2. Spike Lee vs. Reggie Miller
During the 1994 NBA playoffs between Reggie Miller‘s Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks, Lee and Miller got into heated on- and off-courtside battles which climaxed when Miller gave Lee the “choke sign” after putting on a killer shooting display. The rivalry was so fierce that ESPN even produced a documentary called shows, the guys (now that Miller is retired) are good buddies, able to look back at their trash-talking days with some fondness.

READ MORE HERE AT THEBVX.COM

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“I’m so sick of hearing about damn Spike Lee,” Perry said during a press conference . “Spike can go straight to hell! You can print that. I am sick of him talking about me, I am sick of him saying, ‘this is a coon, this is a buffoon.’ I am sick of him talking about black people going to see movies. This is what he said: ‘you vote by what you see,’ as if black people don’t know what they want to see.”

“Each artist should be allowed to pursue their artistic endeavors, but I still think there is a lot of stuff out today that is coonery and buffoonery,” Lee said in 2009. “I know it’s making a lot of money and breaking records, but we can do better. … I am a huge basketball fan, and when I watch the games on TNT, I see these two ads for these two shows (Tyler Perry’s ‘Meet the Browns’ and ‘House of Payne’), and I am scratching my head. We got a black president, and we going back to Mantan Moreland and Sleep ‘n’ Eat?”

Tyler Perry’s new film, Madea’s Big Happy Family, is in theaters this Friday.

Spotted @ The Huffington Post

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Beginning February 15th, special episodes of The Game 365 and Halls of Fame Classics will air featuring heroes of the Civil Rights Movement and sports historians.  The network will wrap up it’s special programming on February 28th with the original documentary Lapchick and Sweetwater Breaking Barriers.

Visit MSG.com for a full rundown on the network’s special Black History Month programming!

RELATED: Spike Lee Shelves “Brooklyn Loves MJ” Film

RELATED: Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X” Chosen For Preservation In National Film Registry

The film was described as examining “the potential community impact of a tribute concert and neighborhood celebration in Michael Jackson‘s memory, as this fictional event might occur in a regentrified area of Brooklyn, New York” according to Associated Content. However, according to a reader of IndieWire.com‘s Playlist blog, Lee says that the film isn’t happening.

A Playlist reader wrote in last week to say that a friend had heard Lee speak on Jan 18 in Chicago at a Martin Luther King, Jr. event. When the filmmaker took questions from the audience, this friend asked the director how his Michael Jackson-related film project was coming along, and he replied abruptly, “It’s not happening.”  He then called for the next question and reader says he was apparently visibly upset. [Emails and calls to Lee’s CAA reps to confirm or clarify were not returned.]

The film’s script leaked online last year, however Lee’s attorneys have been remarkably successful in removing all traces of the script or the film’s detailed premise from the internet.

Lee is a long-time fan of the late King Of Pop and directed two different videos for Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us” as well as a clip for the posthumous single “This Is It.”  Lee also has hosted two Jackson tribute parties in Brooklyn, also called “Brooklyn Loves MJ.”

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The film, based on Alex Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X and starring Denzel Washington in the title role, was one of 25 films selected by the Library of Congress.

Over 500 films have been selected for preservation, with 25 “culturally, historically, or aesthetically signficant” films being selected each year.

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Spike Lee has amassed a filmography that has put plenty others in Hollywood to shame… and he has done it on his own accord. After the success of Inside Man, the Brooklyn native has returned back to the screen with Miracle at St. Anna. The 40 Acres and a Mule mastermind sits down with The Urban Daily to discuss a few topics, touch upon his new movie and his next life-changing project.

On the difficulties of filming:

There were a lot of challenges for me. I had never done a WWII film. There were sequences in Malcolm X shot in Egypt, and at the end of the movie with Mandela in South Africa. But this movie is basically shot all in Italy, most of it in Tuscany… three months in Tuscany and a month in Rome. Both of them holidays. One was in New York and another in White Castle, Louisiana. And we did some shooting in the Bahamas. I had not done [as many locations] or a film on this big a scale, Malcolm X was the only one prior to this. And I’ve not done a war film, not done battle sequences like this, not done — Spanish, German and Italian, I do not speak those languages. Good crew. Amazing crew. It was 95% Italian. 95% did not speak English but language wasn’t a barrier. I thought so going in but I make films the same way all over the world. And that was an eye-opener for me. It demonstrates how we human beings put up self-imposed barriers to stop us from communicating. This film was a lesson to me.

