This show is 100% Sucker Free

After several years of standing on the fence, just renewed my love affair with Netflix. I got tired of the hard to find releases never being in at Blockbuster, Rocket Video, or Hollywood Video. The first thing was to fill the queue with films and television shows I've missed over the past few years, and I received, and watched, Spike Lee's Sucker Free City last night.

SFC originally aired on Showtime a couple of years ago. It was supposed to be a regular series (a la The Wire), but the deal fell through, and Lee only directed the two-hour pilot, which is available on DVD.

Two words for SFC: LOVED IT!

It's hard to watch any film these days and not "see" a screenplay, and based on that I have to give writer Alex Tse as much credit as Lee for creating a rich film with subplots that I am left salivating to see resolved. It's rare to see a film handle so many ethnic groups so well without being patronizing to any of those groups. Tse manages to establish some very real issues such as Chinese ethnic pride, but doesn't stoop to making the black characters the boogeymen in order to do so. I sincerely hope Tse gets lots more work, because my man has a unique voice that deserves to be heard.

Then there's Spike himself, who does such a great job directing this film that it had me reminiscing of Mo Better Blues. Talk about painting a picture of the City by the Bay that has never been seen before. It's an unfortunate reality that Hollywood relies pretty exclusively on South Central Los Angeles for all of its ghetto and hood needs, and Spike's very real (though virtually unrecognizable) vision of San Francisco is amazing.

Talk about one of the ones that got away. SFC would have been reason enough for me to subscribe to Showtime again. A real tentpole series. I might have to look up Alex Tse to find out how the show was supposed to end.