She's Gotta Have It

I'm a major fan of Spike Lees work so when i read that he was rebooting She's Gotta Have It as a Netflix series i just had to check it out.On viewing it ,it has Spike Lees look and feel all over it i always loved his style of movie making Do The Right Thing ,Jungle Fever etc.I liked watching this and its only because of the way Spike Lee directs and the way he portrays and projects the characters even though the story or theme isn't my favorite topic "relationships".I still liked it though and that's because i'm a Spike Lee fan.

The music gave it a 2 star rating... and I'll chuck an extra 1 star because they rip on Trump.

Unfortunately the best thing about this show is the soundtrack. The rest of movie seems like a self-indulgent exercise by the director and whoever wrote the horrible, leaden script. Someone said it in a earlier review but the dialogue could not have been any more unnatural. What were they thinking? While he does capture some beautiful images of Brooklyn, the characters are poorly developed and Spike was clearly trying to push a narrative at the cost of the story. The lead character is interesting but she was not given opportunities to shine within this vanity project. Please spare us a third season

The statements are right. The script is quite tight. The women are beautiful. That last quality is not a merit of Spike.

The rest is crap. The lines are slogans. And the actors have a hard time saying them as dialogue. At times it's like they are reading headlines.

Also, given what has been published on NetFlix, Spike is dated. He can't integrate the new gadgets. Even the episode format is more like 1980s syndicated sitcom.

So for a newcomer that would be a very promising series. For Spike it's probably sign he's on his way out.

Corny is word I hate using but it sums up Spike Lee's attempt at- whatever it was he was trying to achieve with this reboot. Now, it was not completely terrible, it was easy to watch in the background while I worked on my laptop. However, I think I would have turned it off sooner had I been fully paying attention. The acting was overall quite bland. There weren't many fully realized characters in the cast, almost everyone was a shell of clichés. The close ups, especially towards the end were eye rolling. And that finale- I suppose I would've been disappointed if I was expecting something more.

I have a lot of respect for the arts but I didn't need to see this portrayal of another self righteous "starving" Brooklyn artist, who if they spent 5% of the time working some other job as they do pontificating about how the world NEEDS their art... give me a break. Nola is getting a steep discount from her godmother to stay in the gentrified neighborhood she grew up in, and she still doesn't manage to get the rent on time. They constantly talk about her hustle, yet she really isn't ever truly desperate or truly hustling. Now maybe that wasn't the show they wanted to make, but don't pretend putting 5 paintings on your stoop and walking some dogs to continue living solo in a gorgeous brownstone is roughing it. Gentrification is a legitimate issue, and I see the commentary Spike was going for but it fell quite short.

I'm sure some people will enjoy the show, as I said it is not all bad, just was not for me.