Lee, Spike 1957- (Shelton Jackson Lee)

PERSONAL:

Born March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, GA; son of William (a musician and composer) and Jacqueline (a teacher) Lee; married Tanya Lynette Lewis (a legal professional), October 2, 1993; children: Satchel, Jackson. Ethnicity: Black. Education: Morehouse College, B.A., 1979; New York University, M.A., 1983.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Brooklyn, NY. Office—Spike DDB, President & CEO, 437 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022.

CAREER:

Screenwriter, actor, and director and producer of motion pictures and music videos. Founder and director, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, Brooklyn, NY, 1986—; president and CEO, Spike DDB.

MEMBER:

Screen Actors Guild.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Student Director's Award, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 1982, for Joe's Bed-Stuy Barber Shop: We Cut Heads; Prix de Jeunesse, Cannes Film Festival, and New Generation Award, Los Angeles Film Critics, both 1986, both for She's Gotta Have It; Academy Award nomination for best documentary, 1999, for Four Little Girls; special award from the British Film Academy, 2002; Trumpet Award, Turner Broadcasting Company, 2003; Horizons documentary prize, Venice Film Festival, 2006, for When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts; Black Movie Award for outstanding achievement in directing, 2006.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Spike Lee's "Gotta Have It": Inside Guerilla Filmmaking (includes interviews and a journal), photographs by brother, David Lee, foreword by Nelson George, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1987.

(With Lisa Jones) Uplift the Race: The Construction of "School Daze," Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1988.

(With Lisa Jones) "Do the Right Thing": The New Spike Lee Joint, Fireside Press (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Lisa Jones) Mo' Better Blues, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1990.

Five for Five: The Films of Spike Lee, Stewart, Tabori (New York, NY), 1991.

(With Ralph Wiley) By Any Means Necessary: The Trials and Tribulations of the Making of "Malcolm X," Hyperion (New York, NY), 1992.

Best Seat in the House: A Basketball Memoir, Crown (New York, NY), 1997.

(Edited by Cynthia Fuchs) Spike Lee: Interviews, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, MS), 2002.

Spike Lee: That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2005.

SCREENPLAYS; AND DIRECTOR

She's Gotta Have It, Island, 1986.

School Daze, Columbia, 1988.

Do the Right Thing, Universal, 1989.

Mo' Better Blues, Forty Acres and a Mule, 1991.

Jungle Fever, Forty Acres and a Mule, 1991.

Malcolm X, Forty Acres and a Mule, 1992.

Crooklyn, Forty Acres and a Mule, 1994.

Clockers, Forty Acres and a Mule, 1995.

Girl 6, Fox Searchlight, 1996.

Get on the Bus, Forty Acres and a Mule, 1996.

Four Little Girls (documentary), Direct Cinema, 1997.

He Got Game, Forty Acres and a Mule, 1998.

Summer of Sam, Forty Acres and a Mule, 1999.

Bamboozled, New Line Cinema, 2000.

(Director only) The Huey P. Newton Story, KQED, 2001.

Jim Brown: All American (documentary), HBO, 2002.

(Director only) Twenty-fifth Hour, screenplay by David Benioff, Touchstone Pictures, 2002.

She Hate Me, Sony Pictures Classics, 2004.

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (documentary), HBO, 2006.

CHILDREN'S FICTION

(With Tonya Lewis Lee) Please, Baby, Please, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2002.

(With Tonya Lewis Lee) Please, Puppy, Please, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2005.

Also writer and director of short films, including The Answer, 1980, Sarah, 1981, and Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, 1982. Producer of Love & Basketball, New Line Cinema, 2000. Contributor of short films to Saturday Night Live and to MTV.

SIDELIGHTS:

The son of a musician, Spike Lee has become the equivalent of a composer, conductor, lead cellist, and symphony T-shirt salesman in the industry of filmmaking. Since She's Gotta Have It was released in 1986 on a small budget, Lee has proven himself as a screenwriter, director/producer, actor, and merchandiser of films. "I truly believe I was put here to make films, it's as simple as that," Lee wrote in his book Spike Lee's "Gotta Have It": Inside Guerilla Filmmaking.

