Sometimes the best way to call attention to an historical injustice is through bold entertainment. That’s certainly what the great American auteur Spike Lee has in mind with Da 5 Bloods. On its most essential level, it’s an adventure film, about four Vietnam vet buddies returning to Ho Chi Minh City to look for buried treasure (gold bricks issued by the American government to thank the South Vietnamese for assisting them in the war), as well as the remains of their best friend and squad leader, Stormin’ Norman Holloway, who died in battle. But it’s also about the racist legacy of that terrible war—Black soldiers were disproportionately placed on the front lines to die, even as they were being discriminated against on American soil—and the way trauma never really leaves you. As far as our four heroes are concerned, the American government owes them that gold.

The film starts off on a light-hearted note, as the four grizzled friends (Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, and Isiah Whitlock Jr.) meet up at the hotel, marveling at how old they look, giving each other good-natured grief, and recreating their famous handshake. But already we can see that there’s something edgy and coiled about one of the men, Paul (Lindo). He’s in no mood to make light when his buddies mock him for supporting Donald Trump. Eventually, Paul’s handsome school-teacher son, David (Jonathan Majors), joins the expedition, ostensibly because he wants his cut of the gold bricks, but mostly because he’s worried about his old man.

Lee flashes back to the so-called “Bloods” in the war—and makes a curious choice: The aging actors play themselves as young men—and without the benefit of the kind of de-aging technique that Martin Scorsese employed in The Irishman. It’s hard to know exactly why Lee made this choice—on Twitter, my friend Bill Ryan suggested it was meant to show that they were still mentally in the war, even in their 60s. Someone else posited that Lee simply didn’t have the money for the complicated CGI—I strongly doubt that was the reason. After all, there are multiple ways to negotiate flashbacks—he could’ve simply used a set of younger actors. Whatever the case, after the initial cognitive dissonance wears off, it works—adding a layer of poignancy to the battleground scenes. Of course, in those flashbacks, the troop leader, “Stormin” Norman, is played by a young man, Chadwick Boseman (fun fact: Boseman is actually 42, but he easily looks ten years younger), because he didn’t make it out of ’Nam alive. The effortlessly charismatic Boseman is a perfect bit of casting here—as more than one casting director has noticed, he comes across as a natural leader of men.

There’s another poignant subplot involving Clarke Peters’ Otis, easily the most stable and responsible of the four friends, as he visits Tiên (Lê Y Lan), a prostitute he had a relationship with during the war. She’s financially comfortable now, and living with her adult daughter. She has connections to a shady French merchant (Jean Reno), whom she claims can help the Bloods smuggle the money back to the U.S. But can Otis trust her?

As we’ve come to expect from Lee’s work, Da 5 Bloods pulls out all the stops: shifting visual perspectives and aspect ratios, historical footage, fanciful digressions, references to old films including Apocalypse Now and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The lush soundtrack features the work of the great longtime Lee collaborator Terrance Blanchard as well as era-appropriate music including Marvin Gaye’s mournful acapella version of “What’s Going On.”

Da 5 Bloods is quite literally action packed, but it has two set pieces that stuck out to me. One involves the canoe-ride the Bloods take to the jungle. As they glide down the river, they are solicited by merchants, also on boats. They buy a six pack of beer, say no to the guy peddling flowers. One man, selling live chickens, gets a little pushy—and doesn’t quite realize how agitated Paul is getting. A scuffle breaks out. “You killed my parents!” the merchant ends up screaming at the veterans.

Another scene involves the disarming of a landmine (the Vietnamese jungles are still filled with dangerous landmines that could kill you just for stepping wrong). To tell you more would be to ruin the heart-pounding effectiveness of the scene. (I will say that the introduction of a trio of do-gooder landmine disablers—one is a quasi love interest for David—is another one of the film’s many loosey-goosey digressions that somehow manages to work.)

Both those scenes highlight the brilliance of Delroy Lindo as Paul. The journeyman actor taps into something deep and dark in this character. At 67, Lindo still looks strong and fit, like a guy who could whip someone’s ass in a bar fight. He embodies Paul’s male repression and rage, while never losing sight of his humanity.

Indeed, all the acting is great—this could be the film that makes Jonathan Major, so memorably good in The Last Black Man in San Francisco, a movie star—but it’s Lindo’s movie.

It’s remarkable how many genres of movies Lee is able to cram into this film—war film, buddy film, heist film, not to mention father-son reconciliation pic and even a bit of romance—while also addressing topics as weighty as systemic racism and PTSD. I want to emphasize that, while it has serious things on its mind, Da 5 Bloods is tons of fun. It’s over-stuffed, hyper violent, uproariously funny, heartbreakingly sad, filled with messy contradictions—and I wouldn’t change a minute of it.

Da 5 Bloods is now streaming on Netflix.

