We already knew that Spike Lee‘s Da 5 Bloods was unlikely to premiere at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival due to the (presumably) lingering Netflix prohibition. Now that Spike has been named as the honcho of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival jury, Da Five Bloods really isn’t screening there. It’ll almost certainly debut at the fall festivals (Venice, Telluride, Toronto, NYC).

Posted on 11.26.19: I’ve heard from a guy who attended a recent NYC-area screening of Lee’s film, which he says had a running time between 160 and 165 minutes and is pretty much completed with the credits in place.

Tipster: “It’s a slick, fast-paced, 165-minute emotional-flashback-to-Vietnam film. It’s a present-day thing about four aging veterans (Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock, Jr., Norm Lewis) returning to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to find the remains of the ‘fifth Blood’ (played in flashback by Chadwick Boseman) who was killed in action. They’re also looking to retrieve a pile of gold that they buried during their Vietnam service.

“And so they head off into the jungle and reconnect with one another in various ways. There’s a sort of Last Flag Flying sense of bonding between these men, all living different lives from when they knew each other, and all of them they sharing a similar sense of fear with age and time closing in, and all haunted by the wartime histories.

“Spike opens with a montage of the violence of the late 60s and early 70s, set to the music of Marvin Gaye — there’s a lot of Gaye in this, actually, and he uses it so well, all fitting in smoothly and providing momentum from the start.

“I saw Bloods with two other critics, and they both loved it. It will be a major success for both Spike and Netflix, and I could even see a directing and picture nomination depending on how they decide to release it.”