Red Hook Summer
Director: Spike Lee
Screenwriter: Spike Lee
Producers: Spike Lee, James McBride
Cinematographer: Devonish
Editor: Hye Mee Na
Production Designer: Sarah Frank
Composer: Bruce Hornsby
Cast: Clarke Peters, Nate Parker, Toni Lysaith, Turron Kofi Alleyne, Jules Brown, Samantha Ivers, Limary Agosto, Heather Simms, Colman Domingo, Daniel Breaker,Thomas Jefferson Byrd, and Kalon Jackson
Original Music by: Judith Hill
Running Time: 130 min
Synopsis: Red Hook Summer is the story of an Atlanta boy named young Flik who comes to Red Hook for the first time to spend the summer with his grandfather, Enoch, a minister. They have never met. Enoch is a devout minister who tries to get his grandson son to accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior. Young Flik refuses. He grew up in middle class Atlanta, far from the difficulties of New York life. He does not believe in God. He thinks his summer in Red Hook is a punishment meted out by his single mother. He feels doomed to spend the summer doing repairs on the dilapidated church of grandfather, a hard working furnace fireman for The New York City Housing Authority. The boy sees The Red Hook Projects as a foreign country, filled with weird characters, unlike the sunny, well-to-do Black Folks he knows back home. At home they drive cars, have swimming pools in their yards, multiple TV sets, computers at home, good schools, and all the things a kid needs. In Red Hook it’s hot, there’s nothing to do, too many people speak Spanish, he has no friends. His summer appears to be a total disaster until he meets a pretty Black girl his age. Chazz’s a Red Hook resident and also a member of his grandfather’s church. The young girl shows this boy the wonderful aspects of Red Hook and Brooklyn life. Through her love, and the love of his grandfather, the boy realizes that there is indeed a God, and Red Hook is the Window to His Love.
Playfully ironic, heightened, yet grounded, Spike Lee’s bold new movie returns him to his roots, where lovable, larger-than-life characters form the tinderbox of a tight-knit community. A story about the coexistence of altruism and corruption, Red Hook Summer toys with expectations, seducing us with the promise of moral and spiritual transcendence. Spike is back in the ’hood.
The kicker to this story is that Lee will be reprising his role as Mookie, the character he played over twenty years ago in his most famous film, 1989′s ‘ Do the Right Thing.’
The famed director was quick to clear the air as to whether the film was a sequel or not.
“Red Hook Summer is not a Sequel to Do The Right Thing and it has nothing to do with Brooklyn Loves MJ. Subject Matter?New Spike Lee Joint”
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