BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Deb and I really liked this powerful story about Colorado Springs' first black policeman infiltrating the KKK in the 1970s. It's terrific, funny, and moving, based on the memoir by Ron Stallworth.

John David Washington (son of Denzel, he was in Malcolm X (1992), which came out when he was eight, and 37 episodes of Ballers, which I haven't seen) is very good as Stallworth, as is Adam Driver (before I mentioned him in The Meyerowitz Stories, I wrote about him in Logan Lucky) as Stallworth's colleague Flip Zimmerman. The lovely Laura Harrier (Peter Parker's crush in Spider-Man: Homecoming, though I neglected to say so) is appropriately intense as head of the Black Student Union and Stallworth's love interest Patrice. Topher Grace (profiled in Truth) is quite convincing as KKK leader David Duke, and Paul Walter Hauser adds comic relief to the hatred, as he added it to the stupidity in I, Tonya.

Director/co-writer Spike Lee (last blogged for Chi-Raq) co-writes with his Chi-Raq collaborator Kevin Willmott as well as Charlie Wachtel and David Rabinowitz, both making their feature debuts.

The overt racism of many of the characters was hard to watch for this liberal white person, but it's nothing new for Lee, whose movie Bamboozled (2000) was about someone who thought a blackface minstrel TV show would be a disaster, but, like Springtime for Hitler in The Producers, was a hit.

Sorry to Bother You director/writer Boots Riley has taken exception to the artistic license of the BlacKkKlansman filmmakers, which is detailed in a very long, spoiler-filled Slate article (don't read it before watching the movie unless you've read the book). Neither Deb nor I knew exactly when the movie was supposed to take place. Apparently Stallworth's work was in 1979 but the movie is set in 1972. The huge afro hairdos are outstanding, as is a long dance number to Too Late to Turn Back Now by Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose.

Speaking of music, you can stream Terence Blanchard's (most recently in these pages for Black or White and Chi-Raq--he's a frequent composer for Lee) original score from this link on spotify and many of the songs from this page.

95% of Rotten Tomatoes' critics aren't wrong, nor are 80% of its audiences. I was so excited to see this when we got back home that I didn't wait for Jack and watched it Sunday when he was busy. He'll catch up.