Lee was born in Atlanta, Georgia, where he earned his nickname, Spike. Lee's father, jazz musician Bill Lee, soon moved his family to the jazz mecca of Chicago, and from there on to New York City, where the family had settled by the late 1950s. During his youth Lee's leadership ability began to emerge. For neighborhood sports, Lee was not necessarily the best player but was the motivational leader of the team.

Following a long family tradition, Lee attended Morehouse, an all-black college in Atlanta, the third generation in his family to do so. Majoring in mass communications, he had decided by his sophomore year to become a filmmaker—though he still did a bit of everything else, including hosting his own radio show on jazz station WCLK and writing for the school newspaper. More important, Lee began scripting and shooting short films.

After graduation from Morehouse, Lee enrolled at the New York University (NYU) Film School. His senior effort, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop, earned Lee a student academy award. Monty Ross starred in the film about a local barber who gets caught up in the numbers racket and organized crime. Winning the student academy award did not surprise Lee, he wrote in Spike Lee's "Gotta Have It." "Because I know that NYU is one of the best film schools, and I saw a lot of films that came out of the school," he commented.

After he won the student academy award, some of the larger talent agencies approached Lee and, although they represented him for over a year, nothing much materialized. Lee's first post-NYU production, The Messenger, was a failed venture by a businessman's yardstick. Started in 1984, The Messenger was about a Brooklyn bike messenger and his family. After spending forty thousand dollars, Lee decided to terminate the project. One of the project's obstacles that Lee was not able to hurdle was the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Lee had applied for experimental film rates so that he would be able to afford an actor like Laurence Fishburne (later of What's Love Got to Do with It?), but SAG refused Lee's application for waiver of the standard rates.

By 1985 Lee was immersed in his next project, She's Gotta Have It. The Lee-penned screenplay explores black female sexuality through its main character, Nola Darling, played by Tracy Camilla Johns. Nola dates three different men: Jamie Overstreet, Greer Childs, and Mars Blackmon (played by Lee). One offers stability; another, physical attraction; the third, humor. "Everybody's character was reflected in how they perceived Nola," Lee wrote in Spike Lee's "Gotta Have It." Eventually Nola leaves all three of her suitors. "It's about control," she explains in the film. "My body. My mind. Whose gonna own it, them or me?"

Following the failure of The Messenger, the American Film Institute withdrew the twenty thousand dollars it had previously granted Lee. With eighteen thousand dollars from the New York Arts Council as his most-sizable funding, Lee assembled a small cast and crew that included family members, and directed She's Gotta Have It in only twelve days.

The 1986 release of She's Gotta Have It made Lee an international celebrity. The film was a financial success, grossing more than eight million dollars, and critically it was an even bigger success. Michael Wilmington wrote in the Los Angeles Times that Lee's film was a "joyfully idiosyncratic little jazz-burst of a film." Wilmington was particularly impressed with the film's non-stereotypical perspective and characters, declaring that it "gives you as non-standard a peek at black American life as you'll get." The film's appeal was evident at the Cannes Film Festival. When the power failed during the film's screening, the audience refused to leave until they saw the ending.

That success led to Lee securing approximately six million dollars from Columbia Pictures to film School Daze, a musical comedy about rival factions at a black college. Much of the humor in the film derives from the antics of Lee's character. Here he plays Half Pint, a Gamma Phi Gamma hopeful preoccupied with losing his virginity. The factional conflicts at the college are underscored by Half Pint, a Wannabee (as in want-to-be-white), and his relationship with his cousin, Dap, a dark-skinned Jigaboo (a member of the black underclass) and the key figure in a campus campaign to force the university divestiture from South Africa. Dap's rival is Julian, leader of the Gamma Phi Gammas. The characters' conflicts allow Lee to explore bigotry as well as elitism.

The major obstacle placed in Lee's path in filming School Daze was reluctance from his alma mater, Morehouse, as well as other Atlanta black colleges (Spelman College, Clark College, Morris Brown College and Atlanta University) to allow the use of their facilities. "There were so many rumors circulating around the [Atlanta University Center] about the movie," he wrote in his second book, Uplift the Race: The Construction of "School Daze." As it turned out, after three weeks of shooting, Lee was forced to use just Atlanta University's facilities and reshoot all of the footage shot on other campuses.

School Daze earned commendations from many critics, but it also brought Lee notoriety as a provocateur within the African American community. Prominent blacks complained that Lee had produced an unfavorable depiction of their race, while others, conceding that he offered a valid perspective, nonetheless argued that his perception of black college campus life was one best withheld from a white society.

After the release of School Daze, Lee shifted his focus from internal prejudice to external racism in Do the Right Thing. Occurring on the hottest day of the year, the action of Do the Right Thing takes place in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a largely black New York City neighborhood. The film evokes real interracial incidents.

Do the Right Thing centers on a pizzeria owned and run by Sal, ostensibly a non-racist Italian who is comfortable with his black clientele and employees. Trouble begins when Buggin' Out, a black patron, asks Sal to add some black people to his pizzeria's "Wall of Fame," which consists only of Italian-Americans. Sal refuses, tempers rise, and a racial slur ultimately triggers violence. The climax occurs when the police choke a black man to death in front of the whole neighborhood. Sal's delivery boy, Mookie (played by Lee), then incites a riot by throwing a garbage can through the pizzeria window. In a sequence preceding the fight, Lee had stopped the story to have his characters spout racial slurs into the camera. It "was meant to rouse emotions," Lee explained in Do the Right Thing.

The honesty with which Lee treated his subject earned Do the Right Thing substantial praise from some critics and many laughs of self-recognition from audiences. David Chute, reviewing Lee's book about the film in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, called Do the Right Thing Lee's "most controlled and effective picture" to date, and noted that his vision is that of an artist, not a journalist.

Lee's next venture, Mo' Better Blues, paired him for the first time with Denzel Washington, who would later star in other Lee films. Mo' Better Blues also brought Lee back to his father's work—music—a profession that Spike Lee had avoided. But jazz was still close to his heart, and when filmmakers such as Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen started making films about it, Lee felt he had to get involved himself. As he said in his book about the making of Mo' Better Blues: "I couldn't let Woody Allen do a jazz film before I did. I was on a mission." The film, which shows the conflicts a modern-day trumpeter faces between his music and his love life, was the first motion picture produced by Lee's own company, Forty Acres and a Mule, named for what every black person in America had been promised after the abolition of slavery.

Lee's next release, Jungle Fever, was his fifth film in six years. Critics characterized it variously as a film about interracial sex, a cry from the heart about the tragedies of the drug culture, and a collection of vignettes on a wide range of current issues. The film features a married black architect named Flipper and his Italian-American secretary, Angie, who are having an affair. The repercussions from their liaison ripple through their relationships with a host of others, including Flipper's crack-addicted brother and Angie's racist family. Calling Jungle Fever Lee's "best movie" in a review for Newsweek, Jack Kroll commented that Lee "uses the theme of interracial sex to explore the mythology of race, sex and class." Lee's treatment of the issue of skin color, which is sometimes a point of contention even among blacks, was of particular interest to Times Literary Supplement contributor Gerald Early, who noted that Lee shows both dark-skinned Flipper and his lighter-complexioned wife as being "obsessed with the insults they endured as children about their colour." Other critics pointed to the powerful drug theme that grows in importance as the film progresses. In his Time article on black filmmaking, Richard Corliss summed up Jungle Fever as an "assured" film about "the ghetto epidemic of drugs."

The fall of 1992 saw the release of Lee's Malcolm X. Nearly three and a half hours long, the film chronicles the life of the controversial and multifaceted black leader who in a single lifetime was a street hustler, black-separatist preacher, and eloquent humanist. Several reviewers acknowledged the challenge of portraying such a complex life on film. In a Time interview with Janice C. Simpson, Lee stated that he felt many blacks had "a very limited view of Malcolm."

