Jungle Fever:
Engrossing look at a love affair that crosses over racial, ethnic, cultural, and geographic boundary lines, when upwardly-mobile, happily married Snipes has a fling with his new temp secretary Sciorra. Less than perfect, with a drug subplot that throws the film off-kilter toward the end--but still utterly compelling. Lee doesn't have all the answers, but he certainly raises interesting questions. Terrific songs by Stevie Wonder and score by Terence Blanchard, although the music practically drowns out the dialogue in some scenes. What's the point of that?
Special Features:
Clockers:
The night manager of a fast-food restaurant is murdered, but a no-nonsense Brooklyn cop doesn't believe that the young man who confessed to the crime is really guilty. He's got his eye on the suspect's brother (Phifer), who works for the neighborhood drug czar. A penetrating, multilayered look at the reality of life on the street and in ``the projects, '' and a challenging treatise on personal responsibility. It's tough to decipher the street lingo and dialect in the opening scenes, but once the story kicks in, it's dynamite. Richard Price adapted his novel with Lee; a fortuitous merging of two distinctive talents. Coproduced by Martin Scorsese.
Special Features:
Do The Right Thing:
Idealized, individualistic look at life in the black community of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, where a white-owned pizza parlor flourishes... and where circumstance leads to an outbreak of hostilities on a sweltering summer day. Entertaining and provocative, with a much-discussed (and troubling) finale. Writer-director Lee also stars as Mookie, the delivery boy; his real-life sister Joie plays his sister in the film.
Special Features: