Transcript

Intro Clip

Oh, shit. Let me check it out. That's the hype! Newest, latest. Let me tell you the story of Right Hand Left Hand. It's a tale of good and evil. Hate. It was with this hand that Cain iced his brother. Love. These 5 fingers, they go straight to the soul of man. The right hand, the hand of love. The story of life is this. Static. One hand is always fighting the other hand. And the left hand is kicking much ass. I mean, it looks like the right hand love is finished. But hold on, stop the presses, the right hand's coming back. Yeah, he got the left hand on the ropes now, that's right. Yeah! Ooh, it's a devastating right! And Hate is hurt! He's down! Ooh! Ooh, left hand! Hate KO'd by Love. If I love you, I love you. But if I hate you—. There it is, Love and Hate. I love you, bro. You bet. Reed Rahim, check you later. Peace.

Steve

It's 2 Dads, 1 Movie. It's the podcast where 2 middle-aged dads sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the '80s and '90s. Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nic Briana. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today Nic has brought us the 1989 Spike Lee joint, Do the Right Thing. Nic, what's your background with Do the Right Thing? Why did we watch it this week?

Nic

Well, You know, so now we're what, 75, 70, 78? This episode's 78 now. Uh, and I, a lot of times with the choices lately, I've been thinking about who do we need to, um, who do we need to see that we haven't seen yet?

Steve

Yep.

Nic

And, uh, and this was one that, uh, I realized, oh, we haven't seen Spike Lee yet. And he made a lot of very important movies in the '80s and '90s.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Uh, very impactful, very like kind of known, just general figure in our culture. Like if you don't know his movies, you'd still know who he is, what he looks like and everything. He's, you know, at the— at taunting Reggie Miller or being taunted by Reggie Miller at the basketball games and shit. Um, and this is one that I saw probably in college, but I haven't seen since then. And I had a conversation with a, with a buddy of mine a couple weeks ago, and he was asking me like, what movie did you quote the most as a kid?

Steve

Okay.

Nic

And we were kind of talking back and forth. I was like, what about you? He was like, oh, Do the Right Thing. And he's interesting. A white dude, mid-40s from Seattle. And it's funny that this was like his thing. So I was like, oh, that's interesting that it hit. 'Cause I saw it and I remember liking it, but it's not like a part of me 'cause I only saw it that one time. So I thought this would be a good one to revisit. There's a lot of people in this that we like. And yeah, I think it'll be a different kind of film. So what about you, Steve? Have you seen Do the Right Thing before?

Steve

No, this is the first time that I saw it. I felt very much when I saw it come up on our planning list, I'm like, oh cool. I'm like looking, you know, it was funny. I was looking forward to it, but I was also kinda like, man, what I know of it, it's like, it's like pretty heavy. It's, it's, it's, you know, important in a way that it challenges you, you know, and that's very different from, say, last week's movie Mallrats, which doesn't challenge anyone but the actors with the dialogue.

Nic

I was challenged.

Steve

Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. Not challenged in a good way like this movie challenges you. So yeah, I, uh, had never seen it before. Obviously, like you said, very familiar with Spike Lee himself as a, as a cultural figure, um, but not as familiar with his work, which is a shame and something that I, I absolutely look forward to continuing to fix through this project and, and watching a bunch of movies from the era. 'Cause like you said, he was a very, very, important filmmaker of the time. And, you know, this was the movie, I don't think it was his first film, but it's kind of what put him on the map culturally and made him a cultural force. And so, yeah, very excited to talk about it. It certainly has been, or, you know, was an interesting experience to watch. I watched it yesterday actually, so.

Nic

All right.

Steve

Fresh in my mind. But let's go ahead and jump into the facts on Do the Right Thing. The film was released on June 30th, 1989 with an R rating and a running time of 120 minutes. Written and directed by Spike Lee, it also stars Spike Lee, alongside Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, and Ruby Dee. Scores on Rotten Tomatoes, 92%, 7.9 on IMDb. So both incredibly high scores, like really solid scores. And then Siskel and Ebert gave this one 2 thumbs up. A significant amount of awards activity in 1989 and 1990. 2 Oscar nominations, though it did not win in 1990, one for Best Supporting Actor for Aiello and one for Original Screenplay for Lee. At the 1990 Golden Globes, it had 4 nominations, though no wins, for Best Drama Film, Best Director for Lee, Best Supporting Actor for Aiello, and Best Screenplay for Lee as well. At the 1989 NAACP Image Awards, it was nominated for Outstanding Picture. Spike Lee was nominated for Lead Actor, and Rosie Perez was nominated for Supporting Actress. None of them won, but Supporting Actor was won by Ossie Davis, who played DeMayer, and, uh, the Lead Actress actually went to Ruby Dee, who played Mother Sister. So those were 2 wins.

Nic

Interesting for that to be a lead actress role.

Steve

I think that had a lot more to do with who Ruby Dee is in the context of, you know, the Image Awards. That awards, yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's a, that's a sign of respect to Miss Dee. And then in 1999, the film was added to the National Film Registry. Absolutely valid and good that it was. On a $6.5 million budget, which like I think was half of that was spent in the last 20 to 30 minutes of the movie. Yeah, almost assuredly. It pulled in $37.3 million at the box office. Doesn't sound like a lot, but almost 6 times what it cost. It's definitely a hit movie. This was a success from a monetary standpoint. And then, you know, we all know kind of where it's lasted as a, as a cultural— from a cultural standpoint. So why don't you kick us off, Nic? How does this movie begin?

Nic

Yeah, so, uh, this is one of my favorite intros, and I told you before we started the pod that I played this for a few people, uh, in the weeks since I've watched this movie because I, because I enjoy it so much. I mean, first we get very like kind of quiet, like jazz saxophone, like Lift Every Voice and Sing or whatever that's playing, and then it goes right into like Public Enemy's Fight the Power, which is like 1989, uh, Public Enemy off the Fear of a Black Planet album, and like their production was very like frantic, very like lots of noises coming from different places. They described it almost as like the Phil Spector Wall of Sound type production thing where it's just it's chaos and stuff, and it's kind of meant to sound. It's like it feels like being in the middle of a busy city. You know all these noises around there, and Fight the Power is playing, and we have a solo dance number, albeit in like.

