Thoughts

The performances by Denzel Washington and Jeffrey Wright steal the show. Fantastic comedic and tense moments are offset by a majority of cringeworthy dialogue and the most awkward scoring choices I’ve ever heard. It felt like watching a soap opera at more than a handful of moments. Going off of that, the police dialogue had to be some of the worst I’ve ever seen. The redeeming moments are within the tense action scenes, led by the direction of Lee with Denzel on the move.

This is a notorious, or rather infamous, film for a number of reasons I’m about to get into. But I’ll start with this: Paul Thomas Anderson accomplished what this film wanted to be with his late 90s hit Boogie Nights (1997). PTA skillfully, and more importantly, tastefully weaves pornographic story elements with clever cinematography. Caligula is not that.

This is Spike Lee at the absolute top of his game, weaving cinematic spectacle with hard-hitting rhetorical questions about the consequences of America’s greatest sin. The opening scenes are almost a celebration of many films before it, before quickly devolving into the horrors Malcolm would experience, leading to the tumultuous and eventually life-taking journey of religious and spiritual, and moreover, societal acceptance.

“So, what? No fuckin’ tariffs?” – Anthony Soprano Jr., probably. I'm kidding around, But I can’t help but give a quick perspective on the absurdity of the Trump administration over the last few weeks as the American markets have plummeted and then shot back up and ducked again.