Lee embarked on Malcolm X amid a storm of controversy. Black cultural leaders such as poet Amiri Baraka, a vocal critic of Lee's movies, warned the filmmaker not to "trash" Malcolm's legacy. Others worried that Lee would overemphasize certain aspects of Malcolm's life, such as his street years or his split from the militant Black Muslim organization that was rumored to have resulted in Malcolm's assassination. Lee caused a stir of his own before winning the opportunity to make the film by questioning why white director Norman Jewison had been selected to film a black story. He also wrestled with Warner Brothers over the movie's length and cost; after he exceeded his budget, financial—but not creative—control of the project was taken from Lee's hands.

Upon its release in 1992, Malcolm X, featuring Denzel Washington in the title role, met with mixed critical response. Assessing the film in the New Yorker, Terrence Rafferty acknowledged the dedication Lee showed in the making of the film but regretted what he saw as its impersonal feel. Still, Rafferty felt that audience members who knew very little about Malcolm X "might find everything in the film fascinating, revelatory." Several critics questioned the film's length, a concern Lee addressed in his Time interview. "There was so much to tell," he asserted. Vincent Canby, writing for the New York Times, largely applauded Lee's efforts, calling the movie an "ambitious, tough, seriously considered" film. Canby did not find it entirely successful, but as he put it, Lee had "attempted the impossible and almost brought it off." One measure of the film's impact was that soon after its release, Malcolm's autobiography, upon which Malcolm X was partly based, reached the top of the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list—nearly thirty years after its original 1965 publication. As he had with most of his previous films, Lee released his own print companion to the movie: By Any Means Necessary: The Trials and Tribulations of the Making of "Malcolm X."

Lee saw a mixed reception for his directorial efforts immediately following Malcolm X. His 1994 film, Crooklyn, takes viewers back to Lee's childhood days growing up in Brooklyn, New York. The film features a black family trying to maintain its cohesiveness and economic well-being during the early 1970s. In particular, it focuses on a struggling jazz musician and his hardworking, sensible wife and on the only daughter out of five children, Troy, whose coming-of-age journey represents the emotional heart of the movie. Critics reacted positively to the film, praising Lee's ability to evoke 1970s Brooklyn and his success in presenting a family drama without a strong central narrative. Discussing the movie in the Nation, Stuart Klawans noted the "unforced honesty and warmth that … set the picture apart." Similarly, Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers remarked that Crooklyn "is rich in funny and touching entertainment."

Clockers and Girl 6, released in 1995 and 1996, respectively, were not as well received by critics. Ending his seven-year relationship with Universal Studios, Lee chose to finance his next picture independently. Get on the Bus, released in 1996, is a documentary-like portrait of the Million Man March, which drew upwards of a million African American men to Washington, DC. As Newsweek columnist N'Gai Croal commented: "Even though his hot streak has cooled, Spike Lee will keep right on shooting."

And continue he did, directing Four Little Girls in 1997 and joining again with actor Denzel Washington to release He Got Game in 1998. Critical reception to each of these films—the first a documentary about the church bombing that occurred in the city of Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, and the second a dramatic portrait of a father's attempt to make restitution to his son—showed that Lee's innovation in directing, as well as his ability to cause controversy, had by no means "cooled." Commenting on Four Little Girls in Entertainment Weekly, contributor Mike D'Angelo praised the Academy Award-nominated work as a "sober, often intensely moving exploration of a community's lingering grief and outrage."

He Got Game depicts the temptations facing a young man from the inner city who has a talent for shooting hoops. Tempted by coaches and agents who want to sign him after his graduation from high school, Jesus Shuttlesworth (played by actual NBA player Ray Allen) soon finds that those he trusts—including his girlfriend and his estranged father, a convicted murderer who is released from prison for a week for the purpose of convincing Jesus to sign with the state governor's alma mater—really have their own interests at heart. Critics agreed that the film was an ambitious undertaking; as an Entertainment Weekly contributor noted, Lee "invites us to see basketball as a majestic myth of national striving." Remarking on the film's creative contradictions—Lee makes use of a number of artificial cinematic techniques, employs stereotypical characters, weaves together a tangle of multiple plot lines, and sets the whole film against a sweeping score of traditional Americana by Aaron Copeland punctuated by rap from Public Enemy—in his New Republic review, Stanley Kauffmann praised Lee for "working on a subject [basketball] he cares about and … doing it with polish." Viewing He Got Game as an effective father-son drama, Maclean's reviewer Brian D. Johnson noted that Lee "uses bold storytelling and raw emotion" to create a movie that is unique and fresh.