Steve

Rotating different outfits by Rosie Perez, who is fucking locked in during this, giving it 1,000%.

Nic

She's not smiling. She's not enjoying herself. She is absolute focus during this and doing like actual good dance moves, but really some hilarious looking dance moves here. And I don't think hip-hop dance had evolved at this point yet to what it is today. So you're kind of like, all right, you were experimenting a little bit. It looks like you threw a little tap dance in there and stuff, but really enjoyable scene. And if you get horned up for Rosie Perez, then, uh, this is, this is your kind of shit. Yeah.

Steve

And, and she looks great. She, she— the dancing is interesting. It is. It looks a little bit like a mix between like an old, uh, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince video and maybe something like CNC Music Factory. Like, there's that kind of, you know, so there's that element to it. Um, we should mention, of course, that Rosie Perez was a complete unknown at this time. She gets the end introducing credit, uh, in the opening credits. Uh, Spike Lee discovered her dancing at a club in Brooklyn and basically asked her to be in this movie. And, and, you know, she agreed. And we'll get into some details because I got some good backstory there, uh, later on in the film. But basically Basically, this was her introduction to the world as an actress.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And so the first thing you're seeing is like four and a half minutes of her dancing. Like you said, multiple outfits, whatever. But to this one song, and of course it's an incredibly good song, and it is played through this whole movie. This this movie is scored by two people: Branford Marsalis basically doing a significant amount of jazz work in the background, right? I don't know if it was pre-recorded stuff or if Marsalis did stuff specifically for the movie. I'm not 100% sure, but he is credited with. You know, a lot of the music.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And then most of the rest of the soundtrack is some element of Fight the Power either being looped or we're hearing part of the whole song or, you know, sometimes it's everything but the vocal track. Like there's all these ways where that song is used in numerous places throughout the movie, obviously most commonly through Radio Raheem's boombox, which we'll get to in a minute. But yeah, so there's, you're gonna hear a lot of Fight the Power and a lot of really beautiful Branford Marsalis jazz.

Nic

Yeah, the jazz. And this is kind of a through line through the Spike Lee movies that I've seen. He loves The jazz as like as the score of a film.

Steve

Yeah, the music.

Nic

Like he'll put hip hop in, but I mean, he got game. The movie that he made where Denzel's like the basketball player with Ray Allen as his son and stuff. Movie that is just built to have like an all hip hop soundtrack, but it is an all like kind of jazz and classical soundtrack. Like Spike Lee is very much like an artiste in that way. One thing about Branford Marsalis: he had this group in the early '90s. Called Buckshot Lafonque, uh, and it was L-E-F-O-N-Q-U-E, Buckshot Lafonque. And they did this great like jazz hip-hop hybrid. They had like DJs and stuff and put out a couple albums, really cool shit. So, uh, check that out if you're into it. It follows a bit of the vibe of this movie.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, so yeah, so after our dance sequence, we're greeted by the radio DJ who we're gonna kind of see throughout this movie, Señor Love Daddy, right? Yeah, Mr. Señor Love Daddy, played by the great Samuel L. Jackson, and he's kind of, you know, hey, you know, we're waking up today in Brooklyn and it's gonna be a hot one. They're kind of laying the, um, laying the scene out for us that it's a hot day. He says a jerry curl alert, you know. So like, this is just gonna be one of those fucking miserable hot days in the city.

Steve

Do we think this is the sweatiest movie we've seen? Because Predator was an incredibly sweaty movie. Uh, there's a couple others we've seen that were really— Rocky IV is an incredibly sweaty movie. But like, this is an incredible— I mean, this— the heat is a character in this movie.

Nic

You feel it. I mean, you definitely— the way that, that this movie progresses and the tension builds and the feeling of the heat builds and everything, um, it's, it's for sure a top 5 sweatiest movie. Because I don't know if you can beat Bill Duke like shaving sweat off his— squeegeeing sweat off his face with a disposable razor in Predator.

Steve

I think we can slot it in too. I think Predator number 1 sweatiest movie, Do the Right Thing number 2 sweatiest movie so far. I think we can do that.

Nic

All right, sounds good.

Steve

But yeah, they're gonna say it's gonna be over 100 degrees, and of course this is You know, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn in the '80s, like, I can't imagine there's all that much working AC. There's no central air in these buildings. If you're lucky to have a box AC, you know, you're, you, you, you're George and Wheezy. You made it. You made it on your way out.

Nic

Sitting next to it all day. You're not in this movie if you do. You're inside your house next to your AC.

Steve

And I want to mention here a couple things. So Senior Love Daddy does, uh, uh, act as, I think in many ways, and I'm not the only one to have said this, I'm not trying to say this is like a unique take, but he's like a classical Greek chorus. Uh, there's a lot of this movie that's classically Aristotelian, classically Greek. You have this, we have 3 characters we'll meet who sit on on the corner, ML, Coconut Joe, and Sweet Dick Willie, we'll see later, they also act as sort of like a dual chorus along with Senior Love Daddy, but you get this sort of narration. A lot of people, these characters, they comment on what they're seeing, but they don't act.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

They never get involved in what's actually happening. They're just there to like comment on it, to point out what's going on. And so these two, you know, really, these two groups basically, Senior Love Daddy on one end and the 3 guys on the other, like really represent that motif from classical Greek plays and Greek tragedies. In addition, this is very Aristotelian in that like the whole thing takes place in one day.

Nic

Yep.

Steve

The whole thing takes place in one location. It's all that one block, right? There's a handful of buildings, but like nobody walks more than a block in any direction at any point in the movie. And everything, you know, like, and then there's just like one set of characters that doesn't really change. We have a few people come in and out of the scene or in and out of this world, but like for the most part, we are with this same group of people the whole day long.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

With a couple of exceptions late, but like, yeah. So it's gonna be hot, 100 degrees is legit. We first wake up with Ossie Davis, one of the best actors in this movie and in any movie he's ever been in.

Nic

Uh, one of the most likable presences out of anyone. Like, you feel like if you need like a, a comforting grandpa type character, like you want that message delivered by Ossie Davis.

Steve

100%. And, and he, he's fantastic in this. And he wakes up and it is sweaty. Now, one first thing you notice when you see Ossie Davis, whose character's name is DeMayer, they call him DeMayer. And first thing you'll notice is there are a lot of empty beer bottles on that man's side of that man's bed. Uh, but he's got a fan trying to blow right on him and he's still just laying in bed sweating. And it's like early, like the sun's up and it's obviously summer.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But it is like maybe 8 AM or something, or it is early and it's already sweltering for these folks. And so it's going to be a crazy hot day.

Nic

And this is, you know, this is East Coast humidity heat where it's not cooling down at night. It's getting down to 82 at night, you know? So you're never getting that like, okay, at least the house can cool up. Um, so we're introduced to some of these other characters. One character, uh, in this movie who I think is just— is very well played because there's a way to do it that would really fuck it up, but I think The actor, and his name is escaping me right now. The character's name is Smiley.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And Smiley is like a mentally disabled guy who's kind of out on his own. And what he does is he's walking around and he makes money by selling photographs of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and stuff.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And so we get a scene of him kind of like pointing to the picture and he has a really tough speech impediment.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

So he's struggling through his words, but he's like, you know, this is Malcolm and this.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And, you know, he's appearing throughout the film. So that's one guy that we see. Here.

Steve

And he like does art on them, like he like has markers, he'll like draw on them, like he like dries them.

Nic

Yeah, all that stuff.

Steve

He says like, this is Martin Luther King, this is Malcolm X, you know, he puts an X above. Malcolm X said, what are you guys— and then he sells them for like $1, $2. Yeah, what he tries to do, and that's kind of how he tries to make his money.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. And then we're introduced to our main character, Mookie, played by Spike Lee, who I think throughout this movie, very good actor. I mean, not distracted in any way by it. I think it helps that, you know, he knows his limitations as an actor. He knows how he speaks. Like, he was able to write this exactly for himself. So that, that definitely comes across.

Steve

Yeah, interesting juxtaposition when Kevin Smith would write crazy dialogue for everybody else and his character was basically speechless because he played a deliberately silent character.

Nic

Exactly, exactly. This is much better. We're gonna have Sylvester Stallone play the Micro Machines man in an upcoming biopic. So, so Mookie is a— he's, he's at home and he's kind of counting his cash, right? So he's about to go into work, he's counting through his cash, he's sleeping on like a pullout couch.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

And then he goes in and And, uh, I didn't know that this was his sister at first, right? So I was a little bit like, what is happening?

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

But, you know, kind of brother and sister, how they'd be like wrestling and fighting. So he goes into the sister's bedroom. So it's this one-bedroom apartment that he and his sister share. It's like her place.

Steve

She's letting him crash is really what it is.

Nic

Yeah. And it looks like, I mean, he's counting through his money probably every day trying to do that, like, I'm saving up for my own place, whatever, like the way you do when you're saving and all your money's in cash, which is a fun era of your life where you're just like, it's the worst. So, uh, so her— he's— his sister says, you know, okay, you're going to work.

Steve

Yeah, go to work.

Nic

Get to work.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Uh, and where Mookie works is this pizza place called Sal's Pizzeria.

Steve

Oh, excuse me, you mean Sal's Pizzeria.

Nic

Pizzeria. That's right.

Steve

He says pizzeria the whole time and it throws me off, but I'm sure that that's Danny Aiello doing research and knowing a real, like, New York Italian would say pizzeria. You wouldn't say pizzeria. But it threw me off every time he said it. But I am, I am, I am, uh, deferring to Mr. Aiello. I believe he probably knows what he's doing.

Nic

He got the supporting actor nod.

Steve

He gets nominated.

Nic

He gets it. Yeah, so the Italians pull up to there. So we've got Danny Aiello in the Cadillac, very Italian. Yes. And they're opening up their store. So they own this pizzeria, which is in like a predominantly Black neighborhood. And we've got Sal, played by Danny Aiello, the dad. And he has 2 sons who are Pino, played by John Turturro.

Steve

Yes, and Vito.

Nic

And Vito. And I forget that actor's name, but we saw him as the valet in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Steve

Ferris Bueller's Day Off. That's what I thought. I wasn't 100%. I didn't look it up ahead of time, but I'm like thinking about it now. That nose, man, that had to be him. What country you think this is? That's him. So he's Vito. He's the younger brother. John Turturro's Pino is the older brother.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And Mookie works for Sal. He's a delivery guy basically for Sal's Famous Pizzeria.

Nic

Right. And he's on his— and he's on his way to work. One thing about Mookie, and this is a Spike Lee thing where you're gonna get the message, like the history of Black America is everywhere in his films, right? So Mookie, even he's wearing a Jackie Robinson jersey, he's wearing an Africa medallion and stuff like this is everywhere, like Jordans, like everything is kind of covered.

Steve

A lot of times I think later, you know, he changes, he ends up wearing like a Sal's Famous shirt later, but like his shorts are basically the colors of the Jamaican flag. They're like the green, black, yellow of the Jamaican flag. And so there's— he's always making references to something else in Black culture, whether it's Black American culture or international Black culture.

Nic

Um, and, uh, let's see. So Mookie gets to work and he's about— and there's kind of an argument between Sal and his sons about, hey, why don't you sweep up? Hey, uh, why don't you have Vito fucking sweep up? Hey, why don't you have Mookie sweep up? He never does anything. And they're trying to pass this on here. So So the sons are frustrated at the situation. They don't like— they—.

Steve

Well, at least it's really, you know. Yeah, yeah.

Nic

So Turturro Pino is very frustrated at this. He doesn't like the neighborhood. He doesn't like the people. He's kind of a dick and stuff. So, uh, in walks the mayor into the pizza place and, um—.

Steve

Oh no, he goes into the store, doesn't he?

Nic

Or does the mayor go into the pizza place? I think. And they offer him some money to sweep, right?

Steve

That's right.

Nic

So, uh, so the mayor's like, oh, you know, who's gonna sweep up today? And Sal, you know, gives him the broom and he puts a dollar on the counter. He's like, hey, I think you left something there. So he's like— he knows how to exist in this neighborhood and reduce the amount of friction. Like, Sal knows how to flow despite being an outsider. He's embraced these people. He knows who to take care of and who to be nice to and all this stuff.

