The 10-episode Netflix series is a profound act of cinematic graffiti.
Shes Gotta Have Itwas Spike Lees first feature film, and few movies feel so joyfullyfirst.
Theres no more graffiti on the monument no graffiti anywhere if the gentrifiers have their way!
Credit: David Lee/Netflix
Jamie Overstreet (Lyriq Bent) is a businessman, married with child.
Anthony Ramos is chatty Mars Blackmon, the character Lee later made famous in Air Jordan commercials.
Im not a freak, explains Nola, a line from the film that sounds outdated now.
(Multiple partners: What a concept!)
And there is some reboot hyperbole.
In the original, Mars was a Michael Jordan fan with, like, one poster on his wall.
Ramos Mars has a whole Jordan shrine.
Its pastiche, maybe too retro.
But the show quickly asserts itself as a generous rom-com, granting Nola and the boys their own journeys.
Lees returned to this material with a purpose.
At the end of the premiere, Nolas assaulted on the street, a moment that spurs artistic-romantic evolution.
It also symbolizes, maybe, a greater sense of a culture invaded.
This Fort Greene is more expensive, much whiter.
Its conflicts are going national.
