Closet Picks
Bamboozled

Bamboozled

Spike Lee, 2000

Spine #1019

Picked by 4 guests

Comedy / Drama

Criterion TMDB

Directed by Spike Lee

Written by Spike Lee

Cinematography Ellen Kuras

Edited by Sam Pollard

Cast Damon Wayans, Savion Glover, Jada Pinkett Smith, Tommy Davidson, Michael Rapaport, Thomas Jefferson Byrd, Paul Mooney, Gillian White

Picked by

Questlove

“Now, speaking of Spike Lee, imagine my surprise when a film that I’m in, Bamboozled, made Criterion status. Words will never describe the entire experience of us shooting this. Spike Lee explained to me the premise of Bamboozled. Now, mind you, it’s 1999, and this is one of the cases in which a satire is so over the top, exaggerated. And now that it’s 25 years later, everything in this movie has happened. Spike was so ahead of time that time eventually caught up to him.”

Questlove
Jane Schoenbrun

“Bamboozled, probably the best movie about television ever made.”

Jane Schoenbrun
Neal Brennan

“Spike Lee, Bamboozled. Spike Lee, one of my personal heroes... He's the reason I went to film school because he was doing press for Do the Right Thing in 1989. And he mentioned film school... I created Chappelle's Show with Dave and Spike did a sketch one time... He has a thing on his set. If a cell phone goes off, you pay the director 20 bucks. I paid him 20 bucks 'cause he's Spike Lee, but he is great.”

Neal Brennan
Elegance Bratton

“Bamboozled you know the problem of the black the image of the black in the Western World... Blackface and Minstrelsy is a part of that agenda you know and I think Professor Spike Lee who's my professor at Tisch I think he really broke open a conversation and managed to help the whole world understand the damage those images did through this film and you know Damon Wayans Miss Jada Pinkett Smith Tommy Davidson...”

Elegance Bratton