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His portrayal of street-hustler Mars Blackmon has become one of his most popular characters. The next film, School Daze (1988), though underfunded by Columbia Pictures, and a critical failure, still garnered a profit that was twice the cost of the production and Lee still was able to show his provocative vision. A musical-comedy, the film protrays life on an all-black college campus. His next film would become his most successful. Do the Right Thing about racial tension in a mixed New York neighborhood, was the most controversial film of 1989 before it was even released. After that, people paid much more attention to Lee than they had before. Continually making films that celebrate black culture, including a sort of modern tribute to Jazz in Mo' Better Blues, he also continues to stir up much debate around his films.

Jungle Fever brought up the subject of interracial dating. School Daze brought up the color divisions in the student body. And Do the Right Thing brought up prejudice and racism within urban neighborhoods. By far his most talk-about film, Malcolm X, a biography on the famed black Muslim minister, lead to an almost ironic anti-climax. The press seemed to take glee in Lee's complaining on how Warner Bros. had originally planned to have white director Norman Jewison helm the project. Through all the hoopla surrounding the movie, it ended up as one of the most successful, financially, of all Lee's films, thanks in part by the numerous merchandising of X hats, T-shirts and posters, but thanks in larger part to the towering performance by Denzel Washington as the famed black leader. In a way, you could say that the film ended up being Lee's triumph.

My rating on a scale of 1 to 10: 7

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