(random thoughts)

The narrative was seemingly all over the place, and the kid actors were a bit wooden, and it was just tough to buy that Mookie was still delivering pizzas, and Spike's speechifying was a bit much at times

But I still enjoyed this movie quite a bit.

That's probably mainly due to Clarke Peters' wonderful performance. It's his movie to own, and for the most part he does. He's a preacher who's TOO into the Word, who believes that money troubles can be prayed away, and that the local drug dealers could be swayed with the good word. He's also revealed to have a big demon that he has to deal with, and it gets dealt with (and btw, it's not something that comes up out of the blue, it's hinted at during one of the scenes with the Bloods, and we see the fellow who was molested at least one time before he explodes). But anyway, Clarke did his thing with the role he was given. It's a shame that his performance is going to get overlooked come awards season.

Like I said, I thought the kids were a bit wooden, with the young lady playing Chazz way over-the-top at times. Which I get, Spike intentionally directed her that way, but I'm not sure we needed her performance to be that uneven. Might have been due to the script.

Spike beat us over the head with the gentrification theme, with (what I think are) his thoughts being personified in the form of Deacon Zee. But yet, I was fine with it, probably due to the wildly entertaining performance of Thomas Jefferson Byrd. He's either your cup of tea, or he's not (he was the junkie who had AIDS in Clockers). I personally find him hilarious. But every 5 minutes he was giving a speech about how "niggas" didn't invest stock in various companies and how we instead wanted to pray everything okay. And yep, if he did it anyplace else, we'd call it "cooning." The world is unfair. Anyway, the theme of gentrification is very interesting to me, and I wish Spike would have just stuck with that story, such as it were, rather than shift the focus to Reverend Enoch's past indiscretion and resulting deliverance.

It was cool to see not just Mookie (who, as I predicted, did not have his "legacy ruined" by being in this movie) but it was also cool to see Nola Darling, who is now "Mother Darling," a Jehovah's Witness. Some who like to look for fights about these things might try to argue that this is Spike "punishing" his earlier character for her sex life a long time ago, but I'm not sure how much I'd buy into that bullshit. I'm surprised that any number of opinionated bloggers hasn't tried to make that argument. Guess I should wait until the movie goes wider.

And while this movie's not a direct sequel to Do the Right Thing, it shares the same kind of tone: comedy and slice-of-life storytelling until there's a major plot point and some resulting seriousness in the last third. But unlike that movie, this one ends on a note of hope.

Great score by Bruce "That's Just the Way it Is" Hornsby.

I didn't buy that Flik was THAT naive about stuff, such as not knowing what kayaking was.

Nate Parker is my man, but he's a bit too old to be playing a gangbanger. Or at least it seems like it.

Also, I think that final thing at the end that people will clown was Flik's video present to Chazz. That's the only way I can explain the... cheesiness of it.

In addition, Flik's mama could have GOT IT.

But yeah, I liked it. If you see this, it's going to be interesting to talk about afterwards. Like it always is with Spike.

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We out here trying to function.