98: He Got Game (with Mike Mekus)

Junk Filter

Manhattan-based actor and writer Mike Mekus returns to the show for a discussion of one of Spike Lee’s most underrated films, 1998’s basketball drama He Got Game starring Denzel Washington and NBA player Ray Allen.

Denzel is Jake Shuttlesworth, a convict secretly released from Attica by order of the warden to try to get his son Jesus, a future NBA star, to sign a letter of intent to play college ball for the Governor’s alma mater “Big State”. But Jesus is estranged from his father and under great pressure to either sign with a competing college (the aggressive “Tech U”) or head straight to the pros from high school.

He Got Game is a film about American exploitation in its many forms, and as messy as it can be, it contains many sequences of great power and beauty, filmed primarily around Coney Island in Brooklyn. It’s also a film from the brief period at Touchstone Pictures where Disney was making complex movies for grownups made by great filmmakers.

We discuss several aspects of the film including Spike’s use of music (the inspired pairing of Aaron Copland with Public Enemy) and his perennial blind spot: the portrayal of his female characters.

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Trailer for He Got Game (Spike Lee, 1998)

Spike Lee’s cryptocurrency commercial for Coin Cloud, July 2021