Talented but self-centered trumpeter Bleek Gilliam is obsessed with his music and indecisiveness about his girlfriends Indigo and Clarke. But when he is forced to come to the aid of his manager and childhood friend, Bleek finds his world more fragile than he ever imagined.
08-03-1990
2h 9m
THIS
HELLA
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Spike Lee
Writer:
Spike Lee
Production:
40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, Universal Pictures
Revenue:
$16,153,593
Budget:
$10,000,000
Key Crew
Director of Photography:
Ernest R. Dickerson
Original Music Composer:
Bill Lee
Producer:
Spike Lee
Editor:
Sam Pollard
Sound Designer:
Skip Lievsay
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Denzel Washington
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor, producer, and director. Known for his dramatic roles on stage and screen, he is widely regarded as one of the best actors of his generation, with The New York Times declaring him the greatest actor of the 21st century in 2020. Over his career, he has received several accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award. Washington has been honoured with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2016, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2019, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022.
After training at the American Conservatory Theatre, Washington began his career in theatre, acting in performances off-Broadway. He first came to prominence in the NBC medical drama series St. Elsewhere (1982–1988) and in the war film A Soldier's Story (1984). He won two Academy Awards, his first for Best Supporting Actor for playing an American Civil War soldier in the war drama Glory (1989) and his second for Best Actor for playing a corrupt police officer in the crime thriller Training Day (2001). He was Oscar-nominated for his performances in Cry Freedom (1987), Malcolm X (1992), The Hurricane (1999), Flight (2012), Fences (2016), Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017), and The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021).
A prominent leading man, Washington also acted in Mo' Better Blues (1990), Mississippi Masala (1991), Philadelphia (1993), Courage Under Fire (1996), Remember the Titans (2000), Man on Fire (2004), Inside Man (2006), American Gangster (2007), and The Equalizer trilogy (2014–2023). Washington directed and starred in the films Antwone Fisher (2002), The Great Debaters (2007), and Fences (2016).
On stage, he has acted in productions of both Coriolanus (1979) and The Tragedy of Richard III (1990) at the Public Theater. He made his Broadway debut in the Ron Milner play Checkmates (1988). He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role as a disillusioned working-class father in the Broadway revival of August Wilson's play Fences (2010). He has also acted in the Broadway revivals of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (2005), Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (2014), and Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh (2018).
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Spike Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American filmmaker and actor. He was born Shelton Lee in Atlanta, Georgia. At a very young age, he moved from pre-civil rights Georgia, to Brooklyn, New York. His father was a jazz musician, and his mother, a school teacher. His mother dubbed him Spike, due to his tough nature.
He attended school in Morehouse College in Atlanta and developed his film making skills at Clark Atlanta University. After graduating, he went to the Tisch School of Arts graduate film program. He made a controversial short, The Answer (1980), a reworking of D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915) -- a ten-minute film. Lee went on to produce a 45-minute film Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983), which won a student academy award. Lee's next film, "The Messenger," in 1984, was somewhat biographical. In 1986, Spike Lee made the film, She's Gotta Have It (1986), a comedy about sexual relationships. The movie was made for 175,000 dollars, and made seven million. Since then, Lee has become a well-known, intelligent, and talented film maker. His next movie was School Daze (1988), which was set in a historically black school and focused mostly on the conflict between the school and the Fraternities, of which he was a strong critic, portraying them as materialistic, irresponsible, and uncaring.
Lee went on to do his landmark film, Do the Right Thing (1989), a movie specifically about his own town in Brooklyn, New York. The movie garnered an Oscar nomination, for Danny Aiello, for supporting actor. It also sparked a debate on racial relations. Lee went on to produce the jazz biopic Mo' Better Blues (1990) which showed his talent for directing and acting, and was the first of many Spike Lee films to feature Denzel Washington. His next film, Jungle Fever (1991), was about interracial dating. Lee's handling of the subject proved yet again highly controversial. Lee's next film was the self-titled biography of Malcolm X (1992), which had Denzel Washington portraying the civil rights leader. The movie was a success, and resulted in an Oscar nomination for Washington. His next films were the comparatively light, Crooklyn (1994), and the intense crime drama, Clockers (1995). In 1996, Lee directed two movies: the badly received comedy, Girl 6 (1996), and the politically pointed, Get on the Bus (1996), about a group of men going to the Million Man March. His next film, He Got Game (1998), proved to be another excursion into the collegiate world as he shows the darker side of recruiting college athletes. The movie, in limited release, yet again featured Denzel Washington. In 2000 came Bamboozled which made a mockery out of television and the way African-Americans are perceived by white America and the way African-Americans perceive themselves. The movie, however, was a resounding critical success. Lee also has produced films like New Jersey Drive (1995), Tales from the Hood (1995), and Drop Squad (1994). He also has produced and or directed movies about Huey P. Newton, Jim Brown, and has commented in many documentaries about varied subjects. Lee is an obsessive New York Knicks fan. He and his wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, have two children.
Wesley Trent Snipes (born July 31, 1962) is an American actor, film producer, and martial artist. He has starred in numerous action-adventures, thrillers, and dramatic feature films and is well-known for his role as Blade in the Blade trilogy. Snipes formed a production company titled Amen-Ra Films in 1991 and a subsidiary, Black Dot Media, to develop projects for film and television. Snipes has been training in martial arts since age twelve, earning a high ranking 5th dan black belt in Shotokan Karate and 2nd dan black belt in Hapkido. He has also trained as a student of Capoeira under Mestre Jelon Vieira and in a number of other disciplines including various styles of kung fu. At age 23, Snipes was discovered by an agent while performing in a competition. He made his film debut in the 1986 Goldie Hawn vehicle Wildcats. Later that year, he appeared on the trendy 1980's TV show Miami Vice as a drug-dealing pimp in the episode 'Streetwise' (first aired December 5, 1986). In 1987, he appeared as Michael Jackson's nemesis in the Martin Scorsese-directed music video "Bad" (he is seen in only the long version of the video) and the feature film Streets of Gold. That same year, Snipes was also considered for the role of Geordi La Forge in the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Snipes' performance in the music video "Bad" caught the eye of director Spike Lee. Snipes turned down a small role in Lee's Do the Right Thing for the larger part of Willie Mays Hayes in Major League, beginning a succession of box-office hits for Snipes. Lee would later cast Snipes as the jazz saxophonist Shadow Henderson in Mo' Better Blues and as the lead in the interracial romantic drama Jungle Fever. Another important role for Snipes was the powerful drug lord Nino Brown in New Jack City, which was written specifically for him by Barry Michael Cooper. Another film in which his character was involved in drugs was the somber movie Sugar Hill. Although Snipes is more known for his roles in action films like Passenger 57, Demolition Man (with Sylvester Stallone), Money Train, U.S. Marshals (a sequel of The Fugitive) and Rising Sun (with Sean Connery), he has also had success in comedies like White Men Can't Jump, and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar where he played a drag queen together with Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo. Snipes has also been critically acclaimed for his roles in dramas like The Waterdance and Disappearing Acts. Snipes has been married twice; first, to April Snipes from 1985-1990 with whom he has a son, Jelani Asar Snipes, born in 1988. Jelani had a cameo role in Snipes' 1990 film Mo' Better Blues. In 2003, Snipes wed painter Nakyung 'Nikki' Park, who is the mother of his four youngest children: son Akhenaten Kihwa-T Snipes; daughter Iset Jua-T Snipes (born July 31, 2001); son Alaafia Jehu-T Snipes (born May 26, 2004); and son Alimayu Moa-T Snipes (born March 26, 2007). Snipes spends a lot of time in Park's home country of South Korea, which he calls his "second home."
Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito (born April 26, 1958) is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Gus Fring in the AMC crime drama series Breaking Bad (2009–2011) and the prequel series Better Call Saul (2017–2022). For this role he won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and earned three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.
Esposito's other television roles include Federal Agent Mike Giardello in the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street (1998–1999), Sidney Glass / Magic Mirror in the ABC supernatural drama series Once Upon a Time (2011–2017), Tom Neville in the NBC science fiction series Revolution (2012–2014), Dr. Edward Ruskins in the Netflix comedy-drama series Dear White People (2017–present), Stan Edgar in the Amazon Prime Video superhero drama series The Boys (2019–present), and Moff Gideon in the Disney+ space western drama series The Mandalorian (2019–present), the lattermost of which earned him two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He also portrayed American Baptist pastor and politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in the TV series Godfather of Harlem (2019–present). Esposito also portrays Antón Castillo, the main antagonist of the video game Far Cry 6, released in 2021.
He is also known for his appearances in several Spike Lee films, such as School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990), and Malcolm X (1992). Esposito's other major films include Taps (1981), King of New York (1990), Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991), Fresh (1994), The Usual Suspects (1995), Ali (2001), Last Holiday (2006), Gospel Hill (2008), Rabbit Hole (2010), Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), Money Monster (2016), Okja (2017), Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018), and Stargirl (2020).
John Michael Turturro (born February 28, 1957) is an American-Italian actor, writer and filmmaker, known for his association with the independent film movement. He has appeared in over sixty feature films and has worked frequently with the Coen brothers, Adam Sandler and Spike Lee.
He began his acting career on-screen in the early 1980s, and received early critical recognition with the independent film Five Corners (1987). Turturro's mainstream breakthrough came with Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989) and the Coens' Miller's Crossing (1990) and Barton Fink (1991), for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival. His subsequent roles included Herb Stempel in Quiz Show (1994), Jesus Quintana in The Big Lebowski (1998) and The Jesus Rolls (2020), Pete Hogwallop in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Seymour Simmons in the Transformers film series and is set to play Carmine Falcone in The Batman. In 2016, in a lead role, he portrayed a lawyer in the HBO miniseries The Night Of and had a recurring role in the miniseries The Plot Against America in 2020.
An Emmy Award winner, Turturro has also been nominated for four Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and four Independent Spirit Awards. He directed Mac (1992), which won the Golden Camera Award at the Cannes Film Festival, Illuminata (1998), and Romance and Cigarettes (2005).
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Nicholas Turturro, Jr. (born January 29, 1962) is an American actor, best known for his role as James Martinez, on NYPD Blue from 1993 to 2000. Nicholas is the younger brother of actor, John Turturro and the cousin of actress, Aida Turturro. He received an Emmy Award nomination for playing James Martinez on the television series NYPD Blue and was on the series for its first seven seasons. His other notable roles include his role as Al Capone in the series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992-1993), his role as Brucie in The Longest Yard (2005), as well as his role as Sgt. Anthony Renzulli in the series Blue Bloods (2010-2016).
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Joie Susannah Lee (born June 22, 1962) is an American screenwriter, film producer, film director and actress. She has appeared in many of the films directed by her brother, Spike Lee, including She's Gotta Have It (1986), School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), and Mo' Better Blues (1990). She also wrote and produced the film Crooklyn.
Lee was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Jacqueline (née Shelton), a teacher of arts and black literature, and William James Edward Lee III, a jazz musician, bassist, actor and composer.
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Charles Quinton 'Charlie' Murphy (July 12, 1959 - April 12, 2017) was an American actor, comedian, and writer famous for being a cast member and writer on the Comedy Central sketch-comedy series Chappelle's Show. He is also known for his work with his younger brother, actor/comedian Eddie Murphy.
He died from leukemia on April 12, 2017, aged 57 in Brooklyn.
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Cynda Williams (born May 17, 1966) is an African American television and film actress.
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Flavor Flav, born William Jonathan Drayton, Jr., is an American rapper, actor, and television personality. He's a founding member of the rap group Public Enemy.
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William G. "Bill" Nunn III (October 20, 1953 – September 24, 2016) was an American actor. Nunn made his acting debut in the 1988 Spike Lee film School Daze, and is perhaps best known for his roles as Radio Raheem in Lee's Do the Right Thing and as Nino Brown's verbally challenged bodyguard Duh Duh Duh Man in New Jack City.
Some of his other film credits include Lee's Mo' Better Blues and He Got Game, as well as Regarding Henry, Sister Act, Canadian Bacon, The Last Seduction, Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead, New Jack City, Runaway Jury, Spider-Man trilogy (as Joseph "Robbie" Robertson), Firehouse Dog, the television series The Job, Randy and The Mob, and A Raisin in the Sun, adapted for TV.
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Richard Anthony Williams (August 9, 1934 – February 16, 2012) was an American actor. Williams is best known for his starring performances on Broadway in The Poison Tree, What the Wine-Sellers Buy and Black Picture Show. Williams also had notable roles in 1970s blaxploitation films such as The Mack and Slaughter's Big Rip-Off.
Samuel Leroy Jackson (born December 21, 1948) is an American actor and producer. One of the most widely recognized actors of his generation, the films in which he has appeared have collectively grossed over $27 billion worldwide, making him the second highest-grossing actor of all time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an Academy Honorary Award in 2022 as "A cultural icon whose dynamic work has resonated across genres and generations and audiences worldwide".
