about,

it's just a bunch of old guys dapping each other up and roasting each other in a hotel lobby. I don't know. That just has a very particular energy to it. Um, and I'm sure other actors could take a stab at it, but Amanda, uh, Brad Pitt, Leo, Kevin Bacon, and Tim Robbins star in The Five Bloods. I mean, before it's rewritten, the predominantly white version of this movie, in a lot of ways, is Triple Frontier.

Yes, I thought of the same thing. And it's a different movie. of this movie, like in a lot of ways is triple frontier just to point that out to you. Yes, I thought of the same thing. And it's a different movie. And I think you and I have, we also enjoyed that movie in a very different way. And I think triple frontier has different things to say about the world. So I don't really, but just pointing it out. There might, the Delroy Lindo character might have more in common with the Ben Affleck character than we're willing to understand.

There's PTSD. There is the loss of a promise of life. You know, there is this expectation of what your country or people owe you that you don't get. But I don't want to project too much importance on Triple Frontier.

It's better understood as a pop entertainment. All of the importance that we ever need to attribute to it on previous charity. Have you seen triple frontier? I have not. Okay. Well let us know. No one else has, but the two of us. So it's okay. And Andrew that's it. Yeah. It's, it's sad it's sad so uh let's talk a little bit about my favorite subject the filmmaking um i think this is a pretty interesting new twist for spike spike doesn't really do action movies that's one thing that he hasn't really explored that deeply in his filmmaking and there have been sequences you know that have incredible violence or um there are occasionally set pieces but there are long stretches of this movie that there are shootouts

and um you know i really felt the influence of coppola obviously and robert aldrich and don siegel and the people who made movies like this and even like the even the michael bay types i feel like are kind of wended into the making of this movie. Newton Thomas Siegel shot the movie. I don't think he's worked with Spike before, but he said that he brought Siegel in to shoot it because he had made documentaries in Central America in war zones in the past. And so in the jungle setting that the second half of the film takes place in, he's kind of well suited to capturing this stuff. What did you guys make of of spike lee the action director i didn't think of this as that much of an action movie i don't want to undersell how much action happens and how loud the movie gets for sure it's just this speaks to i think the stuff amanda is talking about in terms of the tonal shifts of the movie

and maybe genre in general with Spike, right, is that I guess in my naive view, I mostly watch Spike Lee movies with a sense of the genre and tone of this is Spike Lee movie. And so you can add these sequences in which you're watching what feel like really meticulously detailed Vietnam war shootouts in the jungle with, um, almost like stylistically tedious attention to reloading and like the

weaponry that they're using. And even that, even though it feels very unfamiliar to the context of watching a Spike Lee movie, it still feels like, I don't know, it feels like what I was saying at the top of the episode here, right? Which is that it's very easy for me to just sort of, I think I just buy in, right? I feel like I'm not watching a war movie. I don't feel like I'm watching a movie that's shifting between drama and comedy. It just feels like a Spike Lee movie. Maybe't feel like I'm watching a movie that's shifting between drama and comedy. It just feels like a Spike Lee movie. Maybe that just means I'm a sucker for the Spike Lee brand,

but it feels creatively... It felt all of a single piece to me. And it didn't really feel that unexpected, apart from the fact that all Spike Lee movies feel like they're kind of trolling you on some level in terms of what exactly the genre or tone you're watching is when when you say that do you mean that you think he's trying to unnerve viewers about that sort of thing to sort of like disavert and I think those are maybe too strong it just feels like he he has that sense of like poking you you know what I mean it I don't think it's unnerving or or it doesn't feel like it's that pretentious it just feels like spike lee movies always to my mind have that sense

of you can tell that spike lee likes catching the viewer a bit flat-footed you know and that flat-footedness i feel like there are a lot of moments like this in this movie that account for why we're talking about tonal shifts and stuff like that and about action and how natural it feels. But it still has that quality feeling very predictably unpredictable to me. But that's just my take on it. I don't know. What do you think,

