Brooklyn's Finest

Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)

2023 the number - another summer! Time to wash away this year's bitter film disappointments with a NYC fire hydrant. Not too many films out there are worth enduring the hot sticky evenings right about now. Thankfully, Spike Lee's classic social drama Do the Right Thing (1989) perfectly encapsulates the sweltering summer heat to its advantage.

Set in the hubbub of Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood on the hottest day of the year. Sal's Famous Pizzeria is the focal point for rising racial tension throughout the film when Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito), one of the patrons of the restaurant, takes issue with Sal's Wall of Fame being exclusively adorned with pictures of Italian/Italian American celebrities. The film's central protagonist, Mookie (Spike Lee), a pizza delivery guy for Sal (Danny Aiello, AKA Madonna's dad in the Papa Don't Preach video) and friend of Buggin' Out, temporarily de-escalates the situation before it resurfaces during the remainder of the day.

Sadly, Do the Right Thing's social commentary is still relevant today. Amidst the blazing summer heat, the multi-cultural melting pot boils over it into violence following a horrific incident involving the police. What's truly remarkable about Spike Lee's film is its humanistic writing for its characters; including their strengths and weaknesses, sans the stereotypical Hollywood heavy-handedness. Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), who appears larger than life as a towering figure, endlessly blaring Public Enemy's Fight the Power on his boombox, exemplifies the duality inherent in the rest of the characters with his LOVE and HATE rings; an obvious homage to Robert Mitchum's tatoos from The Night of the Hunter (1955).

The sitdown conversation between Sal and his son Pino (John Turturro) is a powerful moment in the film. Despite all his hard work and passion, Sal's realises the pizzeria won't continue for long in the incapable hands of his sons; particularly the racist Pino. At this point, it's where Sal realises his pride for the business might have come at the expense of others. This is the pride before the fall that forshadows the film's volatile climax.

Ernest Dickerson's cinematography is absolutely gorgeous in the film. Not only does he capture the diverse vibrancy to the neighbourhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant and the colourful eighties apparel worn by the cast, but the intense humidity emanating off the screen feels very authentic. Beads of sweat in glistening detail on the cast and the stuffy urban atmosphere has you craving for an ice bath when the end credits start to crawl.

The rest of the supporting cast are also great with a memorable appearance of Samuel L. Jackson as the radio DJ Mister Señor Love Daddy rockin' both a kufi and a safari hat on his head throughout the film. Do the Right Thing also heralded the film debuts for both Martin Lawrence and Rosie Perez.

There's also the additional heat of Rosie Perez's dance sequence for the film's opening credits, which follows in the vein of a bygone trend in cinema. Well done to Spike Lee for capturing that classic sequence on celluloid. The ever so hands-on director was also committed to playing Perez's boyfriend in the film, by having the enviable task of rubbing ice cubes on her breasts to keep her cool from all the heat. This charitable endeavour might be another reason why Do the Right Thing came 24th in Sight and Sound's The Greatest Films of All Time poll.

Haven't seen every single one of Spike Lee's films, but Do the Right Thing does feel the like his most well crafted effort in his oeuvre. Still relevant today as it was over thirty years ago, which marks it as equally tragic as it is remarkable, but a sincere piece of art, regardless. Would rank highly in any great films set in NYC list "and that's the double-truth, Ruth!"

Dada Debaser Bonus Feature:

It's 1989 and if your humble blogger was the teenaged owner/manager of a restaurant - Spartan's Famous Souvlakia (because pizza in the summer is way too stodgy for my liking), I'm probably putting this lot on my Wall of Fame:

 Ain't no buggin' out in my joint!

When Worlds Collide

When it comes to being a film fanatic, one of the oddest scenarios to occur is when my personal palate and those belonging to chin-stroking kino heads intersect in the ven diagram of common agreement. However, these fleeting occurrences are often driven by rather different and totally juvenile levels of appreciation. To paraphrase the late great Eric Morcambe, "I'm watching all the right films, but not necessarily for the right reasons". Below are eight examples of this:

Belle du Jour (Luis Buñuel, 1967)

Seeing the French blonde bombshell, Catherine Deneuve play a frigid housewife unshackling her hidden inner slut, is the stuff cinema was made for. Is it real, or is it fantasy? Who cares? I consider this film heaps of entertainment, not just for Deneuve's character transition, but for the hilariously depraved weirdo clientelle that comes calling; one of which is a rich perv knocking one out while Deneuve is pretending to be dead in a coffin above him.

