Inside Man
A oddly mainstream Spike Lee joint, but still seeped in his particular style. Gripping from start to finish.
Ocean’s Eleven meets The Girl Caught in the Spider’s Web is too reductive, this is a superior film. But there’s so many direct references to other films, but respectful and high brow.
It’s not even just name-checking Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Godfather II. It’s a speech Enver Hoxha, the Albanian leader.
The script is truly glorious, from the big plot points, to the nitty gritty snappy dialogue. “Violating section 34 DD”, “Mister X and the twins”, or the guy having his ball busted for calling his ex, in a thick Brooklyn rage.
“Pinstripped mayonnaise lying motherfucker” is a glorious one liner.
The credits song “Chaiyya Chaiyya” is a damn Ear Worm. He it was suggested to him by a student when he asked what kind of cultural blindspots he had.
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.