Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 October 2005 — Page 22

PAGE C4

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2005

INVITE YOU AND GUESTTO A SPECIAL ADVANCE SCREENING

TUESDAY • OCTOBER 18 • 7:30 P.M. UA REGAL GALAXY To receive your complementary pass (admits two), stop by The Indianapolis Recorder with an original advertisement (no photo copies) on Monday, October 17 from 8 a.m. - 9 a.m. We are located at 2901 N.Tacoma.

This film is rated R for strong violence/gore and language. Passes are available on a first-come,first-served basis while supplies last. Limit one (admit two) pass per person. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. No purchase necessary. IN THEATRES OCTOBER 21

Kimberly Elise honored by Rising Star award “I’m really proud of the choices that I’ve made and the integrity of the choices,”

Electronic Urban Report EUR caught up with acclaimed actress Kimberly Elise, who has been chosen to receive the prestigious Rising Star honor during the 2005 Black Movie Awards, taped at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles for broadcast later on TNT. “I’m just really blown away,” the actress said of the tribute. “I’ve always felt I’m under the radar just quietly doing my thing, and come to know that I’ve made an impact and people have noticed what I’m doing, I’m really honored and touched.” Elise has followed up her starring role in the breakout film “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” with a plum part in the CBS crime drama“Close to Home,” where she portrays a by-the-book lawyer who oversees an aggressive prosecutor in the DA’s office. The setting for the new series is Indianapolis. Elise’s character, like the others on her resume, offers both a challenge for the Minneapolis native as well

as a reflection of her decision to portray characters of substance. “I’m really proud of the choices that I’ve made and the integrity of the choices,” says Elise, who has played everything from a bank robber (“Set It Off”), to the daughter of a former slave (“Beloved”) to a victim of sexual abuse (“Woman Thou Art Loosed”). “I look at each project as a way to incorporate new lessons and to discover new things,” she continued. “And I see that when I look at the body of work. There’s a growth, and then when I hear from people, I realize how much it’s impacted people and they appreciate the choices and the self respect that I have in my choices because it’s a reflection on the images that are projected. And that’s really what it’s about, for me to continue to evolve and improve upon my craft.” The 2005 Black Movie Awards airs Oct. 19 at 10 p.m. on TNT. “Close to Home” airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on CBS.

Spike Lee shoots from the hip in authorized bio

By GREGORY McNAMEE LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) — Shelton Jackson Lee came of age during the film renaissance of the 1970s, when just about anything seemed possible - if, that is, you had talent, skill, luck, connections. Lee had talent and skill. He had some luck. He had a connection or two. He also had the stamina to help cross the invisible but real color line that ran across the aisles. “People didn’t really believe me when I told them that I was going to be a filmmaker,” he tells London-based producer and journalist Kaleem Aftab in the early pages of Spike Lee: That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It. “They probably couldn’t name any African-American filmmakers then.” Indeed, only a few Black directors were at work then, the best known of them Michael Schultz (“CarWash”), Melvin Van Peebles (“Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song”) and Gordon Parks (“Shaft”). “Taken together,” Aftab remarks, “the precedents for Spike Lee’s ambitions were not encouraging.” But Lee, whose childhood nickname Spike owed to bulldoggish tenacity, would not be deterred. He worked his way through film school, made a thesis film that drew much praise (and whose sound recordist was classmate Ang Lee) and dreamed up movies a world away from the safe-as-milk visions of Eddie Murphy and Bill Cosby. Hollywood wasn’t ready for the challenge at first, but Lee pressed on, aided by such actors as Laurence Fishburne and Giancarlo Esposito, encouraged by the success of indie films by Jim Jarmusch and John Sayles. Financing was the worst of his worries; to make “She’s

Gotta Have It,” his breakout film of 1986, he had, Lee recalls, “to put the money together nickel by nickel.” Take him literally. As Aftab writes, if you knew Lee you were sure to be hit up for money in the winter of 1984-85, often repeatedly. And to good purpose. The 84-minute feature cost an estimated $160,000 to make but grossed more than $7 million in release - enough to earn him attention from the major studios. Two years later, Columbia released “School Daze,” which, to its surprise, proved the most profitable film of the year. That film was something of a mess, its sequence of events difficult to follow; Lee’s friend Nelson George, the film critic and author, observes that “you totally lose track of time in that film, you don’t know what day of the weekend it is.” Lee learned from the experience. For his next film, the iconic “Do the Right Thing,” he confined the action to a single day. Thereafter his films, even the sprawling “Malcolm X,” showed great concern for comprehensible narrative structure. His body of work, now in its fourth decade and including such standout films as “25th Hour” and “Bamboozled,” hasn’t been Lee’s only source of renown. Happily, the as-told-to and thus authorized book doesn’t shy from addressing the many controversies in which Lee has found himself. Lee lives up to his nickname from page to page, making enemies of allies and sometimes baffling his closest admirers while making his films, themselves often the source of controversy. The candor is welcome. So, too, is this look at Spike Lee’s life and work to date, a career of overcoming obstacles to make art - and with masterpieces to come.

lf£

- *

■ ^ ll

WIN IIP TO $250,000

3> 1

That’s a lot of l Fmanklins.

WINNING NUMBER

Q €

YOUR NUMBERS

e®®®! 0®0®® 0 0 0 0®

PLEASE PLAY RESPONSIBLY. 18 OR OLDER TO PLAY.

HOOSIERLOTTERY.COM 1'800'955'6886

HOOSIER 1. ) LOTTERY

pap,f it ra

CYAN MAHFNTA

Rl AFK