Miracle at St. Anna

Spike Lee's World War II film Miracle at St. Anna begins in 1983 with Hector Negron, a veteran of that war, unexpectedly shooting a customer dead. Police discover that the suspect, a quiet postal worker, kept a statue head worth millions of dollars in his apartment. An eager young reporter (Joseph ...more

Despite Spike Lee's carefully cultivated reputation as a firebrand and provocateur, his films have always betrayed the heart of a classicist. Directing Miracle at St. Anna, the biggest-budgeted mainstream movie yet about the experiences of African-American soldiers in World War II, doesn't phase the audacious Lee in the slightest. He opens the film in 1983 with the main character watching John Wayne in The Longest Day and responding to the Duke's outsized American-ness with quiet pride (the flip ...more