Lee continued to forge his own path as a filmmaker and became known for his signature technique, appearing in all of his own films much the way innovative British director Alfred Hitchcock did a half-century before. Lee's directorial style has been described by Entertainment Weekly contributor Jeff Gordinier as a use of "flashy colors, whirling cameras, [and] political polemic." Well known not only for his films, but also for his leadership role as a black filmmaker and his tendency to incite debate within the black community, Lee remarked in Spike Lee's "Gotta Have It" that a growing sense of responsibility to all African Americans has accompanied his hard work and ultimate success. "There are so few black films that when you do one it has to represent every black person in the world," Lee wrote.

Lee's Summer of Sam, released by the Walt Disney Company's Touchstone Pictures, marks a departure for the filmmaker. Lee leaves his familiar subject of the African American community to examine the problems facing members of an Italian American neighborhood during the oppressively hot summer of 1977, when the city was held hostage by the psychopathic killer known as "Son of Sam." Still, reviewers drew comparisons between this work and Lee's earlier films. Summer of Sam revisits that summer in the Bronx "to paint a portrait that is rather intimate and panoramic," according to Jet contributor Sylvia P. Flanagan. Dave Kehr wrote in Film Comment: "Lee's subject is social breakdown." "Lee has made a movie that is less about Sam than about the summer," a Newsweek contributor declared.

Lee took a break from the big screen and focused instead on his love of basketball in Best Seat in the House: A Basketball Memoir. In the book, Lee relives moments in his own history when basketball left a vivid impression on his life, including sneaking in to a 1970 playoff game at Madison Square Garden at the age of thirteen. Lee now is a regular fixture courtside at New York Knicks games. In additional to personal stories, Lee comments about how he sees subtle moments of racism among sportswriters, and criticizes how endorse- ment deals have changed the nature of the sport. Critics lauded Lee's Best Seat in the House, noting that the author's true love for the sport is apparent in every page. The book is "purely satisfying," wrote People contributor Alex Tresniowski. In a review for Booklist, Bonnie Smothers took a similar tone. Best Seat in the House is the "sweetest book about sports to be published in a long time," she commented.

Lee has expanded his work as a writer into other realms as well, including serving as coauthor, with his wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, on two children's books. The first was 2002's Please, Baby, Please, for children ages two to five. The book chronicles a day in the life of an energetic child who gets into all kinds of sticky situations. Each page is filled with colorful illustrations by artist Kadir Nelson. Overall, readers enjoyed the book's bright pages and engaging story. Please, Baby, Please is "humorous and action-packed," noted Anna DeWind in a review for the School Library Journal. Others found the lyrical nature of the words to be the best part of the book. The Lees have published a "sweet, rhythmic picture book," wrote Booklist contributor Karin Snelson.

The Lees followed up Please, Baby, Please with the 2005 children's book Please, Puppy, Please. Aimed at children in a similar age group, this story follows two children as they experience life with a new puppy. They love playing with their energetic new friend, and try to teach the puppy to behave as well. Like Lee's last children's book, reviewers enjoyed similar aspects of Please, Puppy, Please. The book's "repetitive dialogue rings true," noted Mary Hazelton in a review for the School Library Journal. Overall, readers and critics alike found the book an enjoyable read. Please, Puppy, Please is an "exuberant story," wrote one Kirkus Reviews contributor.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Volume 4, Thompson Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1990.

Chapman, Kathleen Ferguson, Spike Lee, Creative Education (Mankato, MN), 1997.

Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television, Volume 45, Thompson Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 2002.

Hardy, James Earl, Spike Lee, Chelsea House (New York, NY), 1996.

Haskins, Jim, Spike Lee: By Any Means Necessary, Walker (New York, NY), 1997.

International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, Volume 2: Directors, 4th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2000.