It’s impossible to present the Oscars in under three hours. I know this for a fact because the producers of last night’s show tried their darnedest—and the damn thing still went 20 minutes over.

On top of not having a host (more on that in a sec), the show had virtually no film-related montages, no honorary Oscar awards, and they cut the mic on acceptance speeches with cold-hearted precision. Even the In Memoriam montage went by in a breeze. If you were lucky, they flashed a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot of your best work (these images went by so fast they almost qualified as subliminal) to accompany your name, picture, and year of birth/death. I was so pissed that Nicolas Roeg apparently hadn’t warranted a drive-by image of Don’t Look Now, I didn’t even notice that Carol freaking Channing had been omitted from the segment. Somebody’s got some splainin’ to do.

Look, the Oscars will always be the Oscars—the fashion, the high stakes, the upsets, the stars—but there was a workmanlike, nearly joyless quality to last night’s show that rubbed me the wrong way. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s clear that the show’s producers don’t love the movies. This was evident in the lead up to the show, when they floated everything from presenting half the awards during the commercials (including Editing and Cinematography!) to not performing the Best Song nominees to not having last year’s winners hand out statues, a long-held Oscar tradition. And don’t get me started on the Best Popular Film award. All these ideas were thankfully jettisoned before the actual show, but they were a sign of things to come. Call me old-fashioned, but I think the producers of the Oscars should love movies. (And love the Oscars, too, for that matter.)

With that being said, let’s go through The Good, The Meh, and The Ugly of last night’s broadcast.

The Good: Spike Lee Finally Gets His Oscar

It was doubly sweet that his good pal Samuel L. Jackson was on hand to present Spike the award for adapted screenplay for BlackKlansman (while also informing him that his beloved Knicks had ended their losing streak). That moment when Spike leapt into Jackson’s arms was an expression of pure joy. It’s insane that Lee didn’t have already have one—or several—of the gold guys. But this is a step in the right direction.

The Meh: Not Having a Host

The aha moment came when Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph came out and riffed on what they might have said had they hosted: Of course, they should’ve been hosts. (Backup idea: John Mulaney and Awkwafina, who also crushed it.) In fairness, it’s quite possible they were asked and said no. As I explained here, it’s a high-risk, low-reward gig. That being said, I didn’t miss the host as much as I thought I would? Much as I love Adam Lambert and Queen, I might’ve replaced the show’s opening with a funny, filmed riff on the nominees. This felt a little too much like the opening of the Grammys. Beyond that, after the initial monologue, the host generally becomes an afterthought anyway.

The Ugly: What’s the Rush?

As I said above, the Oscar’s breakneck pace deprived us of some of those special, Oscars-only moments. This felt like any other award show—but maybe even a little less fun. On Twitter I compared it to Sandra Bullock driving the bus in Speed and Lucy stuffing chocolate in her mouth at the conveyer belt. Please add your own “this is all happening too fast!” analogy in the comments. (Or convince me that quicker is better.)

The Good: Black Women Ruled

Regina King won for If Beale Street Could Talk. Ruth E. Carter (costumes) and Hannah Beachler (production design) both won for Black Panther. It was a wonderful night of black female excellence—and hopefully the new normal.

The Meh: Barbra Streisand for . . . BlackKlansman?

The show did a cute bit where surprising people came out and introduced the eight Best Picture nominees. Queen Latifah presented The Favourite. Diego Luna and Jose Andres presented Roma. When it was announced that Barbra Streisand was presenting a nominated film, all assumed she would be fronting for A Star is Born. Well, Babs zigs when you think she’s going to zag. She introduced BlackKklansman, a film she adored. Do you think Bradley Cooper’s feelings are hurt?

The Good: Gaga and Brad

Speaking of which, Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga performed “Shallow” and, in my mind, it was the highlight of the show. Cooper vocally held his own next to Gaga, pretty damn impressive for anyone, let alone a non professional singer. And they have such great chemistry. As I said on Twitter, they’re very good at pretending to be in love. (Or are they pretending? I kid, I kid…) (The performance gave me chills. And thankfully, Shallow went on to win Best Song. Otherwise, this would be filed under Ugly.

The Good: Olivia Colman Won

Undoubtedly the upset of the night. And a great choice, too. Colman was absolutely brilliant as Queen Anne—funny, pathetic, daffy, dictatorial. What’s more, Colman was an absolute joy in her acceptance speech. “It’s genuinely quite stressful,” she said, through giggly tears. “This is hilarious! Got an Oscar!” Also, I believe Emma Stone was happier when Olivia Colman won the Oscar than when she won her own.

