THE REWATCHABLES · August 26, 2019
A 1989 drama / comedy directed by Spike Lee, covered in the complete Rewatchables archive.
ON THIS EPISODE
FROM THE CONVERSATION
WHY IT WORKS
WHAT DID NOT WORK
SCENES THEY KEPT COMING BACK TO
The film opens with Rosie Perez dancing to Public Enemy, immediately setting the movie's energy and style.
About 32 minA central ideological confrontation over whose faces belong in the pizzeria, and who controls black space.
About 32 minA comic neighborhood scene that captures summer city life and kids playing in the street.
About 40 minA revealing father-son conversation that makes Sal seem sympathetic before later scenes complicate him.
About 40 minOne of the movie's signature monologues, framing the film's central moral tension.
About 56 minThe movie's sharpened montage of ethnic and racial insults, used to mark the factions in the neighborhood.
About 40 minThe climax turns to panic, violence, and the unresolved aftermath of Radio Raheem's death.
About 48 minWHERE THEY DISAGREED
Sean FennesseyHe leans toward the idea that no one fully does the right thing, and that Mookie's act is morally irreducible.
Wesley MorrisHe says the act can be read both as rage and as a protective diversion, and that the question is unanswerable.
Sean FennesseyHe thinks the movie deliberately leaves them in a fragile, unresolved state rather than true reconciliation.
Wesley MorrisHe suggests they made an economic arrangement more than a true repair of their relationship.
Wesley MorrisHe rejects the old critical claim that the ending incites violence and argues critics misunderstood the movie's logic.
Sean FennesseyHe agrees that those reviews were wildly off-base and missed the film's careful dialectic.
Sean FennesseyHe thinks De Niro would make it a different, more star-driven and morally different movie.
Wesley MorrisHe agrees the role would become about De Niro's baggage rather than the ensemble balance.
Calls it Spike Lee's masterwork and signature film, and says it penetrates the soul like very few movies do.
Opening minutesArgues that the movie is a perfect philosophical text that holds multiple truths at once.
About 8 minSays the ending still makes him cry and that the film's unresolved pain is part of its greatness.
About 8 minSays critics missed that the film is intentionally built to hold two thoughts at once and to resist simplistic readings.
About 8 minChooses the opening dance as a top rewatchable scene and celebrates its energy and casting story.
About 32 minSees Buggin' Out's complaint as emotionally understandable but too blunt and lacking compromise.
About 32 minReads the conversation as a deliberate false sense of trust that later reveals Sal's fuller complexity.
About 40 minRejects 1989 reviews that accused Lee of incoherence or danger, calling them racist or badly misread.
About 24 minAdmires the red/orange heat palette, tilted camera, and visual storytelling across neighborhood spaces.
About 8 minPraises 'Fight the Power' as a perfect anthem and notes its importance to the movie's sound and cultural force.
About 32 minThe film holds multiple truths at once and refuses simplistic racial reconciliation, presenting a dialectic rather than a single message.
About 8 minSal's pizzeria becomes a symbol of who controls space in a black neighborhood and who gets to claim belonging.
About 8 minCharacters embody both tenderness and rage; the film insists those impulses live together in people and communities.
About 16 minThe hosts argue that many white critics projected their own anxieties onto the movie rather than meeting it on its own terms.
About 16 minThough rooted in 1989 Brooklyn, the movie is described as timeless and still applicable to American city life.
About 8 minSpike Lee said he wrote the screenplay in two weeks.
About 56 minThe film was shot entirely on Stuyvesant Avenue between Quincy Street and Lexington Avenue.
About 56 minThe neighborhood's crack dealers threatened the crew, so Fruit of Islam members were hired for security.
About 56 minSamuel L. Jackson reportedly spent much of the shoot sleeping because he had no scenes outside.
About 56 minThe original ending had more reconciliation between Mookie and Sal.
About 56 minThe film's wall and streets were painted red and orange to intensify the heat-wave feeling.
About 56 minSpike Lee said white viewers are the ones who usually ask whether Mookie did the right thing.
About 56 minThe movie was dedicated to several real victims of police violence, including Yusef Hawkins and others named in the conversation.
About 16 minWesley recalls it opening around the same time and being more fascinating to him as a kid.
Opening minutesUsed as the Oscar winner that famously beat Do the Right Thing in Best Picture conversation.
Opening minutesReferenced as a later Spike Lee film that also engages Bensonhurst and interracial tension.
About 8 minCited as a later Spike film in which Mookie appears as a pizza delivery man.
About 16 minAn ad read, not part of the editorial discussion.
About 32 min · low confidenceReferenced through the comic book that Buggin' Out reads while talking about pizza and black representation.
About 56 minMentioned in connection with possible thefts from this film, including a monologue and a line of dialogue.
About 32 minMentioned as another Tarantino film that echoes Spike Lee material about Sicilians, Africans, and the Moors.
About 32 minUsed as an example of a later Spike movie where Sal's Pizza reappears.
About 48 minUsed in sponsor-ad-related tangent and as an example of a movie later reinterpreted through cultural debate.
About 16 min · medium confidenceMentioned alongside The Matrix in a tangent about human passivity and phones at airports.
About 16 min · medium confidenceReferenced as a favorite John Turturro performance.
About 40 minReferenced as a later John Turturro performance in which Wesley finds him unexpectedly sexy.
About 40 min · medium confidenceReferenced as a Spike movie when discussing criticism of his commercial work and screenplays.
About 24 minCited as one of Wesley's favorite Spike films and another near-perfect work.
About 48 minThe song and its anthem status recur as a symbol of the film's cultural force and summer energy.
About 32 minThe hosts repeatedly riff on the radio DJ roll call and the film's Black cultural texture.
About 56 minThe hosts keep returning to the tagline and the film's inability to offer simple solutions.
Opening minutesThey joke and argue about whether Sal's pizza actually looks or tastes good, turning the restaurant into a symbol and a food debate.
About 48 minThey keep listing performers who explode in brief appearances and debating who qualifies.
About 48 min“Do the Right Thing is his thing.”About 8 min
“You want brothers on the wall?”About 32 min
“You stepped on Radio Jordan!”About 48 min
“Always do the right thing.”Opening minutes
“Love and hate.”About 56 min
MAKE IT A MOVIE NIGHT
WHAT TO WATCH NEXT
Three movies to watch before Do The Right Thing, and three to watch next.
ON THE MIC
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