Amanda? I sort of, and I didn't do this while watching it, but as I was kind of recollecting the the various action sequences in the in the movie for me there are the action sequences where I was kind of aware of the references to other films and it's like there's an influence of a you know obviously the apocalypse now one is like really obvious but also you know the Michael Bay stuff and like the helicopter stuff and being like oh huh this is like I'm I'm not sure that I've ever seen this in a Spike Lee movie before um

except for the fact that obviously like engaging with other movies and remaking them is in fact the project of many Spike Lee movies and then there is kind of the the second half of action action sequences that um for me were the most i think natural or just like i was the most engaged in the and again i don't want to really get into the spoilers but there are some like pretty taut scenes between um the the four main characters and um jonathan majors who who plays the son of Delroy Lindo's character. And those are, I thought those were extraordinary. And they felt of a piece with that section of the movie for sure and involve a lot of, you know, they're the ethical dilemmas that you alluded to, and everyone is kind of talking over each other, even as kind of really intense action is coming, and is somewhat unexpected. Like, I was jolted by it. I also find myself, especially, I've talked about this before, to be like a, I don't say this proudly, but I'm like a pretty passive movie watcherer I'm just kind of like okay now the movie's happening to me um and and and those scenes like really happened to me

yeah there is a there is a sequence involving landmines that to me is the is the yes yeah action centerpiece and and ultimately um it's like frankly just some of the most gripping stuff i i think spike's done in a long time um that that that tension doesn't hold throughout the movie and in fact i think you're right justin that there is actually a kind of a looseness to the fraternal nature of the guys and even when things get really keyed up you feel like you're getting a little bit of like an inside look at your at your friends but then there are these big sequences where like a helicopter crashes in the middle of the vietnam war and there's a shootout um with the the the vietcong and it you know like that's just not that's not really in the

spike playbook historically and then there's those down river sequences which is like you're saying amanda all the apocalypse now stuff and integrating ride of the valkyries and like some of it is very hyper conscious. It's like they, he is putting his thumb right on the influence and saying like, Hey, remember this movie, which is something that I like,

but I think some people may not connect with as much. The other thing that the movie does, which is also in keeping with spike's career is he's not afraid to directly integrate history, historical footage, real people talking about the events. The movie opens, in fact, with this montage of the circumstances of Black Americans, the history of Black Americans serving in the military, just the general state of the country in between about 1966 through 1972. So, you know,

we see Nixon and we see, um, what's happening in Vietnam at that time. And, and we see what's happening at Ho Chi Minh in particular, Ho Chi Minh city in particular, we see what's happening, um,

on college campuses. We see what's happening with black activists. We see black Panthers. Um, you know, we see Kwame Ture speak and we see, uh, Bobby Seale speak in the movie.

And he does this kind of over and over again. He and Oliver Stone are really like the only, you know, mainstream filmmakers I can think of who do this routinely. But then throughout the movie, he also returns to this stuff. You know, we see Crispus Attucks when there's a conversation about him and the role that he played in the founding of this country. We see MLK speak. We see Donald Trump.

We see Trump in the middle of a Trump rally. And we'll get to why we see Donald Trump in the film. Justin, what do you think about that as an approach to filmmaking to kind of like burst the narrative to show us these true events? Yeah, I really, I like these flourishes in Spike movies. I even like those flourishes in Black Klansman, where I think that sort of real life and real history intruding upon an otherwise dramatic construction. I think in Black Klansman, that stuff feels a bit more heavy. Or the way it's delivered feels like it's a lot more... It feels like the camera lingers on those beats for longer than it does in this movie. And this movie,

it feels sort of more, more smoothly integrated into the storytelling. Um, whether you're talking about the, the archival footage of speeches or where you're just talking about moments where, where Christmas addicts will be mentioned and then an illustration of Christmas addicts will flash on the screen for a moment.

Um, and I, I don't know why that works so well in these movies, but yeah, there's something about it that feels like it's... I don't know, it feels honest. Like in the way that these characters, because the men in this movie, the old men in this movie, have these very earnest discussions about American history, right? And it feels like that sort of on the screen flashing, you know,

stuff from American history textbooks feels like it emanates from the personality of the characters in the movie, as much as we also know that it emanates from just stylistic choices that Spike Lee makes in Spike Lee movies. Yeah, I mean, I feel like going back even to Do the Right Thing, when you see the quote from Malcolm and Martin at the end of the film, like, this is not new territory for Spike. What did you think about the way that he did it in this movie? This is a case where I did wonder where how I watched it really enhanced it. And by that,

I mean being at home and even more specifically being on my computer, because I do think that there is a little bit, my brain at least is trained of kind of like medium and platform to expect certain types of presentation of imagery. And I'm just kind of used to a collage and you're used to it. I mean, it's a technique that Spike Lee has used for over 30 years now, obviously. So you're used to it in that context. But I just, when I'm at home or this is how I receive information on my computer, right? That things just kind of, they go back and forth and it is associative and it is all of just like one bit of information. So I, I, it just, it kind of made sense to me. And, and, and I think that has a little bit to do with the fact of, I just, that's kind of what I watch all day on, on, in my

home. You know what it is? It's, it's this way that Spike Lee has of saying to the viewer, do you get it? Do you understand what I'm saying, young man? And it's like, I would not put up with that from any other director. You know, it would feel pedantic coming from other directors, but I would accept, I accept Spike Lee trying to big brother me

about American history and Black power politics all the time. I can take that from Spike Lee. I think that's really what's happening in those moments. Young brother, you know your history. That's what it feels like when those moments in the movie happen. And I respect that coming from Spike Lee

and from no one else, I think is what it is. I think you have to earn that over the course of a long period of time and make sure that it feels of a piece with the story that you're telling. I mean, they write this character, this Chadwick Boseman character, who is this, I mean, he's kind of like the Mary Sue of Spike Lee movies. He is this like holy, perfect figure. And he's like a Christ-like figure in a lot of ways. And he also is like a righteous Wikipedia of black American history.

And he guides them philosophically, intellectually through the right choices to make. You know, there's a sequence in the movie where they learn that I believe they learned that Dr. King's been killed. And then what is the right reaction to that? How should they respond as Americans,

as black men, as soldiers, they have to kind of go through these stations of the cross, really conversationally with this Jesus figure and he guides them. And I think a lot of times with most filmmakers, we would see something like that and we'd be like, man, this is some weak bullshit screenwriting. But you're right.

I feel like it's not benefit of the doubt so much as that it's like a core principle in his filmmaking. And so it actually works effectively. And that's like the singularity of great artists, right? They can pull things like that. And you know that it makes sense in a totality. And it makes sense. And it keeps you inside the story.

It doesn't take you out of it. I will say when I watched it a second time, though, I was like, I am now definitely just watching Muhammad Ali say words. Like, well, this isn't the movie. But that's okay. And a lot of people have not watched every Spike Lee movie or care or know about what happened in 1969. And so that also is the power is you kind of have to think beyond your own personal experience. Justin, I think the number one reason I wanted to talk to you about this is because I knew that there was a strain of the movie that involved Donald Trump and MAGA. And there's a character in the movie played by Delroy Lindo, who is a veteran who has

been, I don't know if Lord to the dark side is the right phrase, but who has been compelled and, and is identifies as a Trump voter wears a MAGA hat in the film. And this is kind of a driving point of the relationship and the conversation between these four men and then later five men when the sun comes into the picture. I thought this was a fascinating choice to put in the movie. Also not a subtle choice while we're talking about decisions. What did you make of the way that they gave this Lindo's character this identity. One, I like that the movie does not actually... I don't think Five Bloods makes out

Delroy Lindo's MAGA pronouncements to be him having turned to the dark side, right? It feels so much more complicated and nuanced than that, and that plays out in the first ten minutes of the movie or so when the guys are all talking and that character first starts talking about Trump and he's like,

listen man, I voted for him. And they're like, come on, man. The fact that they're very dismissive of the fact that he likes Trump feels right, right? Because you can imagine a version of this character where that dynamic would be way more simplistic and it would be this sort of, there'd be a lot more agonizing about it.

And instead, all of the friends treat it as like this predictable, but just kind of irritating thing that now they have to hear him go on about the wall and sort of be racist in that way. That's like weird coming from a guy like him. And I don't know. I really like the idea that they don't just sort of use,

it feels like a different version of that character could use him being a Trump supporter as a sort of shorthand to make you not like him or to impute certain meaning on him. And instead, I think it works the other way around where you're meant to sort of... I think it's just one element of how they're trying to make that character feel a bit selfish and a bit sort of wrecked with introspection and self-consideration in a way that the characters is, is throughout the movie genuinely trying to work through.

Um, and it, it never really feels like it's that simplistic or demonizing. It feels like it is a rare case of, of a director of a creator trying to use Trump and sympathizing with Trump as a sort of shorthand for a kind of moral complication, as opposed to moral, like straight up moral deficiency that can't be sort of addressed or

resolved. Um, that's, that's my mealy mouth way of putting it. I thought I, I just liked that it made the character feel more complicated, not less complicated. Yeah. I think that's a very smart um smart point because so often as you know as as we all know as soon as you say the words donald trump or as soon as you put that um make america