The Meh: But That Meant Glenn Close Lost
😕

I don’t think Glenn Close gave the best performance in that strong Best Actress lineup (both Colman and Melissa McCarthy surpassed her) but I was very comfortable, even happy, with the idea of this brilliant actress finally winning after seven nominations. Her loss hurt even more because she was such a strong favorite. “You’ve been my idol for so long,” Colman said to Close from stage. “This is not how I wanted it to be.” Sniff.

The Ugly: The Stage

Liberace rose from the dead to call it tacky. My mother texted me to declare it “butt ugly.” Enough said.

The Good: Melissa McCarthy and Brian Tyree Henry

To announce Best Costumes, they came out in ridiculous, overstuffed royal outfits—a riff on The Favourite (McCarthy’s train was festooned with bunnies). The best thing about this? McCarthy was nominated for a serious role for Best Actress but didn’t take herself so seriously as to think she was above such a blissfully silly sight-gag. For that matter, I’m pretty sure Tyree Henry—so brilliant in If Beale Street Could Talk and Widows—has a few Oscar nominations in his future. The only negative: The show didn’t pan to Olivia Colman or Yorgos Lanthimos once during this presentation. Is it possible they didn’t know it was a spoof of The Favourite?

The Good: The Edgy(ier) Fashion

I saw very few women wearing tasteful, nude-colored, or black dresses this year. (Ironically, Lady Gaga was one of them—although hers was a spectacular riff on a classic.) Instead, lots of hot pink, lots of unusual shapes and textures, and more gender-bending silhouettes. Not all of this worked—J Lo’s disco ball dress didn’t do it for me; my friend hated Rachel Weisz’s red rubber dress (I loved it). But that’s the point. When you take risks, you’re likely to be polarizing. And that’s a good thing! Fashion is supposed to be about self-expression, not blending in.

The Ugly: Bohemian Rhapsody for Best Editing?

Leading up the Oscars, a short clips from Bohemian Rhapsody was circulating on Twitter that demonstrated exactly how awful the editing was. Remember kids, the most editing doesn’t mean the best editing. This was embarrassing.

The Ugly: Green Book Wins Best Picture

Things had been going so well for Roma, too! It had picked up Best Cinematography, Director, and Foreign Film. So how—how?—did a mediocrity like Green Book win best picture? A few things: the Best Picture ballot is the only one that is “preferential”—a form of voting that favors a consensus pick over a truly excellent one. Also, as I said in my review, Green Book is the kind of film that comforts us and makes us feel good about ourselves: We’re not racist! We can all get along!

While it’s tempting to be drawn to a harmless, crowd-pleasing film like that in times such as these, it provided overly facile answers to difficult questions and a pat, shallow redemption arc for its racist lead character. There were so many more deserving films: Roma, The Favourite, BlackKlansman, just to name three. Film critics on Twitter were already comparing it to Crash’s infamous win over Brokeback Mountain in 2006. Oh, the humanity!

If power and persistence were to exist in the form of a woman, she would be DeWanda Wise, a Baltimore native and the star of Spike Lee’s new Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It. Having grown up in Woodlawn, Wise plays the titular character Nola Darling in the new dramedy series based on the 1986 film of the same name. We recently talked to the actress about her journey full of bullseyes and do-overs, why she fell in love with the character of Nola, and the industry’s need to portray more people of color. 

You started out doing theater in high school. Was it in college that you decided that acting is what you wanted to do? 
Oh yeah, I don’t think I would have gone to college. Before I wanted to be an actor, I wanted to be a therapist but I wanted to be a therapist but the more I learned about the industry, while taking AP psych at Atholton [High School], I was like, ‘Maybe not . . . this.’  I was still a kid and I was still very much like, ‘Black people don’t go to therapy,’ and those were the people I wanted to serve and that’s what it was at the moment. And then I discovered, or rather, Nathan Rosen forced me to discover acting and I was like, ‘Oh this is where it all goes!’

This year it’s like you shot out of a cannon! I know it didn’t just happen in a year, it’s been a process. In 2016-2017, you did Underground, Shots Fired, and She’s Gotta Have It. How does that process work?
While I was doing Shots Fired, I taped for Underground and went to the call back in Savannah, Georgia and that was from August literally through filming She’s Gotta Have It. I wasn’t done filming Underground yet when I started filming She’s Gotta Have It in mid-October and finished early February 2017. So I was filming all of 2016.

Were you in New York for most of this?
I was in Charlotte, North Carolina for Shots Fired and then Alano and I went Savannah, Georgia for Underground and then I was in Brooklyn for She’s Gotta Have It. That was all of 2016 and all of them had been like seeds. Shots Fired was Gina Prince-Bythewood, Reggie “Rock” Bythewood, and the first time I had ever encountered either of them was in 2007 at my audition for Notorious. The second thing I was up for he [Reggie Rock] had a pilot called Gun Hill at BET and I screen tested for that and then I went in for a small role in Beyond the Lights. So this was my fourth time going in for anything with them. I went in for three roles—Sanaa, Ashitey, and Shameeka.

