School Daze (1988) ***

School Daze (1988), Spike Lee's second feature film, is an interesting time capsule and early example of the director's trademarks, which were already polished by his next and best known film, Do The Right Thing (1989) (my review here). School Daze features some wonderful performances, a few snappily choreographed dance numbers, vibrant costumes and in your face examples of colorism. It also contains some unfortunate homophobia, mistreatment of women, and the non sequitous nature of the story never quite gels into a coherent whole. There's plenty to appreciate here, but Spike would hone his skills at characterization and big idea filmmaking with his opus the following year.

You can find my Spike Lee Feature Films Ranked list here.*

*I'm fairly certain I've seen a few more of his films but I don't remember them well enough to include them on the list yet.