Steve

You get the sense that Sal's has been there for like 30-plus years, right? And that the neighborhood was maybe different 30 years prior. And it would've sort of been, you know, maybe 1950, late 1950s, right, is when the Sal's maybe opened. And, you know, it was probably a more Italian neighborhood then than it turned into. And so Sal stuck it out. Out and it's still there, you know. But he said all these people that are here now, they all grew up eating my pizza. Like, they all grew— and by the way, it is the shittiest looking pizza. Horrible. Oh my God. It— I, I don't know why. It must be expensive to get that right on a film set, you know what I mean? To like do it well and have it available for every shoot, because the pizza looked god-awful the whole movie long.

Nic

Yeah, I have, I have many pizza-related— it's like my main problems with this movie have to do with the presentation of the pizza. The pizza box doing The fucking box.

Steve

All right, boxes are so big.

Nic

We'll just let's just go through this piece of stuff.

Steve

Take it aside here.

Nic

Okay. Number one, Mookie pizza delivery guy. You're in a city. You don't need a car. You just walk to pizza places. But a he doesn't have the warmer bag thing, which nothing whatever. But he has this box that's like just halfway open as he's walking with it. It's the flimsiest looking box I've ever seen in my life. Right?

Steve

It doesn't look anything like a pizza box. Like I've never seen pizza come in a box like that. Now I was also nine years old when this movie came out. But like yeah, no pizza. I remember. Pizza, even from back in the day, was in that thicker, like, corrugated cardboard, so it has some heft.

Nic

Seriously, this looks like it's a bunch of manila folders folded into the shape of a pizza box.

Steve

Okay, literal paper.

Nic

Uh, number 2, the look of the pizza. It looks terrible. It looks like a real-life version of the pizza that, like, the Ninja Turtles would eat. Like, just crappy.

Steve

Like, yeah, and then little specks of color, not even like, what is that? Yeah, peppers? What is— what is on there?

Nic

Toppings? Yeah, yeah. And then when Sal— when people order slices, he's just throwing individual slices into the oven, right, that look uncooked.

Steve

That's the thing. Like, that's the thing that— so if you go to like Pizza My Heart, right, they'll do that. They'll do it because they've already made the pizza and they're just warming the one slice, but it's clearly been cooked. The stuff that Sal's throwing into that pizza oven doesn't look cooked.

Nic

It looks raw.

Steve

Like, yeah, whatever, it looks terrible.

Nic

There's another scene where Pino is like slicing the pizza before it goes up, right? And he He is barely contacting the pizza with the fucking wheel.

Steve

I have a feeling it's because they probably told him, don't do it for real, 'cause we'll do multiple takes, and we don't wanna replace the pizza every time. It had to be that.

Nic

It's exactly the, um, why do the actors never wipe the blood off their face? Like, 'cause that's hours of makeup.

Steve

Why is the coffee cup empty? It's like all kinds of reasons that just have to do with it being a movie. Like, yeah, exactly.

Nic

Um, and then there's one more scene where, uh, where Sal is like, he's kneading the dough. Oh my God. But he keeps adding like a handful of flour, a handful of flour onto the top. Like, you're fucking it up, Sal.

Steve

3 months ago, I was in New York for work. 3 months ago, I went to an offsite. I was in Manhattan. I was in Tribeca for the entire week. And we did a team-building exercise at an Italian place, kind of closer to Brooklyn, but still in Manhattan, but like close to the East River. And it was like this whole— it's a big Italian restaurant, and they do this like pizza-making event thing in the back, right? So we all got to like make our own pizzas, and they showed us like how to do this. And they brought us the dough, and we did some like smoothing and some flour, whatever. We didn't start with a dough. With the whole thing, but they helped us. But they were talking about a handful of things like, do not use too much flour.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Do not knead it too much 'cause you'll destroy the like air bubbles that are in it that you actually want because that makes the gluten like, if you move it too much, it'll be too chewy and like thin. So I was sitting there watching Danny Aiello, A, throw flour all over that thing constantly, which is just not a great idea.

Nic

Careful.

Steve

And manipulating the hell out of that pie. Like so, that crust, he was doing so much. I'm like, Danny, Danny, you gotta stop. Like Sal would know. Not to touch the dough that much.

Nic

You know what I mean? You know to say pizzeria, and you know to not add the flour. He, he was dealing with the pizza the way that the doctor was dealing with Ray Jackson in Bloodsport, where he just kept like touching him with the stethoscope over and over. It's like, you don't have to keep doing stuff.

Steve

It's like talking, stop digging into Bill Paxton's back, the bullet's not coming out. You know what I mean? Like, okay, I, I think we could like set aside the pizza stuff.

Nic

But that's, that's important there, uh, that we got that right.

Steve

I'm glad we covered it.

Nic

Okay, so, um, So the mayor, the mayor, dumb mayor, has been paid to sweep up. We have another group of 3 people, or 4 people, I think. 3 guys, 1 girl. Oh yeah, Lawrence. I don't really know the names. They're not super important to this, but, but it goes back and forth to them, and I think they kind of show like they're like the people whose minds can be changed throughout this movie.

Steve

Yeah, I think they're honestly kind of meant to be a little bit of an audience avatar, at least for Black folks watching the film. It's kind of like, this is the people that are most like you. They're just viewing this. They understand where things are coming from, but they're just here to see and to understand that way. As a white person, obviously, I don't feel the same connection, and I don't think I'm supposed to. This is not a movie, you know, in a lot of ways for us, although it is for everybody. But like, this was a movie made specifically to tell folks like that, this is art that speaks to you, speaks like you. You should see this. And I think those characters are meant to like represent that within the story for the audience. Yeah.

Nic

Yeah. 'Cause there are important things that this group of people like bring to the table. Bear in this movie. The— and then we get to see Radio Raheem. Yes, I was played by Bill Nunn.

Steve

Like, big tall guy, dude.

Nic

Yeah, quiet dude. You've seen him in a lot of stuff. He's been in— here I go, not giving any— that's like a hip-hop apotamus moment for me.

Steve

No, he was in a series of movies.

Nic

It wasn't the Bourne City, but he was in a trilogy or something.

Steve

It wasn't the Bourne movies.

Nic

Darn But he's in a ton of shit.

Steve

He's in a lot of stuff, yeah.

