We should not allow the new puritans to dictate our lives

TOM HARRIS WRITES: The Legions of Woke are missing the joke as they try to stop us watching classic comedies like “League of Gentlemen” and “Little Britain” wtites Tom Harris 11 June 2020.

Here’s the new puritanism – same as the old one.

In the 1960s and ’70s, J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” was the most banned book in America, accused of corrupting youngsters’ minds and even suspected of being part of a communist plot to subvert the nation. From today’s standpoint, we like to pour scorn on the old-fashioned prejudices that shaped that debate in the United States. As we should. 

But those parents, teachers and politicians who demanded the book be burned and its message be censored felt every bit as strongly about their case as critics of “League of Gentlemen” and “Little Britain” do today.

One day, decades from now, we’ll be able to look back on the Puritans of the 2020s with the same scorn.

But in the meantime, we should not sit back and allow them to tell everyone else that their choice, their tastes, their standards must dictate what we watch in the privacy of our own homes.

Writes Peter Debruge about Da 5 Bloods

Jocelyn Noveck …

An exquisite sense of timing. Yes, Spike Lee has always had good timing. But it’s never been more evident or important than with the release of this film amid the current national reckoning over racial justice and police brutality.

“Time has come today,” goes the Chamber Brothers song that accompanies Lee’s trailer. And: “Can’t put it off another day.”

Indeed. You’ll find yourself awed by Lee’s prescience only moments into the film, with a searing montage of archival footage setting the Vietnam War, and most importantly the experience of black soldiers in that war, into political and social context.

Activist Bobby Seale, in one 1968 clip, recalls how blacks served in the Civil War and then World War II, with freedom still elusive, “and now here we go with the damn Vietnam War and we still ain’t getting nothing but racist police brutality, et cetera.”

PETER DEBRUGE

Entertainment journalists have taken to describing “Da 5 Bloods” as “timely” because its release coincides with the nationwide protests that spontaneously arose following the murder of George Floyd.

That is true, but let’s be clear: Lee has always been ahead-of-his-timely. He reminded us of that a week ago with his new “3 Brothers” video, which identifies the horrifying pattern connecting the murder of Radio Raheem in 1989’s “Do the Right Thing” to the more recent choking deaths of Floyd and Eric Garner. “Will History Stop Repeating Itself?” the short film implores. And now, “Da 5 Bloods” — which the Cannes Film Festival reportedly intended to screen out of competition — marks another bold salvo from an artist committed to delivering political statements through popular entertainment.

Soundtrack (Trailer) | Time Has Come Today | Da 5 Bloods (2020) https://youtu.be/Zl4HqVHtClU via @YouTube

11 minutes long!

Chorus: Now the time has come (Time) There’s no place to run (Time) I might get burned up by the sun (Time) But I had my fun (Time) I’ve been loved and put aside (Time) I’ve been crushed by tumbling tide (Time) And my soul has been psychedelicized (Time)

Their music has been kept alive through heavy use in film soundtracks.

George Chambers died 12 October 2019 at age 88

Da 5 Bloods | Official Trailer | Netflix https://youtu.be/D5RDTPfsLAI via @YouTube

From Academy Award® Winner Spike Lee comes a New Joint: the story of four African-American Vets — Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) — who return to Vietnam. Searching for the remains of their fallen Squad Leader (Chadwick Boseman) and the promise of buried treasure, our heroes, joined by Paul’s concerned son (Jonathan Majors), battle forces of Man and Nature — while confronted by the lasting ravages of The Immorality of The Vietnam War.

In his own history, Lee has made several great films and others less great than they were meant to be without ever losing his bone-deep love for moving pictures. So it proves again. The biggest gamble comes with the flashbacks to war, scenes in which Norman is played by Boseman — 42 but looking younger — while the older cast remain, grey beards and all. The effect is jarring, then it clicks, brilliantly, illustrating how Norman never got to grow old while his soldiers did so shaped by his influence. And America? In the jungle, Norman thinks back to home, the menace of the police: “I can feel,” he sighs, “just how much I ain’t worth.” It is 1968. George Floyd would be born five years later. ★★★★★ On Netflix from Friday June 12 (From Danny Leigh in the Financial Times 10 June 2020)

‘Da 5 Bloods’

Rating: R, for strong violence, grisly images and pervasive language

Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes

Playing: Available June 12 on Netfli

In perhaps Lee’s most radical touch — and also his most old-fashioned — he has Lindo, Peters, Whitlock and Lewis play those younger versions of themselves, without any attempts to de-age them in the manner of another recent Netflix production, Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.” As Lee wryly noted in an interview with the New York Times’ Reggie Ugwu, it was a budgetary decision that turned out to have been the right one. In these actors’ weary faces, incongruously bridging the divide between past and present, we see the most literal possible visualization of a war without end.