Only a few weeks ago, NBA on NBC viewers caught the familiar glimpse of Spike Lee in his Knickerbockers jersey on the Madison Square Garden floor, trying to rev up his favorite ballers. Someone else was directing that picture, but it still told the rest of the world how the New York minute was ticking during the Late Spring of Spre.

That kind of excitement didn't miss a beat in the helter swelter of New York City in 1977--where if you caught a 20-year-old in Brooklyn shouting "Reg-gie, Reg-gie" he wouldn't be taunting a shooting guard from Indiana. A lefty from the Bayou and a pop star named Jackson were carrying the Yankees to the first of two consecutive World Series crowns--and the real bad guy in the Big Apple wasn't George Steinbrenner.

David Berkowitz decided to use his .44 caliber on young attractive women and make-out couples because a dog and some toy blocks said it was in the cards.

Thus, insanity spreads to bubonic proportions in Summer of Sam--as a fictional circle of Bronx Italianos tries to deal with a different kind of shooting spree. They turn to all kinds of fornication, illegal substances and loud music to cover their fears.

Vinny (a fine performance by underrated all-around talent John Leguizamo) and Dionna (Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino) portray a young couple who escape to another craze of the decade--disco. But the humdrum commitment of a gorgeous, faithful wife is not enough for Vinny, so he philanders with her cousins and his various salon co-workers.

On the outside, Vinny's buddy Ritchie (Adrien Brody) goes through a CBGBs punk transformation--using Who's Next as his album anthem. That concept attracts Lucy (one of Vinny's former conquests) to join him in the realm of body mutilation and mohawks. Ritchie's day job: a concubine at a gay strip club--which doesn't play well in a circle of friends led by a overweight drug dealer.

The cops supposedly enlist the help of Vinny's neighborhood mob boss (it's always good to see Ben Gazzara as an Italian head of something) to put a hit on Berkowitz and save the community.

The talking dog (John Turturro) seems to make sense now, all of a sudden. Funny enough, going into the flick, I was hoping for all-out screen insanity, with a eclectic 70s soundtrack--and that's what I got. The wackiness of blackouts and violent orgies made me glad I was a one-year-old non-brunette non-girl safely tucked an hour away on the Pennsylvania turnpike.

The best and worst of Lee's directing abilities are displayed in this film. From Do the Right Thing to Malcolm X, he's done a good job of playing off the heat themes and shows the intensity of group demonstrations well. Although the movie was not directly about Berkowitz as a killer, the shooting scenes were some of the best cuts with impact in the movie.

But if Lee is going to put such an emphasis on sex in an emotion picture--he's not going to be able to do it right--e.g. He Got Game. Anything on late-night Skinemax is better--although I really haven't seen any of The Sexperiment. It's like wham, bam, thank you Summer of Sam for keeping us trapped in the bedroom, car, beauty parlor and couch. It's a physical thing that really doesn't tell you much about particular characters--since they all do it the same quick-hit way.

Lee's biggest strength is his knowledge and awareness of all different kinds of New York borough culture -- from its choice in sports to music.

The cast also works well for this slice of pizza pie (although, besides Leguizamo, extremely typecast)--and being a big Sorvino fan, I care about whoever she plays.

It doesn?t hurt that "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" were played in their entirety--I was introduced to the Who?'s complete repretoire three years ago and the songs on Who's Next have been a CD player staple for most of the time since. Pete Towshend's riffs and Keith Moon's drumbeats are (to borrow a little from Ferris Bueller) "so choice, if you have the means, I would seriously consider obtaining them." A little Abba and Chic's killer bass are welcome for that 70s feel.

Sure, if they had played "Fly Like an Eagle" and "The Joker" by Steve Miller, I would left the theater quickly to enjoy the Summer of Sammy Sosa on SportsCenter.

Summer of Sam is a worthy effort--like most 70s flicks, it draws me in with curiosity--how were people having that much fun and still being depressed at the same time? Now, most people are depressed because they aren't having kind of fun. Plus, I had heard so much about the Son of Sam, I wanted a sense of what the serial-killer fear was all about. Lee certainly delivers that--but sometimes one is stuck looking for the method to the madness of 1977.