Malcolm X

• Spike Lee Joint Collection (Clockers/ Jungle Fever/ Do the Right Thing/ Mo` Better Blues/ Crooklyn)
• Glory
• School Daze
• A Soldier's Story
• Amistad
• He Got Game
• The Color Purple (Two-Disc Special Edition)
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley
• Gandhi (Widescreen Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
• Do the Right Thing

The movie was excellent. Denzel Washington does not disappoint. At times, I forgot that it was not Malcolm in real life.

The followers did not fully understand their leader who was for the equality of Human Race. He was a man of integrity especially with family life. Those supposed followers reacted to certain aspects of their ideas I believe, just to announce that they were a part of a group with some power. I was not an avid follower of this man, but some of his ideals should have been scrutinized for a better community amongst the people mainly African Americans. His followers were not as strong minded as he just as those in MLK's time.

This is a very good biography of Malcolm X that follows his Autobiography with some exceptions. Denzel is the man.

She was pivotal in the book, and even one scene with her would have helped explain where he got the money to go to Mecca. The omission of this one scene left me frustrated because it really showed how his humanity had changed after his trip to Mecca. Sadly there were parts that were missing including the debt he owed his Aunt. Since he wrote and delivered it at the actual funeral, it was a brilliant move to have it recreated by him for the film. The hunger scene was great, but didn't fit in the movie. Much of it sounds like temp music that he just slapped in there regardless of how it affected the emotion of the scene.

The deleted scenes were wisely left out of the original movie. The good: The acting by Denzel Washington is great. The life of Malcolm X was perfect for a movie. The music fights the moods so many times it really reminds you that you are watching a movie.

Nothing was clunkier than the music that was chosen for the movie. Lee filmed a follow up scene that redeemed Malcolm, but for some reason didn't include it. He might have gotten something that wasn't so distracting and it would have made the movie much stronger. was terrible as Elijah Muhammad and it bordered on comical how clunky. He brings life to a man that most of us knew only as an angry man. It sounds like a song from a 1970s bad documentary. The scene with Malcolm and his wife discussing their personal lives was destroyed by the terrible music.

The 2 disk set has a great deal of extras that make it worth it. It really pulled you out of the scene, especially the music during the Mecca visit. but Lee was very smart to not include most of them. Luckily it is one of the deleted scenes so enjoy it. Al Freeman Jr. Overall, I wish he had spent another 20 dollars on the soundtrack.

It was also nice to see Ernest Thomas aka Roger from the TV show "What's Happening" ('hey hey hey Raj."). I am not a huge fan of Spike Lee's work, but this movie is epic and he did an amazing job of condensing a great book. Nice to see them (love DVDs for this). It really is a life in 3 acts, and the third act has the rewards of his life before, but also the penalty of his previous life, which he can't escape. One highlight was Lee's choice to use Ozzie Davis' voice for the eulogy. His smile and spirit (and almost dead on physical similarity to Malcolm) brought so much to humanize him.

The bad is that several of the other actors were not nearly as good. I do wished he would have included the scene about the white girl who wanted to help, but was not given the opportunity. He finally embraced a new self and Denzel played it so well. Spike Lee couldn't have cast the main role any better and he was responsible for writing a great likable living Malcolm. I am a huge fan of the book, but the movie has so many flaws that it left me hungry for a better film. The picture of the DVD is great, but the sound is just average with some of the dialog mixed very low.