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Jungle Fever

Jungle Fever

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $14.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: I love this movie.
Review: Shows the importance of love being color blind. It helps open the eyes of people and society.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: racism dumbed down for the masses
Review: spike lee is an interesting director, says a lot of good things, and speaks his mind in the press.

hwever, this movie seems really dull and watered down.

the central relationship between snipes and the white woman has no sparks at all. a totally unbelievable pairing. i couldn't understand why snipes would cheat on his wife. it's not clear what his motives are. her motives...something, anything better or more exciting than her banal existence....are much clearer. is snipes bored in his marriage, or is he just very belated in trying to fulfill the age old "fantasy" of black males to get with a white woman? i couldn't tell you, because it's not at all clear to me. the moral of the movie- "idealism is ok, but it can never really work out" is off base, because it can't work out anyway, black or white....when a married guy sneaks around on his wife...whom he is apparently still in love with.

all the issues portrayed in the movie are real and need to be discussed in film, but i was bummed out by the some of ways which they were brought forth. a big one for me is his targeting of racist italians. in this movie it's the poor working class italians that are the problem? racism is very common in ALL low income areas. the group that spike targets here...brooklyn "bodda-bing-bodda boom" italians...seems silly. sure some of those guys are racist, but they are not causing the majority of problems in the US of A...rather the herded-off-in-the-suburbs middle class white people, this subtle yet ultra powerful form of racism...i see this as the real problem, not the (relatvely speaking) small old school (and quickly dying out) ethnic populations of the buroughs. why didn't spike choose middle class racism as his subject matter? was it too nuanced to portray on film? how about this: a suburban white intern who falls in with her well to do black boss...her supposedly "liberal" white family totally disapproves. the economics of the pairing would ordinarily be cause for approval, but the ultimate issue is the color of skin. NOW THAT is way more on the mark. who cares about lower class "bodda-bing-bodda-boom" italian racists? (i'm italian btw) they have no political power in america, they don't sway votes and they don't give scholarships and jobs to white people that should go to black people. did spike get beat up by some some "wiseguys" as a teen or something?

it just seems like a real misfire by spike, and not genuine. another movie about racism "higher learning", showed racism on a college campus by nazi skinheads from idaho! come on! there are many way more acute examples of racism on a college campus. who takes a skinhead seriously? however, a rich white dean of a school may well have some racist ideas in his mind. THAT wasn't shown in the movie. again, it seems like these directors are dumbing down the issue for the audience or something. i don't know why they would squander the chance to actually SHOW how racism pervades our society...but instead show a sensationalist easy to pick on minority group who has old school racist ideas.

incidentally, i thought "bamboozled" was great. really cuts the chase about the racism in the entertainment industry and shows how the audiences love stuff that panders to their most ignorant notions. "bamboozled" is way more ambitious and hard hitting. more enjoyable all around too.

so why does spike insult our intelligence with "jungle fever?"
james baldwin's book "another country" deals with this subject with a lot a depth and examines many angles. check that out instead of this one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A real film about reality in America
Review: Spike Lee once again make film about the real issues that is going in America right now. Very intense love scenes. Great supporting cast of Samuel L. Jackson, Halle Berry and Ossie Davis.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: very real
Review: spike once again taps onto a subject that needed to be address and he does so brillantly along with sam jackson and Ossie davis reinacting marvin gaye sr and marvin gaye jr father having to kill his out of control son.wesley was on time.and this for me is my last fave weley movie all the way thru.spike taps into the way many people really think.a spike film is very unpolitically correct. it's that honest that i dig about spike.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Lessons Learned!!
Review: The one thing about a Spike Lee joint, you're bound to learn something at the end. In this case, it's our perceptions about race. The purpose of Spike's intentions, I suppose, is not about interracial relationships but about how they affect other people. In this case, everyone is hurt or affected in some way. From the marriage between Wesley Snipes and Lonette McKee to Annabella Sciorra's relationship with her father, to the waitress, to their friends, to the police, and so on. It's definitely a conversation maker that's worth viewing!!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Spike Lee ought to be banned from filmmaking
Review: This is one of the absolute worst movies I have ever seen. Spike Lee is not a brilliant filmmaker. He clearly has racist views that he feels the need to display on film. Jungle Fever is the story of a black man who has an affair with an Italian woman. When their affair is found out, everyone is up in arms. The woman is accused of stealing the Black Man. Black women sit around dissing her when Flipper's (Snipes) wife needs to be questioning her husband. Last I checked, the ring was on Flipper's finger. The very idea that these women can sit around dogging white people and it be deemed ok is deplorable to me. As a young black female, I was disgusted at this image. Queen Latifah's portrayal of that waitress was even worse.

