Jasik

Spike Lee needs to ease back and take his time. He is not Woody Allen and cannot make a decent film every year.

The same problems that plague Jungle Fever, Get on the Bus and Bamboozled torpedo Jim Brown: All American.

What starts out as a completely engaging portrait of one of the most amazing and awe-inspiring athletes to ever walk on a field quickly loses steam halfway through when Spike looks into Brown's domestic abuse problems and family relations. Looking to investigate them only to vindicate Brown, Spike shows he's only interested in showing how fantastic Brown is and deflecting any criticism.

In one segment, Brown explains an incident in which he reportedly threw a woman over a balcony, which he denies. The woman involved, found 30 years later, explains what happened, saying she was trying to get away from Brown, who was beating her. Instead of asking Brown, oh I don't know, what's up with that, Spike just lets Brown get away with being portrayed as another black man hassled by the White establishment.

While Brown faced tremendous challenges because of white America's intransigence and racism, he wasn't perfect but Spike doesn't seem interested in allowing for a balanced take.

If it wasn't for the loads of great anecdotes about Brown, provided by teammates, coaches, friends and Brown himself, and the insane footage of Brown mauling defenses as a running back, the documentary would find itself in deep trouble, weighed down by too much extraneous footage and too many long-winded explanations by Brown of his lack of parenting.

A 6/10.

Godard is at his best when he playfully messes with social and filmmaking conventions, combining his whimsical nature with his vibrant social commentary.

The little soldier does not do that. He plays it serious here and it's a shame, because Godard can't do that. He can't create suspense; it's antithetical to his nature. Even a scene that is supposed to elicit emotion from the audience, presumably, like the torture sequence, goes on and on so slowly and at such a rambling pace, you eventually feel nothing, if that hasn't happened much earlier.

What could have been a great statement on the corruption of both sides of thought, left and right, and the lack of ideals in modern politics just becomes a tedious, overbearing, overlong mess.

Godard lovers, like all the commentators on this page, will defend Godard to the death even when he retches up something as awful as this. Don't listen to them. There's a reason this movie is impossible to find; no one wants to see it.

You can like this movie all you want. Feel free. Express your love however you like.

But I must beg to differ.

This is about style and no substance. This is about showering us with visuals and edits to hide, well, the sorry-ass state of the film. This is about schlock comedy bits that are too lame to be used in a 'Friends' skit. This is about having a villain so cliched and lame and obvious and cartoonish, a satire of his character in the movie would have absolutely nothing to expound upon. This is about being as obvious, as ostentatious as, well, ironically, a strip club.

This isn't about art. This is about shaking big fake tits in your face.

But if you like that. Please. Feel free.