On working with new actors:

I had seen all their work. Omar in 8 Mile. Derek in his films. Michael Ealy in the Barbershop series and the cable show The Sleeper. All young hard-working, young and talented people. I have to credit James McBride the novelist and screenwriter for writing four rich roles. He made it easy for them because each role was so clearly defined that you saw four different aspects of Negro men, the different viewpoints and backgrounds you would’ve seen when you were alive in 1944. The men who were enlisting, who were fighting for the country when the army was still segregated… lynching was still taking place. A time when they were billed as second-class citizens.

On researching for Miracle at St. Anna:

James [McBride] introduced me to a lot of the guys he first met from working on the book. It was a great honor to meet these men. They are American patriots. They’re heroes. They’re courageous and these men have dignity…even today. In many ways, they have reason to be bitter about the way they’ve been treated by their country but they’re happy because they never thought a Barack Obama would happen. There’s a line in the film where Derek’s “Stamps” character says “I’m doing this for the future” and they were doing the same thing. They wanted to come back to the U.S. and not see the “colored” and “white” water fountains. That wasn’t the case but the country has addressed some of this. Barack Obama is the biggest evidence of that. I never thought I’d live to see an African American in my lifetime on the verge of being the 44th president of the United States. And it’s gonna happen… I think it’s going to happen.

On his filmmaking ability:

I’m confident in my film-making ability. The one thing I thought hard about going into this film, tossing and turning, was the role of that kid. If we didn’t get that right kid, then it would be curtains. We did an open casting call in Florence. Five thousand Tuscan boys showed up. Once my casting director got down to 100, she said, “Spike, I’m ready.” So, I took the train down from Rome… It was a twelve hour train ride from Rome to Florence. Right away I could see this was the kid. Others weren’t sure of the choice so I went back two more times. We were blessed because he’d never acted before and doesn’t speak a word of English, but he translates so well on-screen.

On his favorite war movies:

The Train starring Burt Lancaster, Paris Burning by Berllucci, The Dirty Dozen with Jim Brown… [The Dirty Dozen] was a revelation to me as a young kid. I was ten years old when I went and saw that film.

On the 92nd’s woes compared to black soldiers fighting in Iraq:

I would say number one that, as far as I know, the Army is majority Black and Hispanic. I would also say that the indignities faced by our soldiers coming back are [no longer] based upon race. I mean you’re coming back, no matter who you are, you’re getting f-cked over. You’re coming back and the suicide rate is astronomical. Not just over in Iraq, but in Afghanistan, they’re at a lost when they come back here. The murders of spouses and girlfriends has increased. So, it’s obvious that the U.S. army is not equipped to deal with the mental health and physical health, too, of our soldiers. They’re not being taken care of. It’s a disgrace that they’re coming back having lost limbs.

On his next projects:

Right now, I’m getting ready to end this thing with Nokia. It’s almost done. There’s been a festival where people were invited to send in their pictures and videotapes they captured on a cellphone. Now that all the material’s come in, I gotta make a film out of it. I’m just picking the winners and when all this material comes in with the theme is of humanity – broken into three acts. There have been thousands and thousands of submissions. It’s a challenge. We’re finishing the Kobe Bryant documentary for ESPN. It’s a unique documentary. It’s one game. Last April on the 13th in 2008, the Lakers played the then-championship San Antonio Spurs and Sunday after the televised game we had 30 camera on Kobe. With the help of Phil Jackson, the NBA and the Lakers… they gave us access. We had cameras in the locker room before the game, at halftime and after the game was over. That’s never been done before. We’re doing a musical as well. If it’s good enough, it’ll get accepted at Sundance in January. My next feature film, well… right now, we’re waiting on a script for Inside Man 2. If the script is not better than the first one, myself, Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Clive Owen… we’re not doing it.

