one of my favorite movies of all time. edward norton is fantastic in this.

A

Spike Lee's best movie since Malcolm X, and he's had Crooklyn, He Got Game, Clockers, Bamboozled, Get on the Bus and Summer of Sam between then.

I'm pretty sure I really disliked the ending.

Other wise, I can't complain.

Best film of 2002.

[font=arial]A+[/font]

Compelling and complex.

The direction is actually quite odd. Lots of melodramatic score, cutting underneath dialogue. Some off-kilter camerawork. But it's all nonintrusive and complements rather than distracts. I'm honestly not all that familiar with Spike Lee's stuff (I think the only other film I've seen of his, sadly, is Inside Man), but I think I like him.

B+

Pretty good. The performances, especially Rosario Dawson in a supporting role, are wonderful. B+

25th Hour - Gettin' Ready for the Big House!

I enjoyed this movie - it is my favourite now amongst the Spike Lee movies I have seen (though Malcolm X is a strong second). The idea of the intense reflection engendered on your last free day before going to prison for 7 years is a solid idea for a movie. Edward Norton is great as always (he looks just like the wimpiest guy at my grade school, so I'm always impressed with his tough guy act). Also Spike Lee manages to focus on the main story this time instead of being drawn off into secondary themes as he often has been - I think that contributed to the strength of this entry in his filmography. Of course, it hasn't made much of a dent at the box office - when I went to see it there were 2 other people in the theatre, but I guess it hardly matters being all introspection.

4 out of 5.

Quite good. Norton's performance is terrific.

***

25th Hour

It's kind of a pretentious film. It's trying to hard to be an elite movie, to be unique and different, but it's just boring and it reminds me of A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints in that I just didn't care for anybody in it. Spike Lee is an odd director, the first scene before the credits had some nice dialogue, then it took ages until the next good scenes, which were both scenes with the D.E.A. agents. Norton was fine, Hoffman was kind of sleepwalking through the movie, and Pepper was good as always. Dawson and Paquin were just fine. Overall, I think I preferred the dog to all of the actors.

It spent too much time on Phillip Seymour Hoffman's crush on Anna Paquin, in fact it didn't need to spend any time on it, the movie should have focused more on the regret of Norton's character. One thing I thought was funny about this movie was the monologue in the toilet from Norton when he basically says "fuck you" to all the different fractions of society, but most importantly when he says "slavery was 130 years ago, let it fucking go", which is quite hypocritical considering Spike Lee's comments recently about Django Unchained. This just proves that Lee likes to stir the pot and doesn't actually have any firm opinions of his own, which is true of this movie too.

C-

I am a big fan of this one. I dig how angry and macho it is. A nice companion piece to another Norton film, Fight Club.

A+ One of my all time favorite film!

Spike Lee knows how to do a day in the life film. It's obviously all about Ed Norton and his last day of freedom, but by the end basically all the other characters are saying goodbye to the lives they knew either because of his situation. Even PSH, who is 99% to blame for almost surely getting himself fired, could say that he'd have never been in the same room with a drunk Anna Paquin if not for ole Ed.

8/10. Probably my second fav Spike Lee (of 5 or 6) after DTRT and over Inside Man (which I haven't seen since it came out.)