Nic

And, uh, and very good in this. So, so he's a big dude. I, I don't know if he's supposed to be kind of slow. I think he's just more like a quiet giant in the neighborhood, keeps to himself. But his point of pride is he has this big-ass boombox, which at the time, dude, imagine how much that would've cost, you know, relative to other stuff. So he has this huge 3-foot-wide boombox, and he's always walking around just blasting the shit out of it.

Steve

Oh my God.

Nic

Playing Fight the Power everywhere he goes.

Steve

It's the most enormous Like boombox that I've ever seen. Like I don't love the term, but we we heard it back in this day of ghetto blaster. Yeah, this is that kind of thing because it's just so enormous. Later on in the movie, and we'll get to it at some point, but like he has to buy batteries for it, and he needs 20 D batteries. Yeah, that must weigh eight pounds just the batteries. Like that's ridiculous.

Nic

I know that's crazy. Oh, I hate having to use a big battery. They're so expensive. So DeMayer goes into the into the kind of grocery liquor store.

Steve

Sorry, go ahead. Yes, so Bill Nunn was in the Spider-Man movies, the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies. He was Robbie Robertson. I knew there was something he was in, like a trilogy of things. So yeah, that's where I recognized him from.

Nic

So DeMaio goes into the liquor store. So the businesses we have in this neighborhood, we got Sal's Pizzeria, right, owned by the Italians, owned by Sal. And then kind of across the street from Sal's, we have a grocery store, like a convenience type thing.

Steve

Fruit and Vegetable Delight. Right, Fruit and Vegetable Delight.

Nic

Which is owned by this Korean family.

Steve

Yes, exactly.

Nic

And there's definitely tension between the local Black population and the Korean owners of this, you know, back and forth. Not to the degree that we saw in Menace II Society.

Steve

True. But, but of the same ilk, of the same roots. Yeah, exactly.

Nic

And they talk more about it later, which is, you know, it's interesting what they say about it.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So DeMayer goes in there and he makes a big deal that they have no Miller High Lights in the store, which is the first relatable— hey, Spike Lee, you want to make this relatable to white guys? You got me, dog.

Steve

Everybody in this movie drinks Miller, by the way. It's either Miller Lite, Miller Genuine Draft, or Miller Brewery. Yep.

Nic

And, uh, so the mayor like throws a fit and he has to buy a Miller Lite, which he settles for.

Steve

God, he's so mad. And Ossie Davis is so good at this stuff. And, and I think, I think the mayor gets too drunk too easily on too few beers, given that he's clearly an alcoholic. And he gets offended.

Nic

Yeah, off a Miller Lite in the morning.

Steve

Off a Miller Lite in the morning. But give it to Davis. He, he plays this balance between how angry he is here before he's had his beer and how his character acts later.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

After a few beers. It's fucking perfect is how he does it.

Nic

Right. And, and he's— so he gets his beer and he goes outside, right? So he's just cracking his beer in front of someone's house and starts drinking it. He starts getting, uh, yelled at by this woman in the window who's our sister— mother, mother, sister, mother, sister, played by Ruby Dee, uh, Ossie Davis's real-life wife.

Steve

Yes, exactly.

Nic

Um, and, you know, she's like, ah, you drunk, get out of here! I don't want to look at you drinking in front of my window. He's like, oh, come on, mother sister, I'm just out here trying to have a nice day. You know, you'll be nice to me before the end of the day.

Steve

And it's—.

Nic

Yeah. But it's so sweet. Like, between the two of them, it's so, like, innocent. It's different than, like, the tension in a lot of the rest of this movie.

Steve

And we should make sure people know, like, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were married in real life. They got married in, like, the '40s. Like, they'd been married, like, 40 years when this movie was made. They also both were major parts of the civil rights movement in the '60s. They were both personal acquaintances with both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. They spoke at rallies. They were involved in the major events. I mean, it's like, these people are actual—.

Nic

Hugely important people in American history. Hugely important civil rights activists.

Steve

Who also happen to be incredibly talented actors, who also happen to be married to each other. Like, they are royalty, certainly among, like, you know, American Black culture. Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee are fantastic and wonderful, and they're great in this. And there's something that they bring to these characters, especially as we get, you know, at the end, the way that things kind of finish with these two, that just plays so seamlessly because of the connection between the actors that probably just wouldn't have been there even with incredibly talented actors who didn't have that other level of connection that these two have. It really plays off amazingly well. And they are, they are in many ways the standout characters of this, of this movie.

Nic

Yeah, definitely, definitely. Um, let's see, uh, introducing some other characters here. So we get, uh, we get Rosie Perez's character, Tina, right? Tina. And Tina has a little boy, uh, named, uh, Hector, right? And that's, that's Mookie's child.

Steve

That's correct.

Nic

And Tina is kind of— she's living with her mom, and it looks like the mom's a little irritated. You're always making me take care of this baby. And you know, your man's a loser. She can't stand him. Which, dude, I understand. Like, Mookie doesn't live with him. Like, I don't know how often he's seeing the kid, right?

Steve

But he lives down the block. It's not like he's far. And they're not— Tina talks about not seeing Mookie for a week. Dude, he lives like 2 buildings over. Like, how do you not see each other?

Nic

Stick your head out the window. He's walking— he's got a floppy pizza box walking down the street.

Steve

He just keeps telling her, hey, I gotta make that money, I gotta make that money. And it's like, yeah, but you're working as a delivery guy at a pizza place. Like, there's no— there's no evening, and you know, there's no evening work. Here. Yeah, like you could absolutely see your kid in the evenings if that's what you wanted to prioritize.

Nic

Totally, totally. Um, so we see her and then we see, uh, the 3 old guys we talked about, right? ML, Sweet Dick Willie, and Coconut Joe.

Steve

Coconut Joe, and who played by Frankie Faison.

Nic

Frankie Faison. And then Robin Harris is Sweet Dick Willie, who we might know from Bebe's Kids.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

Um, and then, uh, and the other actor I didn't recognize, but I didn't— but yeah, very, um, Coming to America conversation topics, because I think the first thing is just about Like Mike Tyson beat your ass.

Steve

Yeah, because Tyson was from Brooklyn, right? Yeah, yeah.