Jones, Maurice K., Spike Lee and the African American Filmmakers: A Choice of Colors, Millbrook Press (Minneapolis, MN), 1996.

Lee, Spike, Spike Lee's "Gotta Have It": Inside Guerilla Filmmaking, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1987.

Lee, Spike, and Lisa Jones, Uplift the Race: The Construction of "School Daze," Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1988.

Lee, Spike, and Lisa Jones, "Do the Right Thing": The New Spike Lee Joint, Fireside Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Lee, Spike, and Lisa Jones, Mo' Better Blues, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1990.

Lee, Spike, Five for Five: The Films of Spike Lee, Stewart, Tabori (New York, NY), 1991.

Lee, Spike, and Ralph Wiley, By Any Means Necessary: The Trials and Tribulations of the Making of "Malcolm X," Hyperion (New York, NY), 1992.

Lee, Spike, Best Seat in the House: A Basketball Memoir, Crown (New York, NY), 1997.

Lee, Spike, Spike Lee: Interviews, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, MS), 2002.

Lee, Spike, Spike Lee: That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2005.

McDaniel, Melissa, Spike Lee: On His Own Terms, F. Watts (New York, NY), 1998.

Reid, Mark A., editor, Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

PERIODICALS

America, July 1, 1994, Richard A. Blake, review of Crooklyn, p. 18.

Antioch Review, winter, 1993, Ralph E. Luker, review of Malcolm X, p. 146.

Black Issues Book Review, November-December, 2002, Lynda Jones, review of Please, Baby, Please, p. 40.

Black Scholar, winter, 1993, John Williams, review of By Any Means Necessary: The Trials and Tribulations of the Making of "Malcolm X," p. 35.

Book Report, May-June, 1998, Ron Marinucci, review of Best Seat in the House, p. 57.

Booklist, December 15, 1987, review of Spike Lee's "Gotta Have It": Inside Guerilla Filmmaking, p. 667; February 15, 1988, review of Uplift theRace: The Construction of "School Daze," p. 963; April 1, 1997, Bonnie Smothers, review of Best Seat in the House, p. 1267; February 15, 1998, Ray Olson, review of Best Seat in the House, p. 978; December 1, 2002, Karin Snelson, review of Please, Baby, Please, p. 675; November 1, 2005, Diane Foote, review of Please, Puppy, Please, p. 53.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, December, 2005, review of Please, Puppy, Please, p. 190.

Center for Children's Books Bulletin, February, 2003, review of Please, Baby, Please, p. 242.

Chicago Tribune, December 27, 1992, review of By Any Means Necessary, p. 2; February 12, 2006, Mary Harris Russell, review of Please, Puppy, Please, p. 7.

Choice, July, 1988, review of Uplift The Race, p. 1702.

Crisis (Baltimore, MD), November-December, 2005, Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, review of Spike Lee: That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It, p. 51.

Diverse Issues in Higher Education, September 7, 2006, "One on One with Spike Lee," p. 8.

Ebony, October, 1990, review of Mo' Better Blues, p. 22; January, 2004, review of Please, Baby, Please, p. 24.

Entertainment Weekly, November-December, 1997, Jeff Gordinier, "The Directors," p. 61; May 8, 1998, review of He Got Game, p. 46; September 4, 1998, Mike D'Angelo, review of Four Little Girls, p. 90.

Essence, July, 1988, review of Uplift the Race, p. 1702.

Film Comment, October, 1986, Marlaine Glicksman, "Lee Way," p. 46; July, 1999, David Kehr, review of Summer of Sam, p. 75.

Film Quarterly, summer, 1990, review of Do the Right Thing, p. 54; fall, 1991, Gregg Rickman, review of Mo' Better Blues, p. 51; summer, 1993, Gregg Rickman, review of By Any Means Necessary, p. 64.

Films in Review, November, 1992, review of Five for Five, p. 424; July, 1993, review of By Any Means Necessary, p. 281.

Globe & Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), November 30, 2002, review of Please, Baby, Please, p. 18.

Horn Book Guide, spring, 2003, review of Please, Baby, Please, p. 14.

