Spike Lee Starts PR Tour by Snappin On Clint

Wassup, Y'all!

Word reached the basement yesterday about Spike Lee's pointed criticism of Clint Eastwood's two Iwo Jima based movies during a free moment at the Cannes Film Festival. Mars Blackmon accurately pointed out that neither World War II based movie featured a single southside actor - a glaring omission that skews historical accuracy given that fact that southsiders also served and died during the last great war.

Now while ol Ty does appreciate Mars steppin' in to highlight rarely recognized southside contributions to the war effort, I find his timing a bit self serving given the fact that he's dropping his own World War II themed movie in October - 'Miracle at St. Anna'. Given the quality of his recent movies - Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima - I'm willing to give Clint a pass on any claims of implicit racism. I'm not seeing it. And ol Ty is thinking that Mars' grown, 51 year old a$$ would be better served talking about the merits of his own project vs. mudslinging with a fellow director. That said, I'm giving Mars big props for bringing such an interesting story to light...

Similar to the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, which followed the exploits of the southside 99th Fighter Squadron which eventually joined with the southside 332 Fighter Group in flying highly successful sorties in both the North African and European WWII theaters, Miracle at St. Anna follows the exploits of four southside American soldiers who are part of the Army's all-southside 92nd Infantry Division (aka The Buffalo Soldiers) stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II.

The cast, featuring Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonzo, sounds like a lot of shorty eye candy, but I still plan to be in the theater for this one to learn a bit more about the only southside infantry unit to see combat in Europe during World War II. It sounds deep. Like I mentioned before, you always have to give Spike dap for his persistent efforts to highlight the southside experience (in a quality way) but when it comes to proppin' his movies, I think he'd be wise to follow the unit slogan of the Buffalo Soldier Division - "Deeds, not words". Dude - let your film making do the talking. Leave the woofin' to ol Ty.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone