★★★★½ Do The Right Thing

[Gino: 4.5 sp]

Gino says: 'I first saw this film when it was still in theaters (1989?) Back then, it was the first film I had scene with that pervasive foul language and a scene of non-cartoonish violence, and I was kinda shocked by it. And while it did kinda sink in, I was too young to realize how good a film this is. So this was a revisit viewing, split up over several days. The basic story is about one hot day in a Brooklyn neighborhood and how it ends in a tragic death and riot.

First, yes, this is a movie about race. But as Roger Ebert puts it in his "Great Movies" article for this film (a good read), "...Spike Lee had done an almost impossible thing. He'd made a movie about race in America that empathized with all the participants." And this is true the cast is populated by imperfect but non-villainous, in short, 'real' people.

Everything converges in this movie to make it an almost palpable experience: the on-screen heat wave, the music, the depth with which you feel you gradually understand the large cast of characters, some great acting, the great movie relationship between Danny Aiello's Sal, Spike Lee's Mookie (Sal's employee at the pizza place) and Sal's sons. Spike Lee's style, which to me is a base of realism punctuated with a hyper-real style, is great. (E.g. characters generally act naturally but occasionally talk directly to the audience to intensify or underscore moments. The music alternates between Public Enemy and jazz, natural backdrops for the visuals, but then to swelling almost generic "movie music", etc. Anyway, in short, a great movie. '