In your story, I hear a lot of persistence. I hear you saying that you’ve got to just keep going and keep trying.
You do and I feel like there are a lot of artists who are uncomfortable with the business component of it because it’s just like, ‘Listen I just want to create my art.’ My mom reminds me that I was such a theatre snob and that I was like, ‘I want to only do theater’ when I was in school which was so dumb. Unless you are on Broadway every week you are not making money in American theater. You can’t support yourself. 

But that’s not the point. The point is she reminds me that really what I was experiencing was that I didn’t believe that the work existed in film and TV that was compatible with what I wanted to do or what felt like what I would do.  It all goes back to say that having an understanding of the business of how casting works is important and that it’s really not personal. It wasn’t a blow to my spirit or psyche and I feel like that kept me in it more than anything. Then it became a matter of being like, ‘Oh let me find my tribe. Let me find people whose work is compatible with what can I contribute.’

How do you prepare for a role?
Physically, I try to workout in a way that’s organic to the characters I’m playing. For Nola, that meant spin class and yoga because she’s always riding her bike and goes to dance class with her friends. In terms of research, I was also an Urban Studies major, so I was fortunately very familiar with the major themes of the show. Outside of that, I do my actor work and trust the collaborators around me.

You are very transparent on social media about what your needs are as an artist, how important is it to have the proper guidance in your industry.
Everyone before the show came out were like, ‘Are you ready? Are you ready?’ and what’s beautiful about stepping into the skin of Nola, as a ‘Type A’ human being, is it opened my process up and it opened me up to being less controlling, to being more open in a way to what things are and not being presumptuous about what it was going to be. There have been a ton of things in my life that have been like that. That have been like, ‘Maybe don’t walk into this with preconceived notions.’ Maybe don’t walk into it like, ‘This is who I am’ because who I am is constantly evolving. 

So all that is to say there is no real preparation for someone who comes from a for real place and comes from a working-class background for what Hollywood is. In terms of my transition to where I am now, I have had the grace and the fortune to see my husband become a principal actor on a show and I have had close friends that have ‘blown up’ before my eyes. There is a lot of peer engagement, there are a lot of people who this is happening to at the same time, we call it ‘hatching.”

I can bounce ideas back and forth with them, but when it comes to that intergenerational conversation, people who have already moved through this space, it is presumed that they don’t have the time [to mentor]. I am trying to make sure that I am transparent about younger actors and younger activists knowing that I am making the space and the room for them and also not being afraid to reach up and be like, ‘Is anyone up there making the space and the room?’ When things come up it would be nice to have someone who [already] moved through it to help.

What motivates you and your husband, Alano, to do the independent film work that you do? What informs that work?
It speaks to working with Gina, she has an indie film background. It speaks to Spike and I being kindreds—he is still even at 60 still so inherently indie-minded. My first project, I was still in college, was an indie called Spinning In A Butter and it was about the undercurrent of race relations on a predominantly white campus. I think that in my bone and marrow and by the will of God, the stories that I have wanted to tell have always been through an independent lens. 

In the very beginning, I was hit on multiple fronts with challenges in my career path. We had the writer’s strike, the recession, there were a number of things that forced me even further into an independent space. If I wanted the work to exist, it wasn’t paid. I have a ton of short films that were just for the love of story, for the love of art. In addition to any formal theater you see on my resume, I was a part of several small theater companies in and around New York. So it has always been an aspect of my career and it always will be. 

I am literally filming an indie right now. A director I know was like, ‘What are you doing in December?’ and I was like, ‘We makin’ a movie?’ So doing indie film came from a need, a hole in the industry of stories of color, underrepresented marginalized communities, people we just do not see. My need to create in an independent space has always come from the recognition of something that is lacking.

There is so much going on with the #MeToo movement and women’s empowerment. She’s Gotta Have It couldn’t have come out at a better time.
What I was drawn to in Nola is seeing a woman in process. I do think it is very easy to see her and have strong feelings about how messy and not graceful she is in the midst of that process, but I think throughout it all what struck me and what continues to encourage me is knowing that it is okay for us to be in process. These narratives about us saving the world or being strong and resilient and beautiful women we are, while that is very important and it’s in our DNA, it’s also okay for us to be fragile and vulnerable. 

Many of the women that we look up to, the Michelle Obamas, the Maxine Waters, the Oprahs were all at once and still are, even though we don’t see it behind the scenes, ‘in process.’ We shouldn’t get so caught up in the whirlwind of trying to ‘make it’ that you don’t take up the space to be. 

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Creatively, I would love to be producing more in 10 years and be providing opportunities for other artists. I anticipate a great deal of public service and philanthropy. And still madly in love with Alano.