great again hat into the movie which like that hat's in the movie and um without spoilers like that hat um has a journey of its own um that that the way people respond is so um knee-jerk and and reductive and and everyone brings their own associations and their own their like that they may see it as a way of like a shorthand to just like uncomplicate the character and that still the movie finds ways to shade it out and to to to put it in to put it and to honestly put Donald Trump in in in some larger context, which is, I think another reason that this, the choice is made. Like, I do think that Spike Lee has a lot to say about the role that Donald Trump has played in our, in our country the last, uh, the last few years. I mean, you're still a country. You can use the word country. I know, but i was it's i mean it's hard so it you know it's interesting because it is like it is such a provocative um and and tricky thing to introduce because everyone brings their own assumptions and politics to it and he does

manage to tease it out with some nuance yeah Yeah, I thought there was something really provocative about conflating a dissolute but patriotic person with Trump's base. That is the way that in 16, a lot of that base was characterized. And even though it was a very small percentage of Black voters identified as such, there's something core, there's something really savvy, I think, actually, about that idea. Spike talked about it in that THR piece that I mentioned. He said, as my late mother told me very early on, spiky black people are not one monolithic group. But then when Delroy Lindo was asked about this part, he told the Times, it was a problem for me at first. Trump is anathema to everything that I believe in. I tried to talk spike out of it. Can we just make him a conservative? But I just think

there are some black people who are very disgruntled because of very real disenfranchisement that they're ready to believe someone like Donald Trump might be able to help them. Now, as a storytelling device, that's very interesting at this exact moment. And I kind of want to use this as an opportunity to talk about if this is a good movie for this moment, that is an even more loaded idea. Justin, do you subscribe to the, this is the movie we need right now rhetoric? No, and that was the rhetoric that Black Klansman got saddled with. And that movie is way more explicit in its aspiration to meet that expectation whereas I

don't know I didn't really it's funny how like you said provocative and bold and consistent like just throughout the movie the incorporation of the MAGA hat is and yet it almost felt like a red herring because it literally I don't think the movie

I mean yeah right the movie does not ultimately feel that desperate. It doesn't feel that desperately zeitgeisty to me compared to, to black landsman. Um, so I definitely, with this movie. Yeah. I,

I, I had no sense going into it that it was trying to be a movie of the moment. And I felt even less like that by the end of the movie. What do you think, Amanda? Is this the movie that you need right now? Well, I mean, what do you need from a movie? Do you need a movie to be good and interesting right now

and to speak to ideas? And do you need to hear from Spike Lee right now? Are you glad to hear from Spike Lee right now? I am. Is like, are there going to be a million think pieces trying to tie it to like direct like news events on the front page? I'm sure. Will some of those be good?

Yes. Will some of those be bad? Yes. But in the sense that I am glad to have a movie from Spike Lee and I and you know I think it's been interesting in the in the past few weeks obviously with like the anticipation of this release we've been talking more about Spike Lee but because of events in the news we have been um talking a lot about Spike Lee and I thought you know and obviously about to do the right thing and even like the reception to do the right thing at the time, you know, Sean, you and Wesley talk about the,

the infamous David Denby review, um, on, on that rewatchables, but it's, it's just been interesting to, to look at how our, like how culture and how American society has responded to Spike Lee over time and, and what he has meant to people. And, and it's, I mean, I think it's always a time to do that, but it's certainly a time to do it right now. Yeah. Speaking of the zag, there is an obvious impulse and I'm, I'm, I'm as guilty of this as anybody to say, not just that this is the film that we need right now, but that this is one of Spike's great films. Like I've read a lot of the pieces about the film and I think it is very good. I think it is not in that do the right thing, inside man, Malcolm X class of conversation.

But what it is, is it's like, it's an evolution and it's him trying new things again, which is something that he always does. He's always trying new genres, new formats, new ways of telling his stories while still having that thing that you put your finger on Justin, where you're just like, this isn't anything but a Spike Lee movie. And when we watch that,

we get to, we're almost like comforted by the clarity of the way that he makes his movies. The, the, the MAGA thing, just as a final thought, I,

you know, the, the, the key provocation to me about this is just this tacit implication that a mentally destabilized man is a Trump voter. The Delroy Lindo character has PTSD and has a lot of problems. And there's talk in this movie about therapy and Clark Peters' character says, man, you got to come to a meeting with me. And you see Lindo's character kind of unravel throughout this film. And that's not a mistake. You know, there is a definitive message and point of view about what happens to people

when they go through trauma and then where that might lead them as they evaluate like the back half of their life, which I think is so... And that's the other thing is we just don't see a lot of movies about old people. And this is like, this is a movie about senior citizens, you know, struggling. Can we talk about the senior citizens of it all now? Of course. I can't believe that we've gone this long without talking about a specific filmmaking choice, which, you know, if you haven't watched it, turn it off at this point um so can we talk about the flashbacks and the old guys in the flashbacks explain how it works okay well so i'm no i'm gonna explain it and

i'm gonna be quite honest we've talked about how like i'm apparently not the most engaged movie viewer the first time around but i was confused for a couple of minutes i like it took me a little while to figure out what's going on. Even though there are very clear clues in terms of the aspect ratio that are baked into the film. So the movie is signaling to you what is the present time and what is a flashback. But it does take a minute. And you get into the flashback. And suddenly Chadwick Boseman is there. But all of the four main characters, the Bloods, are just themselves as senior citizens.