Nic

And there was a there's a scene where there is like a Tyson mural painted up there. Yeah, which is very common. Somebody big comes from your neighborhood, like you get a mural there. Yeah. But it's funny that ML is talking about it shows how dated this movie is. He's talking about global warming. Remember that?

Steve

That never happened.

Nic

Oh, we should have listened to ML, dude.

Steve

There's a couple of great lines in here, one of which I know. Quentin Tarantino stole whole cloth, which is— I can't remember which of the characters says it to which, but they're talking about whooping each other's ass or whatever. And one said— I think Sweet Dick Willie says, you dream about whooping my ass, you better wake up and apologize. And of course, in Reservoir Dogs, Mr. White says to Mr. Pink, I think, or Mr. Orange, uh, you know, if you shoot me in a dream, you better wake up and apologize.

Nic

Nice.

Steve

So he, like, stole whole cloth that line Quentin Tarantino did.

Nic

Beautiful. Homage.

Steve

Sure. Uh, and the other line that I love from this is somebody referred to somebody else as being 30-cent Was it thirty cents away from having a quarter? Yeah, I fuck it. That was oh my god, that's beautiful. Also, there's something I noticed earlier. I think to this point we've seen it a few times. I remember hearing recently, you know, there's all this like gen, like like early, like young Gen Z slash Gen Alpha, like slang, right? That's like take, you know, no cap this and like whatever, all this stuff. And one of the things they say a lot is in order to say like I agree with you or or yeah yeah like like we're on the same page, they say bet. Yeah, bet. And I know I'd heard like yeah, all this slang stuff is just borrowed. Black American slang, like, you know, and I didn't realize, but like that word bet is used in that context numerous times in the first like 20 to 30 minutes of this movie.

Nic

Oh yeah.

Steve

People just saying like, yeah, bet, you know, kind of thing.

Nic

And then it's like the society also.

Steve

Yeah. It's just funny to me that like, I, you know—.

Nic

That's how long it takes people to catch up.

Steve

That's the thing. It's like, so, so it takes 30 years for this slang to get probably completely stopped being used in that community to get picked up, you know, by a, by a broader societal group in the United States. But I just thought it was interesting.

Nic

Yeah. And the scenes with these 3, with these 3 men, and one thing to talk about with this movie is there's so much thought put into how every single shot looks.

Steve

Oh yeah.

Nic

And it is just striking the way it looks. They're sitting in front of this great red wall, the 3 of them, and they have this kind of like polka dot, like Wonder Bread pattern umbrella above them.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And it's just visually great every time it shows these guys. So, you know, very well framed. It looks excellent.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

We go back into Sal's. Another pizza thing that I noticed that I didn't bring up again.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

The Parmesan that they offer at Sal's is the green can of Kraft Parmesan.

Steve

The like powdered, it's not even like grated real Parmesan. Stuff, you can tell it's powdered crap. Yeah, that's what—.

Nic

Like, no self-respecting Italian is gonna— like, I had one Italian side of my family, right? And then one Irish side of my family who hated Italian people because my grandfather was in World War II, right? So he was racist against Italians from World War II. This is the cheese that you use if you're racist against Italians.

Steve

I gotcha.

Nic

This is what we had at that house.

Steve

So funny thing is, we have 2 containers of grated cheese We have the green Kraft stuff because that's what my kids have. And I have like real actual grated Pecorino Romano because that's what I like on burgers. There we go, dude.

Nic

There we go. You can't, you can't short yourself on the cheese.

Steve

Plus you can't, you can't make cacio e pepe with that green stuff.

Nic

So there's way too much like gluten mixed in with it or whatever.

Steve

Comes out like glue.

Nic

Um, so, so one of our other characters, I think this might be the last new person we're being introduced to here, is we got Buggin' Out.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Right, played by Giancarlo Esposito. Who is just great. His look, his haircut, like, just the glasses, everything. It's such a perfect look of this era.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, and he's, he's like kind of a— I think he's not like a bad guy, but he's just, he's more of an instigator. He's, he's gonna let you know when he's upset about something. He's kind of trying to start shit, like, hey, this is fucked up, guys. Like that kind of dude.

Steve

Yeah, he kind of reminds me of some of the characters in movies like, uh, whether it's like Higher Learning or like, you know, Dangerous Minds, even, even Menace, like where there's these like sort of somewhat, uh, um, elevated thinking, like, like not reactionary but like revolutionary type thinkers, where it's kind of like, you know, hey man, like we can't just sit down and let this shit keep happening, we got to do something about it, right? And he plays that role here, Buggin' Out does. And so, and so initially he wants extra cheese because he thinks there's not enough cheese on the pie, and he's right, it looks like dog shit. And so Sal tells him, no, that's an extra dollar. $2.

Nic

So it's $1.50 for a slice and extra cheese is $2, so it's $3.50 for an extra cheese slice.

Steve

I don't think so. I think he meant the I did some research.

Nic

I mean, in some of the reviews it was saying— it was talking about it being $3.50.

Steve

Interesting. That's only because I thought at first, I'm like, okay, it's just 50 cents extra.

Nic

But I think it's like, fuck you if you try to alter my menu items. I gotta double your price on you.

Steve

More than double.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So he grabs that grated stuff to just load it up.

Nic

And he's just like batting the back of it.

Steve

So, but he gets pissed off because there is, in Sal's, there is a Wall of Fame and it's all Italian people. It's like a handful that I recognize are Joe DiMaggio, Frank Sinatra, Sophia Loren was up there.

Nic

De Niro, Pacino.

Steve

De Niro, Pacino. Like, you know, it's those kind of people, right? So it's like mostly kind of like older folks, mostly Italian Americans. It's not like Mussolini was up there, you know, but it's like, right, you know, mostly Italian Americans or people who got popular in entertainment or sports in America, you know, Rocky Marciano, like stuff like that, right? But it's all Italian people. And Buggin' Out's looking up and he's like, hey, Sal, man, when are we gonna get some brothers up here? Like, we gotta get some Black folks up on the wall. Like, this is our neighborhood. We spend— he says this numerous times— much money. We spend much money here. You gotta put up some Black folks up on the wall. And Sal's like, fuck you, this is my restaurant. I'm Italian. This is the Italian Wall of Fame. This is like, you know, the Scottish Wall of Fame in Serbian Experter. Same idea. This is the Italian Wall of Fame.

