1 week ago Netflix fans rave over 'raw' and 'powerful' documentary available to stream now

Netflix's newest documentary series is directed by Spike Lee and centred on the devastation of Hurricane Katrina told through the voices of New Orleans residents

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2 w. ago Katrina: Come Hell and High Water review – Spike Lee gets straight to the defiant, joyous soul of New Orleans

The finale of the Oscar-winning director’s three-part documentary about the biggest tragedy in 21st-century Black American history is a must-watch. It’s a stirring look at the city’s refusal to lie downIt’s hard to quantify the significance of Hurricane Katrina: the combination of a historic natural disaster and cold systemic indifference towards its impoverished African American victims makes it perhaps the most significant event in 21st-century Black American history. It’s no surprise, then, that more than one major documentary series has been made to mark 20 years since wind, water and a whole lot of racism devastated New Orleans, or that leading cinematic auteurs of two consecutive generations, Spike Lee and Ryan Coogler, have each executive-produced their own.But watching Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, you do wish Lee and Coogler had got on the phone to check they weren’t doubling up too much. The new three-parter – the Lee one that arrives on Netflix to coincide with the w...

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3 w. ago From Katrina: Come Hell and High Water to KPopped: the seven best shows to stream this week

Spike Lee’s revisiting of the Katrina tragedy 20 years on is not afraid to call out the incompetence behind its handling. Plus, the likes of Kylie are tutored by South Korean music stars in a high-energy battle of the bandsSpike Lee executive produces a part elegy, part polemic commemoration of one of 2025’s saddest anniversaries: two decades have now passed since the brutal Hurricane Katrina laid waste to both the physical reality and also, somehow, the soul of New Orleans. The first part of this tragedy may have been unavoidable, given the force of the storm; the second element certainly wasn’t. Via some beautiful footage of pre-Katrina New Orleans at Mardi Gras time, this documentary series remembers the city as it once was. It also doesn’t hesitate to call out the trail of mendacity, negligence and incompetence that made the disaster – and its aftermath – so much worse than it needed to be.Netflix, from Wednesday 27 August Continue reading...

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3 w. ago Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest rages against the new but leaves him looking too old

The film-maker’s ‘reinterpretation’ of the Kurosawa crime drama rails against AI, online media and new hip-hop but can’t find much new to say“We’re jazz musicians,” the director Spike Lee recently said of his working dynamic with Denzel Washington in Highest 2 Lowest, a new crime thriller that marks the fifth collaboration between the two Oscar winners. “We respect Julie Andrews singing My Favorite Things, but when John Coltrane did it, you know, or when Miles [Davis] did his standard of My Funny Valentine, it’s a different thing.”The metaphor is no throwaway. Since Lee’s breakout on to the cultural scene in the 1980s, the Atlanta-born, Brooklyn-made auteur has been at pains to style himself as an outgrowth of old school storytelling traditions even as critics tarred him as a new-school disrupter. From She’s Gotta Have It to Chi-Raq, Lee has made the extra effort to venerate the athletes, artists and thinkers who have shaped his distinctly analog worldview. Highest 2 Lowest was mean...

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3 w. ago ESPN scraps Spike Lee’s Colin Kaepernick docuseries over ‘creative differences’

Oscar-winning director was tapped in 2022 to direct multi-part documentary about NFL star

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3 w. ago Spike Lee is one of our greatest living directors – so why does no one care about his new film?

‘Highest 2 Lowest’ is a punchy thriller with one of the world’s biggest actors, Denzel Washington, as its lead. Lee hasn’t lost his touch, writes Xan Brooks, but the world is forcing him out to the margins again

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3 w. ago ESPN drops Spike Lee’s docuseries on Colin Kaepernick, network and filmmaker say

Multi-part series on ex-NFL player who protested racial injustice will not continue over ‘creative differences’Director Spike Lee’s multi-part documentary series for ESPN Films about former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who sparked a national debate when he protested racial injustice nearly a decade ago, will not be released, the filmmaker and ESPN said.“ESPN, Colin Kaepernick and Spike Lee have collectively decided to no longer proceed with this project as a result of certain creative differences,” ESPN said in a statement to Reuters on Saturday. “Despite not reaching finality, we appreciate all the hard work and collaboration that went into this film.” Continue reading...

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