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“I see how people treat solo records and it always comes across like “this is a spinoff, this not the real thing, it’s just a side of the real thing,” he explains. “For example, if you ask if a Sadat X album will be as good as a Brand Nubian album they would be like “no, Brand Nubian is a group.” Or if they want a Phonte or a Pooh solo they’ll say no they want Little Brother, it’s always like that.”

After recording two albums (Moonlighting and Brooklynati) and two EPs (Sunset and The Bridge) with Donwill and Ilyas as Tanya Morgan the MC/Producer has amassed a pretty respectable following, so it’s understandable that he has some apprehension about living up to his fan’s expectations. But thanks to contributions from Lessondary producers like Aeon and Brick Beats his solo offering will be a welcome addition to the collection.

In this interview with TheUrbandaily.com Pea talks about the Spike Lee inspiration for the album, his favorite Spike Lee movies and what the future is for Tanya Morgan.

TUD: What inspired the title, “Pea’s Gotta Have It?”  I heard it was based off of a journal you wrote ten years ago.

Von Pea: It’s a nod to Spike Lee cause when I look at the people that represent Brooklyn it’s always “I’m from Brooklyn and you might might get robbed by me.” “I’m from Brooklyn so I sell drugs.” That is a part of it but when you look at Spike Lee “I’m from Brooklyn and I’m going to do a movie in Bay Ridge, then I’m going to do a movie in Bedstuy, Canarsie, Park Slope.” He shows the whole Brooklyn experience in every movie. Even if the movie did not set in Brooklyn. For example, the one with Denzel, Inside Man, the first scene is in Coney Island and that movie has nothing to do with Brooklyn. Spike always made it a point to represent Brooklyn and not always in a negative way. I wanted to think of a way to shout him on my album and just went with the title Pea’s Gotta Have It . It’s not about the movie at all it’s just about Spike and the way he represents Brooklyn. I’m in a group with two people from Ohio so I’ve always had to share my representation and that is a big thing in Hip Hop. Now I get to be like “Brooklyn time.” The concept of the album, I call it more of a theme than a concept cause it does not tell a story from beginning to end. The theme of the album is high school, coming of age, in Brooklyn. It’s more coming of age but when you are coming of age you are in school. I wasn’t cutting class I was in class so the album is about that. It spawns from a journal of mine I found one day as I was cleaning up the house. I was reading it and was cracking up at what I used to think, where I thought I would be right now. I thought I would have this house and be like Mase or like somebody that was hot back then. I thought I was gonna have 10 Hype Williams videos and just be the man. The whole time I was making the same music I make now which never really sold like that. It was just so funny to see how delusional I was at the time. But I knew that I would make it and that’s the hardest part about it. Hard meaning good. That was a cool thing. I knew I was going to make it. I knew that I would be here, talking to you, be on MTV, maybe not a hundred times a day like I thought, maybe once a year, but I kinda made it. I thought it would be cool to make an album about that experience. And I sat, looked at my yearbook, looked at facebook, looked at the journal again and I said I was going to take all of this and make an album about it. I know Victor Vaughn and Doom did it already, Bobby Digital was about being a teenager but I wanted to do it my way and from my perspective. That’s the album.

What’s the first single?

The first single is called “The Yorker.” It is produced by Brick Beats, he is the in house producer for Tanya Morgan. It’s about being a New Yorker, he flipped the odyssey native New York sample and turned it into this jam. It’s dedicated to everybody that reps their home town on a fitted cap. Everywhere we go. We just came from a West Coast tour and we threw on the Dodger fitted or the Oakland A’s and represent in that hometown. It’s for everybody, I’m from New York but it’s for everyone that reps their hometown, rocking a fitted.

I heard “Boombox” and haven’t stopped playing it since. Who produced that and what’s the story behind it?