Nic

Hashtag Walls of Fame.

Steve

Yeah, exactly.

Nic

Hashtag Walls of Fame.

Steve

But it's like, so, you know, here's the thing. The initial conflict here, this conflict starts a lot of chain reactions, right? And in this initial conflict, I have zero sympathy I do not in any way agree with Buggin' Out. I personally feel like it is your business, it is your place. If you are going to hone in on the ethnic background of the food itself and of your own family and make that your decoration, there should be zero problem with that. That's my initial feeling on that.

Nic

But yeah, no, I totally—.

Steve

There's a lot more that happens.

Nic

Yeah, I get that too. And I think that Buggin' Out walks around with like the weight of the history of Black America on his shoulders at all times, right?

Steve

Takes it on, yeah.

Nic

So from his perspective, he's like, like, all right, sure, it's your restaurant, sure, it's your wall. This is the only fucking place we have to eat. So all the Black people in this neighborhood can't go anywhere and look at anybody that looks like them, you know? Here's the thing.

Steve

I think— so what is— I understand Buggin' Out's complaint, and it is a valid complaint, but I also think that Sal has the final sort of say. And to be fair, Buggin' Out's initial response to boycott Sal's, I agree with that as well. Yeah, don't spend your money there if you don't Don't feel welcome.

Nic

Yeah, for sure. Hundred percent. And and Sal's reaction though, you know, Sal is upset because bugging out. I mean, he's he's like coming pretty slick.

Steve

Oh, she puts some fucking brothers on the wall.

Nic

Like he's making a scene and everything. So Sal grabs a baseball bat and he walks over. He's like, "Oh, I ought to bash your head in." And smartly, Pino was surprising, you know, with how he acts later. Takes the bat from Sal and and they're like, "Hey, Mookie, why don't you ask your friend to leave?" And Mookie, you know, because you're the black guy, you're gonna get this. 'Cause honestly, like, there's gonna be less static if your friend kicks you out than if these people are adversarial towards him.

Steve

And Mookie is in many ways a bridge between the neighborhood community and Sal in a sense. Like, he is sort of the bridge between those worlds because he works there, so he's got some loyalty to Sal. Sal's good to him as a boss, it seems. You know, he gives him shit, but like, it seems like Sal's a pretty decent guy. He's a fair dude. Yeah, pretty decent guy to work for. Mookie wants the job, so he's there, but he's also, he's a member of this community. In the broader neighborhood. So he's got that bridging sort of personality. And so, yeah, Sal takes it too far even here. And there's just, you know, as we well know as we get through the movie, like, there's nobody in this movie who doesn't make a terrible decision at some point.

Nic

Yeah, exactly.

Steve

Every single person in this movie makes some decision or choice that you're like, oh, that was definitely an accelerationist way to go. Yeah, for sure. But this is where it starts, is Sal threatening Buggin' Out with a bat. That is not necessary even from the beginning, like at all.

Nic

No. Yeah. And that, and that's like a big escalation, like, right early on.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, so Mookie has to kick Buggin' out, out of the pizza, out of the pizzeria. And, uh, and he goes on a delivery. Once again, no thermal bag. We don't care if this pizza stays warm. It's hot outside. What do you want, hot pizza?

Steve

He says something about—.

Nic

I'm trying to cool it down for you.

Steve

At some point he says something about like, I can't run with it because all the cheese slides to one side or something. Like, what?

Nic

So, so as Mookie's on his way to make his, uh, to make his delivery, he's stopped by DeMaio, who's sitting on the step. He's like, Mookie! You know, he's already drunk, and you can tell he's this kind of character who's all— he's always got advice for people. He knows what everyone should be doing, even though he's kind of just a drunk who keeps to himself and doesn't—.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

You know, and he's like, Mookie, I gotta tell you something, you know, always do the right thing. And then he looks right into the camera for 30 straight seconds. Welcome to Do the Right Thing.

Steve

Is he the only— is Mookie the only character Damer calls by his name? Because he calls almost everybody by doctor. Everybody's doctor.

Nic

I like that, by the way. I really love saying doctor instead of son or man or whatever.

Steve

It's a great character trait. Hey, doctor. But I think Mookie is like— Mookie and I think Jade, Mookie's sister, he refers to her possibly by her name as well. But I think other than that, he calls everybody doctor.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

Oh, and then Sal. He does call Sal Sal, but like, still. Um, but most of the people Damer refers to as doctor. Uh, but yeah, he delivers the title and sort of the theme of the movie, and that's fine. That happens, you know, a lot. The next thing that happens is they open up a fire plug, a fire hydrant, right? Somebody's able to like unscrew the top and it starts spraying everywhere. And this is Martin Lawrence and his friends.

Nic

I love that shit, by the way. Movies that have the open fire hydrant, I feel like that always bumps it up for me.

Steve

Well, and they were like, they were scraping these cans on the ground, and I was like, what the hell is that for? I didn't realize what it was for until I saw them using it to angle the thing, which is all that soap Fucking smart. I love that.

Nic

Like, I, I love any situation where there's this like innovation where it's like, all right, we don't have a pool, we don't have a fucking water park, we don't have transportation to the beach, whatever. Yeah, yeah, what are we gonna do? And they find a way to, to make it work and they're, they're having a blast. And it's a great scene of kind of, oh, we got some relief. Like, we've been getting hotter and hotter and hotter this whole time and more tense and more tense. Ah, finally, like, the tension's gone forever. We got the fire hydrant.

Steve

You got the fire hydrant going. Uh, and then driving down the street in another big Cadillac is Phil Leotardo from The Sopranos.

Nic

That's right.

Steve

And he is like, starts, he says, hey, you keep that fire hydrant away from me. He's in a convertible. Yeah. And the windows are down and everything. He goes, this is a classic, like, you don't, don't get that water. And they're like, just go, you'll be fine, just go, we won't, you know, you'll just go. He's like, okay. He drives up and sure enough, as soon as he gets nearby, they aim it right at him. They basically fill his car with water, soak him, and he gets out and he's screaming and, you know, he's so pissed off he's gonna kill somebody. Basically.

