Movie-A-Day #222: Summer of Sam (1999).

David Berkowitz’s Son of Sam serial killing spree finally came to an end with his arrest 34 years ago today. The killings had kept New Yorkers scared to leave their homes for months, adding to general tone of anxiety and upheaval that wound up making 1977 such a pivotal year in the city. Spike Lee’s “Summer of Sam” uses all of this – Berkowitz. the heatwave, the blackout, the rise of punk rock culture – as background in a way that may be sprawling and messy, but certainly isn’t boring.