Boombox is produced by my boy Aeon. I’m also a producer. I’ve produced every Tanya Morgan album and if I didn’t produce, I was the musical director. But for my album I only did about three tracks. Aeon did 6 of them, he is a producer from Philly. And it was just one of those beats that he had on a beat tape four years ago at Dilla’s first Donuts party. He gave it to me and said “lets do some more stuff” and it just vibed out to that for so long. The beat was called “Boombox,” and maybe I’m not creative but I ran with that title. That ended up being a nod to Spike Lee again (Radio Raheem). And I didn’t know about the Shyheim track until after mine came out and people told me that Shyheim used the sample on one of his main tracks. I didn’t know about that. Shout out to Shyheim.

So, what are your Top 5 Spike Lee movies?

The number one, I don’t want to be obvious but Do The Right Thing is number one. After that, School Daze, just because they break out in a musical for no reason at all. I like stuff like that. It felt like it came out of nowhere but Spike made it work. I really like Inside Man cause I’m a fan of Clive Owens. Crooklyn is number 4.

Why Crooklyn?

Cause my mother always talks about growing up in the 70s and how I should have been there. I feel like that little girl in the movie was my mother. My mother always talks about how good it was and how nobody got shot and those kinds of things. Also, because I got family down south. I guess everybody in New York has family down south or in the West Indies.

Number 5 is either She’s gotta have it or Bamboozled. I saw She’s Gotta Have It late so to see how he started, so simple, knowing where he went was so crazy to me. I grew up in Brooklyn and to see how it looked before I could remember is big to me. I look at movies like that. I guess that’s my list.

That’s not an obvious list. You left out Mo Better Blues, Jungle Fever, ones people always seem to mention.

The thing about Jungle Fever is I fell like they didn’t know what they wanted the movie to be about, drugs or the interracial relationship? For me, it had to be about either or. I feel like the drugs was stronger but the controversy of the relationship got people in the theater.

What plans do you have for promoting P’s Gotta Have It?

Word of mouth, really. Being an underground artist, indie artist, you are not going to get a big budget. I don’t have any viral content, I didn’t diss anybody on video or on twitter. All I have is the music. Just like Black Milk, Blue in Exile, or even Tanya Morgan in the past, we did it based on our music. And I’m not looking for it to blow up when it drops in November. I just want it to continue to build. With me, the mixtapes I’ve done catch on late anyway for whatever reason. 2-3 years ago I did “Grand Vonye” over all Kanye Beats and now people say “What’s that “Grand Vonye”? What is it about?” We were in Seattle and this guy never heard of Tanya Morgan and he said “Von P? Grand Vonye? What happened to you, you should’ve put something else out after that!” I have a whole catalog worth of shit after that but stuff catches on late now. I’m not expecting it to do something crazy in October. I know I’m not going to be number one. All I have is good music. I’m hoping for tweets that say “I bought the album that shit was dope!” That’s all I got to look forward to. I mean that in a positive way.

When can we expect another Tanya Morgan album?

Probably May-June 2011. I can’t say the title yet but it’s gonna be interesting. For the people that don’t know it’s two people now. Ilyas is [leaving the group] but he directed my video off my album called “Dreams.” He’s gonna be on the album on a song or two. We started as two members and he came on. Like I said we just ended up being the group that people knew. His music is different from Tanya Morgan. He hasn’t gotten to do what his passion is as far as his sound. So, he is going to do his thing. We talked about it. His music is going to be darker, more rock influenced. People probably see that with the spikes and shit. That was him letting him know that “I’m a little different from these two dudes.” Hopefully 2011 we’ll see that and we’ll both continue to do our shit. The next TM album, we got some surprises for you all. We not making up no weird cities or nothing like that. It’s gonna be dope.

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Spike Lee will be in the director’s chair for a live webcast of John Legend & The Roots’ September 23rd concert in New York City.

The concert is the second in American Express’ Unstaged series. The first featured alternative rock band Arcade Fire with acclaimed director Terry Gilliam (Brazil, 12 Monkeys) handling the visuals.

The show will be streamed on YouTube’s Vevo website.  Viewers will be able to choose their preferred camera angle among other interactive elements.