They are not recast. There is no de-aging. And that's become like a talking point in all of the Spike Lee interviews about this film. He was like, I knew we weren't going to get the budget that Scorsese got to DH in the Irishman. And also he's talked about how he just, he hates it when movies do younger versions of people. So he just went with the,

the old people, but then it's like, it's older gentlemen in like action sequences. And it's, it's a choice. Did you think it was a good choice, Justin? Here's the thing. You can do this with black actors.

I'm sorry, but it works. Because like Delroy, like the difference between how Delroy Lindo should have looked circa the final years of the Vietnam War versus how Delroy Lindo looks now, realistically, it's not like there's that much difference. You're right. All they do

is kind of change the hair, and in Delroy Lindo's case, that doesn't even matter. So I really didn't blink. I was like, yeah, this is a Pharrell-type situation. No one has aged. No one has aged. The only thing that brought it into relief for me is the fact that then

Chadwick Boseman is Chadwick Bosemaneman and he's only that Chadwick Boseman in those like that creates a sort of dissonance but I just there's some there's some movement issues black magic there it just and this was true in the Irishman as well where they did the de-aging and then yes physical physical movement and at some point it's just kind of people people move differently and i actually think in both cases i mean you know there is like a film theory argument to be made that this is it's about their memory and their recollection and um and their their own view of of of the events and and the flashbacks and also how those flashbacks like shaped who they are now. And so you can and I actually I do buy into that.

And once I understood what was going on, which, again, is on me because there are clear signals on the screen. Just follow the instructions. But there is like I do think that works and I think it adds like an interesting layer to it. I do also think you spend some time thinking about the fact that, wait a second, so those guys are the same age. I think it could be distracting. And again, this is one of those things where I think rewatching, and possibly with a better understanding of basic film mechanics, which again is on me, you can start thinking about those layers. I think that it's just one more puzzle piece in the metatextual Spike Lee moviemaking approach. I think he's trying to get you to notice this. I don't think he's trying to put one over on people.

And in fact, if you want to try to peel back one of those layers, maybe one of those layers is that this is a film about what black people have given to this country by serving in the military for the last 300 years and how it's part of a life cycle. It's all part of the same contribution throughout your entire life and you never get over that, the pain and the sacrifice that you make in those circumstances. And so when you are 65, you's the, you are still living with the experience you had when you were 22. And, you know, you don't have to do the, you know, English PhD version of reading into that choice.

You could just be like, this was a practical choice because they didn't have $20 million to de-age and like change eye color the way that they did in The Irishman. But I also agree with you justin that like delroy lindo in this movie if he shaved his beard looks exactly the same as he did in congo like it's it's incredible he is like still the same beautiful man that he

was 25 years ago so i would say isaiah whitlock jr i I would imagine in 1972 like looked a little different maybe a few less pounds but um but I I think that it's it's very noticeable and a little bit distracting at first and then pretty quickly you come to realize that it was purposeful and that there's a reason for it and then I like I was able to kind of move on from it and I think also you know to the point that Justin made earlier like this this is, this is a movie about old guys. There is like the old guy energy and it is about age and coming to a later part of your life and, um, making, making sense of that and making sense of what you have done and sacrificed and what was it for. So to be reminded of their age, like is, is powerful,

but it is also noticeable at first. Yeah. And it's not just... There are other ways that the film addresses that. At one point, Clark Peters' character, it's revealed that he has a bad hip and that he's taking Oxycontin. And then there's this very brief back and forth about basically the opioids crisis in this movie.

And Spike does this over and over again. He will cherry pick these small ideas and integrate them into character. And it is the story of what it's like to be older and be in pain. I already am just terrified of getting older and watching this movie. I'm like, will I be able to go on a hike when I'm 46? It just seems awful. And it means a lot to me that in that particular case, the MAGA hat and the Oxycontin pill bottle are in the same scene

together, and that feels like such a... Yeah, that is the thing that makes it feel like... And again, it's one of those things you might look at and say, oh, this is the movie trying very hard to be this modern thing.

But it feels actually pretty seamless this time around. Even though those are, they feel like such explicitly written out, you know, the politics of America in the past four years have been about Trump and the opioid crisis. It feels so explicit,

but also feels like, I don't know, it just works. Yeah, he's kind of fearless about making the movie about a lot of different things. Like, it is an old guy movie. It is a't know. It just works. Yeah. He's kind of fearless about making the movie about a lot of different things. Like it is an old guy movie. It is a friendship movie. It is, you know, there's a kind of a love story in this movie that is sort of briefly examined.

It feels very much like a side story. There's not a lot of female characters in this movie. We should probably mention very, very, very bro movie in a way. But it's like a family reunion movie and it's a movie about heroism and mentorship dad core the word you're looking for is dad core it is it is it is dad core and i feel like a lot of people will think of you know saving private ryan or master and commander but this is just spike's version of that kind of a movie which is i'm happy to have it um what else what else should we say i mean the performances I feel like in the movie are pretty incredible all the way around.

I think that the Delroy Lindo appreciation machine is like about to kick into high gear because he's one of the greats and is not, doesn't have the reputation he deserves. Amanda, what'd you think of him? I mean, he was extraordinary and it's, and it does feel like one of those, um, the role to to do justification to a career of like maybe not quite being as appreciated as he should have been and i it so far seems like the machine is working and that we're going to be hopefully talking about delroy lindo for a while yeah that would be nice he's he also i mean a guy in his 60s with 35 years of credit and also a person an interesting person to be playing this role born in england moved to canada as a as a as a youth then moved

to america as a teenager so he has really seen kind of the total prism of of the black experience across all english-speaking countries which is kind of fascinating um and he is you know he's the kind of person who was incredibly visible for about 10 years like in the mid 90s he was in every it felt like he was in everything and he was rarely the star but he was always around and then i'm not i don't watch the good fight and i i'm i have no i'm not as familiar with like i haven't seen him a lot in the last 10 years and so it was just nice to be spending time with him. Was there anybody else besides Lindo that jumped out to you, Justin? I actually really loved Chadwick in this movie.

I was very surprised, even though he's not in that much of it. The scenes in the movie that he's in are very effective. And it feels like he's, you talked about the Jesus figure, right? And the other way that the characters put it is that Stormy Norman, right? That the character,

he was our Martin and our Malcolm, right? He's playing this very broad archetypal sort of, he's just a leader. The guy is just a good squad leader. And he has all of these ideas about American history and civil rights and Black experience. And he gets these really

stirring speeches to give and that sort of inform what the backbone of this friendship even is that has brought them back to Vietnam to recover his remains. But he just really sells it in a way that I'm usually not used to saying about Chadwick Boseman performances in movies.

Yeah, I feel like we've been a doubter in the past. Yeah, but he really works. Like, I just, every time he's talking, I totally buy it. I totally buy it. I totally, like, that awestruck quality that all the other characters, or all the other characters or all the

other guys in the squad have about him. I feel like I'm, I have the same awe that they have when they are sort of recalling him. Like he sells it. He has this amazing ability. Yeah. I just, he's so few people are typecast as the chosen one.

Like he is the chosen one in every movie. He's Jackie Robinson. He's James Brown. He's this squad leader. He's of course T'Challa. Like he is, it's a pretty rare, like unusual archetype. We don't see that archetype as much in movies anymore. Cause like the flawed hero is such a big 21st century convention.

And he really like defies that consistently it's kind of amazing but i would i would draw this explicitly in contrast with t'challa because t'challa feels like there's there's so much self-doubt in that role and there's real character development that happens whereas storming like the character in The Five Bloods feels so much more simplistic in a good way. I'm not saying simplistic to reduce the character at all. Symbolic. There's a confidence that from the first moment to the last moments of that character being in the movie, that he really has to very quickly and efficiently sell you a level of confidence

that feels like it should be impossible to do in the amount of time he has to do it do you think that there's any unreliable narrator thing going on here where he has been idealized in their memory and maybe is just as flawed a person as anybody else but since he was killed in action they're reflecting on that i mean i think he's playing an idea as much as a person and like that goes again back to the idea of that it's their memories and that's you know kind of why they're old in them but he it is the recollection and also um all of the both like hope and and regret and pain that all of these characters but specifically the delroy lindo character have experienced like that He's just a projection like actually.

And I, and I charity, I think like Chadwick Boseman does that projection like very well, which like must be a hard thing to do when there really isn't any sort of center there. You're in relation to the other characters and really their feelings. Let's, let's talk about two more things before we wrap one.

