Spike Lee opens with the money shot from Gone With the Wind (“a romance set in Auschwitz”), then jumps forward a few decades to a time where a black police officer was actually able to infiltrate the KKK. (Guys who wear pointy hoods don’t generally do so in order to cover up their enormous brains.) Not since Bamboozled has a Spike Lee joint been this blunt and tightly rolled. Lee hasn’t had a hit in ages, but unlike its predecessor (and thanks to our current political climate) BlacKkKlansman is poised to put butts in seats. The period decor and Lionel Jefferson Afros are all in order, but this isn’t the case of a winking Tarantino trying to shatter as many pop culture totems as possible. This is a director in full control of his medium, and I daresay the film would play a lot funnier were it not for America’s current Asshole in Chief. With: John David Washington as Denver’s finest, Corey Hawkins talking Tarzan, and Adam Driver as the improbably-named Flip Zimmerman. (2018) — Scott Marks
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