Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
None Mo' Better, 16 Jan 2004
Its been a while since I've seen this film as I'm waiting for a UK DVD release but I've had it on VHS for many years and every now and then I'd slide it into the player and just soak it up.
Its typical Spike. Cool, funny, sad, moving, rythmic, sexy, poetic, tense but most of all just plain gorgeous. For me its the collaboration of music and colour and pace that just make this such an absorbing picture. At times the tempo is snappy and at others its like liquid, as if the music is painting the movie as we slide along.
All this is supported by a thoroughly involving journey through the life of jazz trumpeter Bleek (Denzel on fine form) and his relationship with his 2 women, his bandmates, his manager and his parents led by a superb cast including Wesley Snipes, Do The Right Thing's Giancarlo Esposito and Spike Lee amoung others.
Not too taxing and yet never dull, I just melt into the sofa when I play it. Highly recommended to those who've ever enjoyed a Spike Lee but still a great movie in its own right. Definitely one of Spike's best. Maybe catch 'Do The Right Thing' first for a warm up. Equally superb.Looking forward to a hopeful UK DVD release. Wonderful.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
One for the jazz-loving filmsters, 5 Dec 2001
By A Customer
A well crafted story following the talent and trials of a jazz trumpeter inspired by the likes of John Coltrane. Some great characters (such as two miserly night-club owners and the lead character's two women) and an even better score inculding a title track penned by none other than Spike's dad, Bill Lee. Worth it for the performances by Denzel Washington, Spike Lee and the host of minor characters who round of the film beautifully.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Spike Lee hit a good note on this film , 23 Jun 2007
This is among the most artistic and aesthetically brilliant films. Written and directed by Spike Lee, the film marked Lee's first collaboration with Denzel Washington who plays the fictional jazz trumpeter Bleek Gilliam. Also starring Lee and his regulars John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, Wesley Snipes, Joie Lee, Bill Nunn, and Samuel L. Jackson plus Cynda Williams, Robin Harris, and Charlie Murphy. Mo' Better Blues is a brilliant, passionate love letter to jazz and music in all of its chaos.
I find this film rather cool and sexy. Lee and DP Ernest Dickerson use the camera in the same way that Michelangelo used a chisel to transform ugly chunks of rocks into beautiful hands and feet. Spike and Dickerson always delight and amaze me with the way the use that camera - with their creative choices for the initial set-up of the camera angle in each scene, and then with the movement of the camera through the scene. And it's difficult to argue with the musical choices. If you like the music of John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Branford Marsalis, you are going to go nuts over this biography of a trumpeter who plays that kind of music with a quintet in uptown jazz clubs. I did being that I was unfamiliar with almost half of them. If you love New York City, progressive jazz/blues, and dazzling photographic presentation, this is your film, hands down.
There is more to a movie than that. There is a script. storyline, and of course the cast which is wonderfully assembled. Beside the main cast there were nice cameos from Bill Lee, Flava Flav in the opening credits, and the late comedian Robin Harris as the club's top comedian. Other noted small performances from Charlie Murphy, Linda Hawkins, Zakee Howze, Leonard L. Thomas, and Abbey Lincoln are memorable while Samuel L. Jackson and Ruben Blades are excellent as the bookies with Jackson also playing the voice of Senor Love Daddy from "Do the Right Thing." Lee regular John Turturro and brother Nicholas bring humor as the fast-talking accountants bring some needed humor to the film. Dick Anthony Williams is great as the Bleek's caring father while Bill Nunn and Jeff "Tain" Watts are excellent in their brief roles as the rhythm section of Bleek's band. Cynda Williams is excellent as the seductive, hungry Clarke whose lack of attention leads her to having an affair with another man. Joie Lee is wonderful as the more mature, down-to-earth Indigo who seems like the only woman who can ground and confront Bleek and his ego. The great weakness of the film would be Lee's story is completely conventional. I didn't see anything new here that I haven't seen in earlier movies like "Young Man With a Horn," except that the experiences are specifically filtered through the urban middle-class black experience.
This is not an "important" film like the ones that made Spike Lee famous. It doesn't hammer away on social themes; there's no activism; there's no politics; there's no social injustice. There aren't any white villains. There aren't any white heroes, either. It is simply a story about a man and his surroundings. It must generally reflect portions of the middle class black experience, and it must specifically reflect some of Lee's own loves and hates, but there's no attempt to change the world, or even to remind the world that it needs changing. It's just a story about people who love jazz and New York City, told by a filmmaker who simply justifies that.
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