I'll give you guys a little bit of room to share any spoiler-ish thoughts you might have on the movie about the choices that are made, especially in the second half of the movie. And then we'll talk just quickly about the kind of awards consideration because there is something kind of notable, I think, related to this film.

So if you don't want this movie spoiled for you, we've been talking for over an hour. I feel like you can move on and you can check it out, maybe return to this conversation. But Amanda, as you said, you are frequently the spoiler. I don't know. I just think it's good to talk about the text. People present you something and so you engage with it and you want to talk with them about it. I'm sorry. I'm trying to invest. Yes. Thank you. Once they find the gold, spoiler alert, they find the gold,

through the shootout, for me, it's just a really electrifying and pretty cohesive, I thought, part of the movie. And that obviously includes the landmine scene that you alluded to, Sean, which involves an incredible moment between Delroy Lindo and Jonathan Majors, who I just want to say Jonathan Majors, just what an actor, like what a presence. That guy has it. I also want to single out the scene when he shows up in the, and they're in the hotel and they're having breakfast and he's like sitting in front of the breakfast bread. And there's that great shot of the four of them just talking down to him. Really enjoyed that. But,

you know, there is a, we haven't talked that much about the father son element of this as well. And that's certainly developed between those two characters. And that landmine scene is like about the father son stuff as much as it is is about like the really tense physical aspect of the landmine and also um the the solution to they had they have to getting jonathan majors off the landmine which obviously invokes like the history of um black athletes and morehouse. I mean, it's just like, it's so profound and all in the span of 10 minutes.

And that, you know, I'll be thinking about that particular sequence for a very long time. It's so loaded with so many ideas. It's like solidarity, white allies, knowing the landscape. Like there's so many things you could read into that moment in the movie because people all working together to save one person is like such a a deep and fascinating

idea it's way better it's way better for me personally just because of what i said earlier which is like it's so well made so taught and that's it really feels like the center of the movie in a lot of ways to me but justin you smiled when amanda noted that it's a father-son movie what what what do you think of that? Well, I was thinking of the scene where the son, the Dora Elena character's son is first introduced, and it's like Dora Elena's in the hotel room,

and his son shows up. He's not supposed to be in Vietnam. He just shows up, and he's decided he's going to shove his way into this gold expedition. But when they're first talking in the hotel room, it's not really explained who Delroy Lindo's son is for a few minutes. And it has this very disorienting effect that you have to go a few minutes

before. Don't like the character says like my son or something like that, that really does feel like it sets up a lot of the other sort of disorienting effect that Delroy Lindo's character has throughout the movie and how he sort of feels removed from reality a little bit or, or caught between reality and his like real, his friends and his sort of nightmares and his psychology um i just i really i really liked how disorienting that really basic introduction feels um because it's

nothing that objectively weird about it but it's just because it feels like it happens almost out of order uh i don't know it just sort of set me up to sort of for all the, the increasingly disorienting effect that, that whole character arc and that whole relationship has about the movie. Any other story notes you guys want to hit on? I really liked how, I think I went into this movie thinking this is, the five bloods is going to be about black people, these older black men, and America's promise to them and the ways in which the American dream has failed them, etc., etc. And I really liked that Spike wove in these sort of more complicated threads, like the fact that there are Vietnamese characters in this movie and the fact that there are white French characters in this movie

and the fact that the white French characters in the movie are wealthy and they have a sense of guilt, right? They have this weird class guilt about them. It feels like he really took a lot of care to expand the historical

sense of the wars in Vietnam to be comprehensive of the historical sense of the wars in Vietnam to be like comprehensive of the actual sort of colonial conflagration in that country in a way that made it actually feel like a Vietnam War movie or sort of like a meditation on a Vietnam War movie and not just a, I don't want to say just, but not just the more narrow promise of, you know, Black veterans, America, the disparity between, you know, the white person's conception of America versus all the ways in which America failed these men and has sort of left them having to go back in, you know, this late stage of life and go get gold out of the jungle that they were sent to. The movie just felt more complicated than that, and I really appreciated it. That is actually the word that I was thinking of too, that I've spoke about this a few months ago on the show, but when Coppola was making Apocalypse Now, part of that story was he wrote this portrayal of this French-Vietnamese white family living in Saigon on functionally like a plantation.

