Do the Right Thing [20th Anniversary Edition] [Blu-ray]

Director: Spike Lee Spike Lee

Overview

Director Spike Lee dives head-first into a maelstrom of racial and social ills, using as his springboard the hottest day of the year on one block in Brooklyn, NY. Three businesses dominate the block: a storefront radio station, where a smooth-talkin' deejay (Samuel L. Jackson) spins the platters that matter; a convenience store owned by a Korean couple; and Sal's Famous Pizzeria, the only white-operated business in the neighborhood. Sal (Danny Aiello) serves up slices with his two sons, genial Vito (Richard Edson) and angry, racist Pino (John Turturro). Sal has one black employee, Mookie (Spike Lee), who wants to "get paid" but lacks ambition. His sister Jade (Joie Lee, Spike's sister), who has a greater sense of purpose and a "real" job, wants Mookie to start dealing with his responsibilities, most notably his son with girlfriend Tina (Rosie Perez). Two of Mookie's best friends are Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), a monolith of a man who rarely speaks, preferring to blast Public Enemy's rap song Fight The Power on his massive boom box; and Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito), nicknamed for his coke-bottle glasses and habit of losing his cool. When Buggin' Out notes that Sal's "Wall of Fame," a photo gallery of famous Italian-Americans, includes no people of color, he eventually demands a neighborhood boycott, on a day when tensions are already running high, that incurs tragic consequences.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/30/2009
UPC:	0025192010590
Original Release:	1989
Rating:	R
Source:	STUDIO DISTRIBUTION SERVS LLC
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	2:00:00
Sales rank:	27,108

Special Features

HI-DEF features:; Do the Right Thing: 20 years later; Deleted & extended scenes; Additional features:; 20th Anniversary edition feature commentary; Feature commentary; Behind the scenes; Making Do the Right Thing; Editor Barry Brown; The riot sequence; Cannes, 1989

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Danny Aiello	Sal,Officer Long
Ossie Davis	Da Mayor
Ruby Dee	Mother Sister
Richard Edson	Vito
Giancarlo Esposito	Buggin Out
Spike Lee	Mookie,Jade,Composer
Bill Nunn	Radio Raheem
John Turturro	Pino
Paul Benjamin	ML
Frankie R. Faison	Coconut Sid
Robin Harris	Sweet Dick Willie
Miguel Sandoval	Officer Ponte
John Savage	Clifton
Samuel L. Jackson	Mister Señor Love Daddy(as Sam Jackson)
Rosie Perez	Tina
Roger Guenveur Smith	Smiley
Steve White	Ahmad
Martin Lawrence	Cee
Leonard L. Thomas	Punchy(as Leonard Thomas),Punchy
Christa Rivers	Ella
Frank Vincent	Charlie
Luis Antonio Ramos	Stevie(as Luis Ramos),Stevie
Richard Habersham	Eddie
Gwen McGee	Louise
Steve Park	Sonny,Korean Child,Sonny
Ginny Yang	Kim
Shawn Elliott	Puerto Rican Icee Man
Diva Osorio	Carmen
Robi Reed-Humes	Actor
Angel Ramirez	Stevie's Friends
Nelson Vasquez	Stevie's Friends
Travell Toulson	Hector
Joel Nagle	Sergeant
David Weinberg	Plain Clothes Detective
Erik Koniger	Actor
Dominic Marcus	Actor
Eric Payne	Actor
Roy Thomas	Actor
Tom Wright	Actor

Technical Credits

Spike Lee

Spike Lee	Director,Producer,Screenwriter
Jon Kilik	Producer
Eddie Bo Smith, Jr.	Stunts
Robi Reed-Humes	Casting
Steve Kirshoff	Special Effects
Hugh O'Brien	Stunts

Editorial Reviews

As startling as a trash can shattering a plate-glass window, director Spike Lee's third feature burst into theaters and changed cinematic history. Still widely regarded as Lee's best film, it opened the field to other African-American directors and helped to make such films as Boyz n the Hood possible. Do the Right Thing covers a single, sweltering summer day in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant section when racial tensions ignite minor disagreements that finally blaze into a night of violence. All the elements of Lee's provocative film are incendiary, designed to excite the senses. The Crayola color scheme and the jarring, innovative cinematography amplify the constant friction between the different characters and cultures. From the massive boom box lugged by surly Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), Public Enemy's rancorous anthem "Fight the Power" proclaims the dawn of a new era in America. Hilarious one moment, uncomfortable the next, and graced with great performances by John Turturro, Danny Aiello, and Rosie Perez, Do the Right Thing maintains an in-your-face intensity throughout.

Barnes & Noble - Regina Raiford

Provoking both substantial praise and fierce criticism for its "inflammatory" content, Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989) examined racism in all its complexity, eschewing simple answers for an ambiguous, artistically ambitious mosaic. The action is confined to one Brooklyn block on the hottest day of the summer, and the Bedford-Stuyvesant location thus becomes a multi-racial and multi-ethnic microcosm, spanning all ages and character types. The tapestry of incidents, whether humorous, intimate, or increasingly hostile, becomes a means to articulate a wide range of attitudes and beliefs, bolstered by cinematographer Ernest Dickerson's contrasting "hot" and "cool" colors and Lee's stylistic breaks from traditional narrative, such as direct address to the camera. Sal's Pizzeria may be the central site of confrontation, but it isn't just a matter of black vs. white. The final quotes from Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. offer differing views about racism and violence, punctuating a film that at all points questions what is the "right thing" and never offers a clear or simple answer. Funded by Universal after School Daze's success in 1988, Do the Right Thing premiered to acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival that was matched in the U.S. despite unfounded trepidation that it would provoke violence. Considered one of the few great American films made in the 1980s (although it was largely ignored by the Oscars), Do the Right Thing confirmed Lee as one of the preeminent filmmakers to emerge from the decade, while its box office success helped galvanize a new wave of 1990s African-American cinema.

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola