Thing is back with Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever it was perfect, fresh, effective and affecting, now it feels rustic, tv-movie material-like.
Up to Clockers he was one of my favourite directors.
The thing may also be, that he's so dedicated to be an African American director, that he completely misses to tell us anything about African Americans, which wouldn't represent a white man's stereotype image of them and/or their culture. He supplies great jobs, for great actors, in a totally biased industry, yet, in my opinion, he has never left what you call tv-movie material, or worse.
I get the feeling, his films are a luxury issue of a dime novel with gilded edges and leather binding, like one of those expensive, personalized Bibles Moze Prey & Addie Loggins sold in Paper Moon. When I want insights into African American life, stereotype-free, I go with Carl Franklin. Lee knows about it, though, I give him that. That's why he lets his Pierre Delacroix reveal in Bamboozled:
Delacroix: I don't agree. The Negro middle class does exist, and it's rich material for a dramatic series or sitcom.
Delacroix, another of Lee's sledgehammer metaphors (de la croix = the cross), says in another scene:
Delacroix: I feel like somebody hit me upside da head with a sledgehammer.
Well, after all it's a Spike Lee joint Pierre.