Media Matters

     Spike Lee's recent premiere of "DA 5 BLOODS" on Netflix brings to mind some comparisons with many of his past movies. His work also  continues to remind this critic of films by Martin Scorsese. Perhaps most interestingly, Lee's latest effort suggests a name for his cinematic style.       Declaring that Lee's endeavors are similar to Scorsese's is maybe a stretch, yet both are graduates of New York University's motion picture department ( attending at different times ), depending on documentary techniques that  lend a signature to their movies.  And no wonder, since their academic environment did not include a studio in which to film. Thus, shooting in the streets and on-location elsewhere were the order-of-the-day. Both directors have included documentaries  throughout their career, including Scorsese's early  "Italianamerican" and Lee's "Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads." ( His most recent eff...

     For over a week now, cable news networks have been predominated by protests centering on George Floyd's death. No longer were viewers fixated on CNN's Anderson Cooper  or  MSNBC's  Rachel Maddow each night, but instead watched other journalists who took to the streets: following and talking with the demonstrators, ducking cops, cars , helicopters and even water bottles and rubber bullets. These individuals became the new airway "hosts," available, it seemed, for 24 hours at a clip.      No longer were these correspondents disseminating information in "real" time as part of their job; they were also becoming part of the crowds and locations they were reporting on. They were evolving into participants themselves, taking the viewers' place in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Seattle. And perhaps most important, they became people we began to care about during the many days that the protests...