Still kickin after all these years.

Mr. Smith played Smiley, not Mookie. That was Mr. Lee's role.

...is twenty years older and still many brain cells dumber. :P

Relatedly, I'm putting good money down now that Lee will get the Irving Thalberg Award years hence and when he's two steps from the grave. Even now, he's too hot to handle for the Academy, and said organization loves to give "heartbeat props" (i.e. fulsome insincere praise when a non-conforming person is safely dead). The Thalberg is often Hollywood's way of saying, "Yeah, you're a great filmmaker. And now that you're outta here and can't upset our delicate sensibilities anymore, here's a biscuit." :)

. . . is that the emotional center of the film was the Italian-American pizza owner and his two sons (the only people in the film who appeared to be working; hard work was something only white people do), the black characters were mostly one-dimensional, the "climax" rang clangingly, thuddingly false, and my black girlfriend was so turned off by the hate that she wanted to leave.

This was New York, 1989.

There was also that edifying graffiti, "Tawana told the truth", with no explanation. As usual, Spike threw gas on the flame just for the heck of it.

Of course. reasonable minds can differ. Why bring stuff up like that up again? Let's just leave this film in the past, O.K.?

Meatloaf? Meatloaf!?! Meafloaf???!? You gotta be kidding!

Probably his very best. I remember it well.

...it's not what you end up with every time, but a satisfying ending is the shit, dude. Good for you, and your college!

To say nothing of the ending of "Do The Right Thing"...!

Forget history? Be willfully stoooooopid?!??! No freakin' way!!!!

Do wuz a great flick. This is a movie you know, without being told, that it is a Spike Lee flick. It has Spike style! (For instance: I love that character-talks-to-the-audience thing!)

I noticed when Spike's character told the pizza joint owner that he could rebuild with the insurance cash. As a son of an insurance broker, I would have liked if the pizza guy had said that insurance might be hard to buy in that neighborhood. Red-lining would have been worth a mention.

I remember seeing Spike on Donahue (well, I think that was the show). Some yuppie bozo complained that there should have been some drug dealing/use in the Do neighborhood. And Spike sez, how come my movie is attacked because of LACK of drugs?

My fave Spike movie, and one of my fave flicks (but it does not beat out Repo Man!), is Malcolm X. (And SPIKE WUZ RIPPED BY THE OSCARS AGAIN, and that, cue the Godfather music, I do not forgive!) I had recently finished reading the book when I saw that flick, and Spike did justice to the book. That ain't easy! The biggest lesson I learned from this 3-hour flick, other than the ones I picked up from the book? (Cue Gilligan's Island music: A 3-hour flick, a 3-hour flick!) The brain can be fooled into thinking that a 3-hour flick is only 2 hours, if it is having a particularly good time. But I bought an extra-large cola. The bladder cannot be fooled!

Two thumbs up for "Malcolm" and "Repo Man".(generic food FTW). And of course another great Keith strip.

Anybody hear the Dick Gordon interview with Keith Knight this week on North Carolina Public Radio's nationally syndicated program, "The Story"?

It was real good.

A fantastic and rich film, DTRT premiered while I was in college as well. I took a bunch of white boys from the student council - there was at least one guy who had never even known a black person in his entire life. The movie opened his eyes, without a doubt: he was planning to be a lawyer, but now works for recruitment and retention of minorities in collegiate education.

One odd occurrence at that screening: during the scene where the block kids hassle Da Mayor, a possibly intoxicated man near the front of the theater began yelling, "You can't talk that way to old people! You have to respect old people!" He was quite dismayed by the razzing of Ozzie Davis.

We tried to bring the film to campus as well. The student activities director, a preppy white frat boy with a giant stick up his ass, cycled through his worries: guns, possible rioting, controversy - he finally objected with the claim, "Everyone has already seen it."

Yeah, absolutely goddamn right. One of the best ever.

Has Obama seen this movie? Nah, didn't think so.

You went to Seldom Straight!

The second best college in Salem, MA!

(I kid, me too alum)