And that family had been there for a long time since the country had been colonized by the French. And it was this sort of long, drawn-out, almost like parlor sequence. And the film, that section of the film, which I think is more than 25 minutes, was cut out when the movie came to theaters. And then when he did the redux cut, he re-added it. And it certainly lengthened the movie and slowed the movie down, but it complicated the movie

and it complicated the historical burden that that war has. And Spike Lee, frankly, just did that a lot more elegantly in this movie and with a lot less, um, fuss. And just by introducing some of those characters,

making them functionally necessary to the plot, um, giving them a few meaningful lines, but if not the centerpiece of a whole sequence, I thought was really smart and good and just like, just well executed. Um, and I didn't really see that coming either. So,

you know, once again, like he kind of consistently surprises us with what he's capable of when it comes to that sort of thing. Let's talk quickly about awards. Justin, you may have to bear with us as Amanda and I. Justin,

what are you, where are you on the Oscars? I haven't won one. So, I mean, yeah, okay. on the Oscars? I haven't won one. So, I mean... I don't know nothing about it. Let's see if we can change that in the future

here at The Ringer. Get Justin Charity an Oscar as a campaign I can get behind. This is the front runner for Best Picture. So, whatever that means right now is absurd. That's mostly a

by default situation my understanding was that this movie was supposed to come out later in the year and was going to get more of a traditional awards campaign push but um that it actually is the quote-unquote right time for this movie to come out and for people to see it and i think a lot of people are going to watch it frankly so amanda what do you think about its sort of general Oscar chances, plus it being the early summer entrant that we usually get every year? Right.

Well, the early summer entrant is the thing that I don't know what to do with because in any other year, we just have the historical evidence that the earlier a movie is released, the less chance it has at the Oscars because it just is forgotten. And I don't think that that applies at all this year for obvious reasons.

I mean, movie theaters are not open yet as of this recording. And I think we know that the Oscars will be delayed, but we don't know when they will be. And we don't know what campaigning is going to look like. And we have said this so much, and I'm very sorry that you listened to an hour and a half for us to be like, we don't know. But the answer is like, we don't know what the Oscars are going to look like. I think in terms of this, people being enthusiastic about this movie

and this movie continuing to be in the conversation. I mean, this is a movie that is very, like we can talk a lot about it. I'm sure we will talk more about it. We just spent 90 minutes talking about it. And I think that that lends voted for its board of governors in a new process and Ava DuVernay was added to the board and now more women and more people of color sit on the board of governors of the Academy than ever before. Whether that will have a significant impact on the film's chances, who knows? I mean, last week we were also learning more and more about you know the way that Ava DuVernay's Selma was sort of blackballed from the the Oscars and there was some there was an insinuation or maybe even outright um suggestion that she wasn't nominated for best director or David Oyelowo or not uh was not nominated for Best Actor in part because of some of their Black Lives Matter

protests and participating in that movement. So it'll be interesting to see if the world's circumstances are always reflected in the Oscars for better or for worse. And sometimes those turn out to be liberal pieties and sometimes they turn out to be liberal pieties, and sometimes they turn out to be moonlight winning best picture. So it'll be interesting to see how long this reverberates and then what it means for these silly award shows that we spend so much time talking about. I will just say, this Delroy Leno performance is a really classic late in life performance that the Oscars love for someone who hasn't gotten as much appreciation as in life performance that the Oscars love for someone who hasn't gotten as much appreciation as they should have that the Oscars love to reward.

And to an extent, like, you know, Spike did win for Black Klansman, but that was his first competitive win. And the Oscars do like to finally reward, you know, great contributors and great directors and people who have done a lot. And it is also, you know, it is like a war movie. It is in conversation with a lot of other like, like Hollywood history. So there is a lot going in its favor, but I, I just, it's very early. Justin, will you be frustrated if Spike Lee wins his first best director Oscar before you win your first one? No, I won't. Listen, give Delroy, though. That performance,

by the end of that movie, you get to his last few scenes and then you want to take a vacation day. You know what I mean? It's just like, that, man, that man put in some work. I completely agree.

You guys put in some work here, too. Appreciate you both participating in this conversation. I definitely, I would wholly recommend The Five Bloods to people. I think that they should check it out. It's definitely, in this very strange year of movie releases,

definitely one of the best and most interesting. Thank you for listening to The Big Picture today. Thanks, of course, to Amanda and Justin and our producer, Bobby Wagner. Please tune in next week when we will turn our attention to a different kind of, I don't know, a cinematic trial of some sort. Fathers and sons and friendship and betrayal

and thinking about the future. I'm talking, of course, about Judd Apatow's new movie, the semi-autobiographical Pete Davidson story, The King of Staten Island. We'll see you then. Thank you.