The Iron Rose (Jean Rollin, 1973)

Great example of a film maker receiving a posthumous revisionist revival after being dismissed as an exploitaive eurotrash film maker is Jean Rollin. Can't say I'm a fan of all his films that I've happened to see, but The Iron Rose is one that I enjoy most of all. Partly because the idea of a couple winding up in a creepy cemetery overnight is something I can relate to; while the other, is Françoise Pascal, aka Danielle the French student from Mind Your Language, getting her kit off in it. All seriousness though, I love the atmosphere in this film and it's one where I don't roll my eyes with cringe whenever artsty-fartsy types delve about it's poetic beauty, as I shockingly agree with it.

In the Realm of the Senses (Nagisa Ōshima, 1976)

Art or pornography? Who honestly cares? It's an excuse for pretentious folk to get their rocks off, regardless. Oshima's film based on an apparently true story dealing with the destructive affair between a concubine and her master, is anything but arousing for this blogger. It's the humour that makes this film largely watchable between all the graphic unsimulated sex scenes. One scene in particular where an old codger catches a whiff of Sada the concubine's rotten crotch and says, "You don't smell very good today, like a dead rat or something", is laugh out loud hilarious. Critics praise it for its daring while Radley Metzger doesn't get a look in, but that's ok, since I dig them both and that's all that matters.

Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)

Going to pull my horror movie snob card here: If ever a film got hijacked by an insufferably annoying and pretentious crowd, it's Argento's supernatural girl-school masterpiece, Suspiria. Without fail, some tublrina or letterboxd hipster will make the ignorant statement that it's their "favourite giallo", and I will sink my head into my hands with complete despair. Luca Guadagino's 2018 remake unintentionally did me a small favour, since a bunch of these ignorant twats abandoned ship and falsely picked the inferior version as their fave over Argento's. For me personally, Suspiria is a top ten of all time. It fulfills all the criteria I'm after in a classic film, but one unique reason why I like it a lot is the, "you have been watching 'SUSPIRIA'", message on the English dubs end titles. It reminds me of the David Croft and Jimmy Perry scripted British sitcoms, like Dad's Army, It Ain't Half  Hot, Mum, Hi-de-Hi! and  'Allo, 'Allo did the same thing at the end of each episode.

Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)

1981 was arguably a great vintage year for horror film. One film which won over critics and fans alike was Zulawski's marriage story starring Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani. The latter invested so much emotionally into the film, it took several years for her to recover, allegedly. Both Neill and Adjani deliver intensely powerful and disturbing performances, that it becomes incredibly draining for the viewer to watch, that it becomes difficult to revist again any time soon.The subway miscarriage scene is the stuff nightmares are made of for even the most seasones of horror film veterans.

Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)

Always love it when films show a dark sinister side beneath the veneer of a vintage Americana aesthetic. Right from Blue Velvet's opening sequence, it's very evident. The grotesquely erotic and intentional humour are the film's biggest draws for me. Dennis Hopper using a breathing mask and screaming, "Mommy!" while staring in between Isabella Rossellini's legs isn't exactly a scene you're ever going to erase from your mind anytime soon. Although, I don't consider it his objectively best film, Blue Velvet is subjectively his most appealing to me. It's the gateway into Lynch's twisted body of work that I previously felt was obstructed by Eraserhead (1977). Also, Roger Ebert slated it; which is another reason why I always considered him an overrated film critic.

Crash (David Cronenberg, 1996)

The number one film on the BFI's 90 Great Films of the 1990s list. A dark drama involving an underground culture erotically attracted to car crashes. The film was so controversial here that it made the news headlines, but the film to me was really fascinating and somewhat funny having to watch people getting off on cart wrecks, injuries and even death, that they're compelled to recreate Jayne Masfield's car crash. Cronenberg is usually a cold and calculated director, it's especially applicable here, but he gets props from me since this film was the fittest Deborah Ungar ever looked, and even Rosanna Arquette was rather tasty, despite the fucked up leg braces and flesh scarring. 

Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)

Hard to believe that one of  the best science fiction films to spring so far in the twenty-first century is one where an alien Scarlett Johansson would prowl the rain-soaked streets of Glasgow in a white van picking up drunken chavs, but here we are. It's a return to seventies era sci-fi where the concept and atmosphere do much of the story telling; something that's sadly mostly missing in many contemporary films in this genre. I feel like Glazer's film belongs in the same British off-kilter sci-fi horror box as Prey (1977) and Xtro (1982), which really adds to my appreciation of it. Not a sentiment that critics and other film heads would share with me, in my opinion.

Going to end it here. This is my second attempt creating this post and I don't want to tempt fate and accidentally delete it again while attempting to format it. You get the gist of it anyway.