“It’s not necessarily a Spike Lee joint,” Lee said. “It’s a John Legend and the Roots joint… I like doing stuff live. Especially with someone like Kobe. I can’t stop the game. You got to be ready for almost anything. We can’t stop this concert, either. Going to have to go with the flow.”

SOURCE

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52 years ago Michael Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana but today the late King of Pop was a native New Yorker.

With some help from Spike Lee, thousands of Michael Jackson fans converged on Nethermead Field in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to celebrate his life and music.

DJ Spinna, who is known around the world for his MJ tribute parties, moved the crowd with a mix of classics and rarities.

Chad Coleman and Jamie Hector from The Wire as well as Snoop and Warren G were among the many celebrities in attendance but the afternoon was all about the fans.

Spontaneous “Thriller” dance sequences popped off across the crowd and MJ impersonators braved the 95 degree heat in full make-up and wardrobe–down the to the socks. Party-goers came dressed in their favorite sequined gloves, hats, masks  zipper jackets and even outfits from The Wiz, one of Jackson’s few feature film appearances.

Check out TheUrbanDaily.com’s clip and photos  below and let us know about any MJ Birthday parties that went down in your town!

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Even though he lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan now, Spike Lee will rep Brooklyn until the day he dies.

That’s why we’re not surprised to see him team up with Absolut Vodka for their latest limited edition bottle of tastiness.  The bottle of the apple & ginger flavored vodka was designed in collab with the still Oscar-less film director and pays homage to Brooklyn and its beautiful brownstone homes, specifically the one in which Spike grew up in the NYC borough’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.

Absolut is donating $50,000 of the proceeds from the sale of Absolut Brooklyn to Habitat for Humanity which will build affordable green housing in the currently-in-the-middle-of-gentrification neighborhood of Bed-Stuy.

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Director Spike Lee takes on the monumental task of visualizing Michael Jackson’s posthumous music video, “This Is It.”

Michael Jackson – This Is It – Directed by Spike Lee from 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks on Vimeo.

Spike Lee put together this moving tribute to Michael Jackson.  It’s rumored to be included on the upcoming DVD release of Michael Jackson’s This Is It.

Try not to get misty eyed.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Quintessential New York filmmakers Spike Lee and Robert De Niro have teamed with Showtime to develop a drama series about Lower Manhattan’s Alphabet City.

The ensemble drama, “Alphaville,” will chronicle the neighborhood’s gritty and tumultuous past before it became the gentrified East Village.

Set during the 1980s, the drama will re-create the neighborhood’s mix of struggling artists and musicians living alongside Puerto Rican and Black families. Along with its growing bohemian and celebrity population, which also included graffiti artists, break-dancers, rappers and DJs, the neighborhood was plagued by illegal drug activity and violent crime.

Get more @ Reuters.com.

The threat of rain was not enough to keep thousands of adoring Michael Jackson fans out of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to celebrate the late pop star’s 51st birthday.

Spike Lee brought out a gang of celebrities and fans from all over the country to dance and sing along to his hits spun by DJ Spinna. Check the gallery for some flicks. Props to Bossip.com

Today (August 29), famed director Spike Lee is leading one of many worldwide birthday celebrations in honor of the late King of Pop Michael Jackson.

Lee, who worked with Jackson for the video “They Don’t Care About Us,” had originally scheduled his event for Brooklyn’s Fort Green Park. However, due to an estimated minimum of 10,000 attending, the celebration had to be moved to the larger Prospect Park.

Lee has promised to deliver an old-school styled block party with an exclusive MJ soundtrack spanning his career in the Jackson 5 through his last studio album Invincible.

Also appearing at the tribute will be Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz to officially declare August 29 Michael Jackson Day, and the Reverend Al Sharpton.

For Lee, the passing of Jackson was akin to losing a brother.

“I was born in 1957; he was born in 1958. And so I grew up, literally, with Michael Jackson,” Lee told Time Magazine. “We both reached adolescence at the same time. And I had a big Afro like he did, and I hoped that the girls would like me the way they liked Michael, but that wasn’t happening.”

On TV, fans can catch tributes throughout the day on BET, TVOne, and E!.