Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Spike Lee is one of my biggest influences. What I love about Spike, other than he's just a fun guy to hang around, is that Spike is fearless. As much as people talk about him being politically outspoken, let's not forget that he's one of the best screenwriters, ever, in addition to being a visual master.
The thing about being black in a mostly white industry, particularly as a black male, is you can't lose your temper in the same way. Essentially, you are an angry black man losing his temper in a way that's unprofessional, as opposed to an industry that has protected unprofessional white males in perpetua.
When I was a critic, I reviewed Public Enemy's 'Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age' - this is back in '94 - and I called it a 'Dante-esque spiral of the hip-hop hell.' I idolized Chuck D, but I just hated that record, and I did not hold back. Chuck didn't freeze me out. Every time I met Chuck, he always treated me with the utmost respect.
One picture and one win cannot right a million wrongs. It's a step in the right direction.We have to get to a point where a movie like "Moonlight" winning [Oscar] or Barry Jenkins being nominated and winning, you know, for a screenplay or being nominated for best director - that it's just commonplace. They shouldn't be a novelty.
One of my favorite memories as a kid was when the original 'Secret Wars' came out with the debut of the black costume for Spider-Man. I remember I couldn't wait to get home to read it, and I was like, 'Oh, my God, I've been waiting for this comic to come out. I hope, God forbid, nothing happens to me before I get home to read it.'
Bushmaster was such a great adversary, and Mustafa Shakir, just the way that he embodies him in terms of the power of the voice, the stillness, and then, at the same time, when they do get after it, when he does fight, just how kinetic he was. He just brought a great dynamic and being able to explore his history in making the character Jamaican.
If you think about black art, all black art, whether it's Invisible Man or whether it's James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Zora Hurston, or Richard Wright, they all deal with elements of identity and trying to humanize our experience and our struggle in the world where people have been indifferent to who we are and what we are. It's basically just saying that our lives have meaning.
You know, "Moonlight" deserves best picture [on Oscar]. What I mean by tarnished is the moment - being able to be in front of all your peers and being able to thank everyone involved and particularly when it's a movie that has some pivotal social relevance, like "Moonlight," particularly in a time where, with this new transitional government, LGBT rights are just being stripped. This win means something.