Jackson started his career on stage making his professional theatre debut in Mother Courage and her Children in 1980 at The Public Theatre. From 1981 to 1983 he originated the role of Private Louis Henderson in A Soldier's Play Off-Broadway. He also originated the role of Boy Willie in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson in 1987 at the Yale Repertory Theatre. He returned to the play in the 2022 Broadway revival playing Doaker Charles. Jackson early film roles include Coming to America (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Patriot Games (1992), Juice (1992), True Romance (1993), and Jurassic Park (1993), Menace II Society (1993), and Fresh (1994). His collaborations with Spike Lee led to greater prominence with films such as School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Oldboy (2013), and Chi-Raq (2015).
Jackson's breakout role was in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) which earned him a BAFTA Award win and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He further collaborated with Tarantino, acting in Jackie Brown (1997), Django Unchained (2012), and The Hateful Eight (2015). He's known for having appeared in a number of big-budget films, including Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), A Time to Kill (1996), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), The Negotiator (1997), Deep Blue Sea (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Shaft (2000) and its reboot (2019), XXX (2002), S.W.A.T. (2003), Coach Carter (2005), Snakes on a Plane (2006), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), and Glass (2019).
He also gained widespread recognition as the Jedi Mace Windu in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005), later voicing the role in the animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) and the video game Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2011). With his permission, his likeness was used for the Ultimate version of the Marvel Comics character Nick Fury; he subsequently played Fury in 11 Marvel Cinematic Universe films, beginning with a cameo appearance in Iron Man (2008), as well as guest-starring in the television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He will reprise this role in the upcoming Disney+ series Secret Invasion, which is set to premiere on June 21, 2023. Jackson has provided his voice for several animated films, documentaries, television series, and video games, including Lucius Best / Frozone in the Pixar films The Incredibles (2004) and Incredibles 2 (2018).
Coati Mundi (born January 3, 1950) is the stage name of American musician and actor, Andy Hernandez. Mundi was raised in Spanish Harlem, New York City. He has a degree in business from NYU. At college, he discovered his passion for the arts thus he would spend most of his free time hanging out with musicians, actors and poets. He worked briefly as a social worker prior to his breakthrough with Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band ("Cherchez la Femme").
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Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna (born July 16, 1948) is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres. As songwriter, Blades brought the lyrical sophistication of Central American nueva canción and Cuban nueva trova as well as experimental tempos and political inspired Nuyorican salsa to his music, creating thinking persons' (salsa) dance music. Blades has composed dozens of musical hits, the most famous of which is "Pedro Navaja," a song about a neighborhood thug who appears to die during a robbery (his song "Sorpresas" continues the story), inspired by "Mack the Knife." He also composed and sings what many Panamanians consider their second national anthem. The song is titled "Patria" (Fatherland). He is an icon in Panama and is much admired throughout Latin America, and managed to attract 18% of the vote in his failed attempt to win the Panamanian presidency in 1994. In September 2004, he was appointed minister of tourism by Panamanian president Martín Torrijos for a five-year term. He holds a law degree from the University of Panama and a master's in international law from Harvard University. He is married to singer Luba Mason.
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Diahann Carroll (born Carol Diahann Johnson; July 17, 1935 – October 4, 2019) was an American actress, singer and model. She rose to stardom in performances in some of the earliest major studio films to feature black casts, including Carmen Jones in 1954 and Porgy and Bess in 1959. In 1962, Carroll won a Tony Award for best actress, a first for a black woman, for her role in the Broadway musical No Strings.
Her 1968 debut in Julia, the first series on American television to star a black woman in a nonstereotypical role, was a milestone both in her career and the medium. In the 1980s she played the role of an interracial diva in the primetime soap opera Dynasty.
Carroll was the recipient of numerous stage and screen nominations and awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress In A Television Series in 1968. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for the 1974 film Claudine. She was also a breast cancer survivor and activist.
Leonard Lee Thomas (born August 31, 1961) is an American film and television actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as Big Brother ADP General Patton in Spike Lee's film School Daze.
Since the beginning of his acting career beginning with School Daze, Thomas has appeared in over twenty movies, often in a minor role alongside Samuel L. Jackson, and is frequently credited as his assistant. In particular, his most notable film roles are in Spike Lee movies including School Daze, Do the Right Thing, Mo' Better Blues, and Malcolm X. He also starred other movies such as Bad Lieutenant and Black Snake Moan and TV shows like Gemini Division and Law & Order.
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