Spike Lee’s latest film stars that fat guy who was good in 8 Mile and is based on a 2003 novel by James McBride, about a 1944 massacre in which SS soldiers killed 560 Italian villagers, mostly women and children. McBride adapted his own novel for the screen.

The trailer actually looks pretty good.  It wouldn’t be Spike Lee if he didn’t make himself bigger than the movie at some point, but between white guilt and a story about WWII, you have to figure this’ll be a factor come Oscar time.  Know what else should win an Oscar?  The dump I just took.  Really, I feel 10 pounds lighter.  It’s my bowels that are the real miracle here.

This is the poster for Miracle at St. Anna, Spike Lee’s latest “joint”, opening in September.  By the way, has anyone figured out what the hell that’s supposed to mean yet?  Does he mean joints that you smoke or joints you eat crappy food in?  Either way, I hardly see how that’s a flattering comparison for a movie.  Maybe other directors should choose random objects to describe their movies.  Indiana Jones: A Spielberg Babyshoe.

Based on the novel by James McBride, the film follows four black American soldiers who, while stationed in Tuscany during World War II, find themselves trapped behind enemy lines and separated from their unit when one of them risks his life to save an Italian boy.

Reached for comment, an Italian guy said, “Don’t think this is gonna make us forget about Sal’s Pizzeria, motherf*cker.”  And then he grabbed his crotch.  

[IMPA] 

Besides making simplistic, cartoony movies, Spike Lee’s favorite thing to do is to diss other filmmakers.  This week at Cannes, where Lee is promoting his WWII movie Miracle at St. Anna, he was back to his usual ways.

“I always treat life and death with respect, but most people don’t," Lee said at a news conference Tuesday. "Look, I love the Coen brothers; we all studied at NYU. But they treat life like a joke. Ha ha ha. A joke. It’s like, ‘Look how they killed that guy! Look how blood squirts out the side of his head!’ I see things different than that."

I know I know, sometimes the blood gurgles – it’s called artistic license.

    Speaking about the casting for his tale of four black American soldiers in Tuscany, Lee said that black actors appear in war films too infrequently.
    "Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen," he said. "If you reporters had any balls you’d ask him why. There’s no way I know why he did that — that was his vision, not mine. But I know it was pointed out to him and that he could have changed it. It’s not like he didn’t know." [Yahoo]

Perhaps all the black dudes actually read the script to Sands of Iwo Jima and thought, Wait, it’s just three hours of Japanese guys offing themselves?  This sounds boring.  Anyway, even when he’s got a legitimate beef I have a hard time taking it seriously coming from Spike Lee.  Keep in mind this is the guy who sued Spike TV for stealing the name Spike, even though Spike isn’t Spike Lee’s real name.     

Spike Lee’s next project is a documentary about Michael Jordan.  It could be really interesting if he delves into Jordan’s actual personality, which, for all his fame, has always been largely a mystery.  But fifty bucks says he makes a movie about why MJ should be a candidate for sainthood with a bunch of look how great a director I am camera angles and some school kids standing up in class shouting, “I AM MICHAEL JORDAN!”