This movie is disgusting and it is a very good example of irresponsible filmmaking. This does not promote racial unity or racial tolerance.

Avoid it at all cost.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: this film be slammin!
Review: This movie is a classic- one of my favorite modern films. Sam Jackson is incredible- Tuturro, Ozzie Davis, Wesley- so many brilliant acting performances and a powerful comment on racism in America. All hail Spike!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Interesting
Review: This movie was great, although, I believe that the plot could have been improved had there not been a wife in the picture. It displays that there is something wrong with interracial couples, no matter the circumstances. Would anyone have approved if he had not been married? Of course the man should not have cheated on his wife, yet, if she had been black, would everything ended better? I feel that the controversy should have been over the adultry, not on the man's choice of the color of the woman he cheated with.

On the other hand, writing in a change of heart on Wesley's part was great. He returned to his wife and saved his marriage.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good Film/Good Story/Classic Spike Lee
Review: We were in Nag's Head, North Carolina during the week of Memorial Day. We rented movies every day. In the video store, in the "cult classics" section I found a Spike Lee movie (It was Jungle Fever). I asked incredulously why Spike Lee was in the cult section. The owner said that hardly anyone ever rents Spike Lee movies down there.
I happen to like Spike Lee movies. All of them. I know a number of people emphatically don't and I don't know why. What I appreciate about Spike Lee movies is that he does not rely on sex, violence, science fiction or special effects as his primary means of entertaining people, although you may sex and violence in his movies. Spike Lee makes movies the old-fashioned way, he tells a story. And he has something to say.
He makes what I think are very good observations about race relations and the faults of both the black and white communities. I suspect that many of the people who don't like Spike's movies are people who are uncomfortable with the message.
Jungle Fever is about a married middle class black architect in Manhattan who has an affair with a young Italian American girl from BayRidge, Brooklyn.
The movie is loaded with acting talent: Wesley Snipes, the late Anthony Quinn, Ossie Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, John Turturro (One of my favorite actors-57 movies-Barton Fink), Halle Berry (the flattest, thinnest tummy in Hollywood now, but not in this movie. Do I suspect liposuction?), Nicholas Turturro (John's brother-the Hispanic Detective in NYPD Blue. I don't like him. He went Hollywood. The Turturro's are from Brooklyn. John has an apartment there and still rides the subway.), Michael Imperioli (Christopher on The Sopranos, Queen Latifah (she play a waitress with an attitude, in a scene in the restaurant Silvia's in Harlem. I've always liked Queen Latifah.), Danny Aielo, and Ruby Dee. Doubtless you will recognize other actors that don't mean anything to me.
I sort of have the same problem with my video store here as they have in Nag's Head. I can't even get She' Gotta Have it and School Daze, which are his first two movies.
I find all of Spike's movies 100% credible. Spike Lee is doing heavy social criticism and making entertaining movies. I wonder why no one else is? Who says movies these days are trash? The timing of the movie was perfect. Dinkins beat Giuliani for mayor. A black police commissioner. Race murders in Bensonhust, Howard Beach.. Police brutality on blacks. Korean grocers in bad neighborhoods working 20 hours a day and being boycotted by black. 2,000 murder a year. Crack, prostitution everywhere.


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