Jet, July 19, 1999, Sylvia P. Flanagan, review of Summer of Sam, p. 38; August 28, 2006, Adore D. Collier, "20 Years after His First Film, Spike Lee Tells the Untold Stories of Katrina," p. 52.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 1997, review of Best Seat in the House, p. 527; October 15, 2002, review of Please, Baby, Please, p. 1533; August 1, 2005, review of Spike Lee: That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It, p. 830; October 15, 2005, review of Please, Puppy, Please, p. 1140.

Library Journal, January, 1988, David Bartholomew, review of Spike Lee's "Gotta Have It," p. 96; March 15, 1988, review of Uplift the Race, p. 65; September 1, 1991, Robert Rayher, review of Five for Five, p. 194; October 15, 1992, review of By Any Means Necessary, p. 88; May 15, 1997, John Maxymuk, review of Best Seat in the House, p. 81.

Library Media Connection, May, 1998, review of Best Seat in the House, p. 57.

London Review of Books, March 25, 1993, review of By Any Means Necessary, p. 24.

Los Angeles Times, August 21, 1986, Michael Wilmington, review of She's Gotta Have It.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, June 30, 1989, David Chute, review of Do The Right Thing, p. 6.

Maclean's, May 4, 1998, Brian D. Johnson, review of He Got Game, p. 68.

Nation, June 20, 1994, Stuart Klawans, review of Crooklyn, p. 882.

New Republic, November 4, 1996, Stanley Kauffmann, review of Get on the Bus, p. 26; June 1, 1998, Stanley Kauffmann, review of He Got Game, p. 24.

New Yorker, November 30, 1992, Terrence Rafferty, review of Malcolm X, p. 160.

New York Review of Books, September 28, 1989, review of Do the Right Thing, p. 37.

New York Times, November 18, 1992, Vincent Canby, review of Malcolm X, p. C19; December 25, 2006, Bob Herbert, review of When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, p. 25.

New York Times Book Review, December 13, 1987, Sharon Stockard Martin, review of Spike Lee's "Gotta Have It," p. 14; April 17, 1988, Martha Southgate, review of Uplift the Race, p. 43; November 29, 1992, review of By Any Mean Necessary, p. 3; June 8, 1997, Lena Williams, review of Best Seat in the House, p. 24.

Newsweek, June 10, 1991, Jack Kroll, review of Jungle Fever, p. 44; April 22, 1996, N'Gai Croal, review of Get on the Bus, p. 75; July 5, 1999, review of Summer of Sam, p. 22.

People, May 19, 1997, Alex Tresniowski, review of Best Seat in the House, p. 38.

Publishers Weekly, September 18, 1987, John Mutter, review of Spike Lee's "Gotta Have It," p. 180; January 29, 1988, John Mutter, review of Uplift the Race, p. 425; November 16, 1992, review of By Any Means Necessary, p. 56; April 28, 1997, review of Best Seat in the House, p. 61; October 14, 2002, review of Please, Baby, Please, p. 82; July 25, 2005, review of Spike Lee: That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It, p. 64; April 3, 2006, review of Please, Puppy, Please, p. 76.

Rolling Stone, June 2, 1994, Peter Travers, review of Crooklyn, p. 75.

School Library Journal, December, 2002, Anna DeWind, review of Please, Baby, Please, p. 100; November, 2005, Mary Hazelton, review of Please, Puppy, Please, p. 97.

Sight and Sound, October, 1991, Paul Gilroy, review of Five for Five, p. 36.

Time, June 17, 1991, Richard Corliss, review of Jungle Fever, p. 64; March 16, 1992, Janice C. Simpson, review of Malcolm X, p. 71.

Times Literary Supplement, September, 6, 1991, Gerald Early, review of Five for Five, p. 18.

Variety, February 24, 1988, review of Uplift The Race, p. 520; July 26, 1989, review of Do The Right Thing, p. 95; September 3, 1990, review of Mo' Better Blues, p. 95.

Village Voice, February 16, 1988, review of Spike Lee's "Gotta Have It," and Uplift the Race, p. 72.