Da 5 Bloods

Slate's Spoiler Specials

Slate Podcasts

Film Reviews,, Tv & Film

3.6 • 724 Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2020

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On the Spoiler Special podcast, Slate critics discuss movies, the occasional TV show, and, once in a blue moon, another podcast, in full spoiler-filled detail. This week, Dana Stevens, Slate’s movie critic, is joined by Aisha Harris, writer and editor for The New York Times’ Opinion section to spoil Da 5 Bloods.

Spike Lee’s newest film follows a group of Black Vietnam War veterans as they reunite years later. The group returns to Vietnam to find the remains of Stormin’ Norman, their commander who died during the war. While they are there, they try to retrieve a lost cache of CIA gold. At first the search seems easy–too easy. But soon familial tensions, lingering PTSD, and environmental hazards start complicating the mission. How many of the remaining Bloods will make it back out of the jungle?

Plus: Dana and Aisha break down Spike Lee’s employment of numerous film techniques, including an innovative use of four different aspect ratios.

You can read Sam Adams’ review here.

You can read Matthew Dessem’s piece on the aspect ratios here.

You can also read Matthew Dessem’s piece on the real story behind the landmine scene here.

If you want to hear more analysis of Da 5 Bloods, listen to Slate’s Culture Gabfest here.

Note: As the title indicates, this podcast contains spoilers galore.

Email us at spoilers@slate.com.

Podcast production by Rosemary Belson.

Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts and access to exclusive shows like Dana Stevens’ classic movies podcast Flashback. Sign up now to listen and support our work.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:03.0	The following podcast contains explicit language.
0:07.2	I want to tell you my secret now.
0:09.9	I see dead people.
0:13.1	Silent green is people!
0:16.8	No, I am the father.
0:20.2	Oh, Rush am the father. Oh, gosh, but...
0:23.6	What's in the box?
0:28.4	You maniac!
0:30.5	You blow it up!
0:32.2	Damn you all the hell!
0:36.2	Hello, and welcome to the Slate Spoiler Special podcast. I'm Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic. Today we are talking about Defive Bloods, the new Spike Lee movie that unfortunately has been released digitally rather than on the big screen where it was really born to be seen. But happily, here to talk about it with me is Aisha Harris, who I think of as a slate person still, because I knew you when. But now you are a culture editor at the opinion page of the New York Times. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to return. Yeah, we haven't spoiled anything for a long time. And I think it is possible that the last time we spoiled something, it was a Spike thing. Didn't we talk about she's got to have it, the TV version? Maybe. It's either that or maybe Black Klansman. I can't remember. We may have done both. Anyway, I know we've talked to Spike before. This is a great one to talk about with you. This is one of those movies I was saying before we started rolling that sort of demands almost an immediate rewatch because there's so much in it. It's two and a half hours long, a little bit over two and a half hours. And as we'll get into, it's, you know, had a huge sprawling cast of characters. It has multiple timeframes. It's something that really begs to be unpacked. So I'm excited to get into it with you. But as I always like to do at the
1:44.9	beginning of these, I just sort of want to get your basic thumbs up, thumbs down reaction.
1:49.4	Like I know you're sort of a spikely complete as to where do you think this stands among his
1:53.1	recent work or all his work? I definitely think that among his most recent work in the last like
1:59.0	five to 10 years, this is by far the best. I think that
2:02.7	it will stand the test of time more than Black Klansmen, which I really liked the first time
2:10.2	around when I saw it, but I think after subsequent criticisms from other critics at the time,
2:16.2	I've come to realize that it does end a little bit too
2:19.6	neatly in terms of the way it treats its police officers and cops in general. And so I feel like
2:25.1	this movie, it's doing so much and is really good at doing almost every different facet that it
2:32.7	attempts, whether it's pulling from many different styles
	...

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