USA / 1994 / 114mins / Comedy, Drama / English

From Spike Lee, the legendary director of Do the Right Thing, Mo’ Better Blues, and Malcolm X, comes this vibrant semi-autobiographical portrait of a school teacher, her stubborn jazz musician husband and their five kids living in Brooklyn in 1973. Make yourself at home with the Carmichael family as they experience one very special summer in their Brooklyn neighborhood that they’ve affectionately nicknamed Crooklyn. Lee fashions a bold, flavorful picture of family life starring the wonderful Alfre Woodard as Carolyn, a loving, but fiercely independent mother who, along with her musician husband Woody (Delroy Lindo), struggles to raise their family in difficult but often wonderful circumstances. Complemented by an energizing, vintage R&B soundtrack, this tender and colorful film was beautifully shot by Arthur Jafa (Daughters of the Dust). The strong supporting cast includes Spike Lee, David Patrick Kelly, Zelda Harris, Isaiah Washington, José Zúñiga and Vondie Curtis-Hall.

Spike Lee

Spike Lee was born Shelton Jackson Lee on March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia. At a very young age, he moved from pre-civil rights Georgia, to Brooklyn, New York. Lee came from artistic, education-grounded background; his father was a jazz musician, and his mother, a schoolteacher. He attended school in Morehouse College in Atlanta and developed his film making skills at Clark Atlanta University. After graduating from Morehouse, Lee attended the Tisch School of Arts graduate film program. He made a controversial short, The Answer (1980), a reworking of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. Lee went on to produce a 45-minute film Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983), which won a student Academy Award. In 1986, Spike Lee made the film, She’s Gotta Have It, a comedy about sexual relationships. The movie was made for $175,000, and earned $7 million at the box office, which launched his career and allowed him to found his own production company, 40 Acres & a Mule Filmworks. On May 2, 2007, the 50th San Francisco International Film Festival honored Spike Lee with the San Francisco Film Society's Directing Award. In 2008, he received the Wexner Prize. In 2013, he won The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, one of the richest prizes in the American arts. In 2015, Lee received an Academy Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his contributions to film. Lee won his first competitive Oscar in 2019, for the adapted screenplay for BlacKkKlansman. Learn More