Nine Spike Lee joints. 'Mo' Better Blues' (1990) concerns a
handsome and accomplished jazz trumpeter, Bleek Gilliam (Denzel
Washington), who divides his spare time between two women: an
aspiring jazz vocalist, Clarke (Cynda Williams), and Indigo (Joie
Lee), a down-to-earth school teacher. 'Crooklyn' (1993) is Lee's
autobiographical homage to his own youth, growing up in 1970s
Brooklyn. Alfre Woodard stars as Carolyn Carmicheal, mother of
five children and wife to an unemployed jazz musician. She has to
struggle to hold the family together - and when she dies, the
resposibilities fall to the only daughter, Troy. Denzel
Washington stars in the crime thriller 'Inside Man' (2006) as
tough cop Keith Frazier, who finds himself drawn into a tense
hostage situation when master criminal Dalton Russell's (Clive
Owen) planned bank heist goes drastically wrong. Trying to
negotiate the release of the hostages, Frazier begins to realise
that something isn't quite right with the whole set up, and when
enigmatic Madeline White (Jodie Foster) arrives on the scene, he
realises that he's stumbled onto something a lot bigger. In
'Clockers' (1995), Strike (Mekhi Phifer) is a clocker (24-hour
drug dealer) who becomes implicated in the murder of a rival
after a tip off. Two cops investigate, Mazilli (John Turturro) -
looking for a quick solution, and Rocco (Harvey Keitel) - looking
for the truth. When Strike's brother confesses to the shooting,
Rocco decides to find the real killer. In the teen comedy-musical
'School Daze' (1987), Lee himself plays the lead role as a school
geek determined to lose his virginity and thereby gain entry to
the powerful high school fraternity. Larry Fishburne co-stars.
Anthony Mackie stars in the irreverent comedy 'She Hate Me'
(2004) as Jack Armstrong, a biotech executive who gets fired from
his job for whistle-blowing. Unemployed and desperate to find a
way to make a living, Jack accepts an unusual offer from former
girlfriend and now lesbian ima (Kerry Washington): she offers
to pay him handsomely if he impregnates her and her girlfriend.
Soon, Jack is inundated with requests from the lesbian community
to deliver a similar service, and his bank balance is looking
ier than ever. But things get complicated when his former
employers attempts to frame him for security fraud - and the
implications of his dubious hering activities start to hit
home. 'Do the Right Thing' (1989), the study of racial tensions
that made Spike Lee's name, takes place on the hottest day of the
year in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York. The
film charts the increasing tension between a black pizza delivery
boy (Lee) and his Italian bosses, the local folk and yuppy
newcomers, and builds inexorably to a violent confrontation. In
'Get on the Bus' (1996), a diverse group of twenty black men
board a bus in South Central Los Angeles to travel to Washington
in time for a protest march. They consist of a quarrelling her
and son who are chained together, a devout Muslim and a pair of
gay lovers. Along the way, the men endure various trials and
tribulations, tackling racism and phobia head on, and finally
come to regard themselves as a band of brothers. Finally, in
'Jungle Fever' (1996), a married black architect (Wesley Snipes)
begins an affair with a white temporary secretary (Annabella
Sciorra) from his office, causing turmoil in their social worlds.
Spike Lee plays Snipes' best friend Cyrus, who counsels against
succumbing to the temptation of 'jungle fever'.