Nic

Yeah, he's fucking pissed. And, and again, like, he's a character of like the ethnic guy who's fed up with the other ethnicities that he has to share his city with, right? Everyone thinks it's their own city.

Steve

Um, but even neighborhood, I feel like this is— because later on there's some Italian guys that show up. Like, it feels like this is a very like either Black or Italian. Yeah, kind of neighborhood. Like, yeah.

Nic

Uh, there's a comical amount of water in the car when they open the door. It's like, dude, it's like Frank Drebin's pile of pistachio shells outside.

Steve

Exactly. Oh man.

Nic

Uh, and But, you know, the cops show up.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And there's a couple of cops. There's this like kind of taller blonde cop who's actually Danny Aiello's son, Rick. Yeah, right. And then this other guy with a mustache.

Steve

But the other guy with the mustache, by the way, who is that guy? So I don't know his name, but if you've seen Get Shorty— have you seen that movie?

Nic

No.

Steve

Oh, at the very end of Get Shorty, he shows up as this like cartel boss who tells Delroy Lindo that he's going to have his henchman Cesar— and he says something like, uh, perhaps I have, uh, I can't remember the kid, like Juan and Cesar staple your tongue to your And like, he's there to like get his son back who's been killed unbeknownst to him. But yeah, it's like, it's the first place I always think about is like this character from Get Shorty, but he's been in a ton of other stuff as well.

Nic

Yeah, so a couple kind of well-known, uh, cops. And the, the, the uniforms are so funny because, uh, now like, yeah, these uniforms are meant to be so like intimidating and like militarized looking. Yeah, this looks like a stripper cop uniform.

Steve

I was thinking it looks like Danny DeVito in Friends going to be a stripper.

Nic

Exactly, a stripper cop uniform, right?

Steve

They even roll the little sleeves at the end or whatever to make them shorter.

Nic

Like, it's crazy. So, so as Phil Leotardo is getting pissed and the cops are just like, yeah, we're not gonna do anything about this. Like, I suggest you get out of here before these people get really pissed, you know, 'cause he's threatening.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And it's a, it's a mob of people and he's the only guy. Like, yeah, get the fuck out of here.

Steve

The big white cop shuts off the fire hydrant. He's got the wrench and he shuts off. He says, don't turn this back on. Like, you're not allowed to do this. I'll come back and I'll bust heads or whatever. But then the other guy, the shorter kind of Hispanic guy, is telling Leotardo like, Hey, you better get out of here before— and this is the racist part— before these people take your, like, wheels off your car, strip your car for parts or whatever. And so he does eventually leave. And this is the point where it's like the cops get introduced. They're in this movie a lot, you know, several other times. And this first interaction that they have with the neighborhood is fine.

Nic

Yeah, it's not terrible. I think it's like you expect a little bit of dickishness from any authority figure, which is fine. I mean, it's kind of part of their job, right? They can't be too much like buddy-buddy with everything. But they go there, they shut the hydrant off, they tell the guy who doesn't belong there to leave to help you. And I think that's okay.

Steve

I think it's— look, it's still ACAB all day, every day. But yeah, this was not— certainly compared to other interactions with the police in this and other movies, this wasn't that bad. No, this was fine. No. Uh, but yeah, so then, uh, this is where I put the note in my, my notes here that just says, these are all the absolute worst pizzas I have ever seen, dot, ever, dot. So yeah.

Nic

Yeah, I wrote down Turturro pizza slicing fail. Uh, that's my thing. We're big pizza guys. I don't know, you guys think of this as a movie podcast. This is actually a pizza podcast, and, uh, it's disguised as a movie podcast.

Steve

We just really want to talk about movies with pizza. I wonder if I should go back and look at how many of our 78 movies featured in some prominent way pizza, right? Like Home Alone, like, you know, there's a whole lot of them for sure.

Nic

Um, so, so Mookie is back at the, at the pizzeria, and he's talking to Vito, the younger brother, who's— Vito is, is, um, him and Mookie get along very well.

Steve

They're like buds.

Nic

Yeah, and Vito respects Mookie, and, and he's able to talk to him. He's able to kind of even kind kind of vent to him about Sal and about Pino and stuff.

Steve

They act like brothers as well. Mookie and Vito do. Pino is his own, on his own little planet there.

Nic

But yeah, because we don't know exactly how long Mookie has worked there, but even if he hasn't worked there a long time, he's probably been a guy in the neighborhood for a long time. I bet he's known these guys 100%. And, and Mookie's telling Vito, he's like, hey, Pino's gonna keep messing with you. You just gotta beat his ass. Like, that's plain and simple. You just gotta beat his ass to stop this.

Steve

Like, even if he's your brother, like, sometimes he's gotta, you know, you gotta defend yourself. Yeah, don't let him do that.

Nic

So it's like a kind of a recurring theme of like, stand up for yourself here.

Steve

Yep, exactly. And then we meet, we meet a group of Puerto Rican characters sitting on the stoop. They're the ones drinking, drinking a lot of Miller Genuine Draft is their beer of choice.

Nic

They have, I think they have like every Miller product in every type of vessel, right?

Steve

Bottles and cans. And like, why don't you go in on a 12-pack, guys?

Nic

You're buying these individual cans for the bodega.

Steve

You're gonna go broke, man. Exactly. Exactly. Oh man.

Nic

Um, um, yeah, so the, the Puerto Ricans are sitting on their stoop, and, uh, I think right before this is when Mookie popped into the radio station to make a delivery of the food. And, uh, and the radio DJ Samuel was like, okay, who do you want to put this song out to? He's like, this one goes out to Tina. And he starts playing a song, right? And, uh, and the Puerto Ricans are sitting there playing their boombox.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

But then Radio Raheem's coming up the street and His boombox is 3 times bigger. He's not dealing with a competing boombox.

Steve

No, he walks up, he's playing Fight the Power still, and all of them yell at him, hey man, like, knock it off, turn that down. And so then one of them gets up and turns their boombox up, so briefly is louder than— and then Raydio just cranks his up and it just blows away everything else. So they turn theirs off like, okay man, it's like a little battle.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And the Puerto Rican guy's like, all right, all right, you got me, you got me, fine.

Nic

And then he walks away and he does like the, um, the Judd Nelson Breakfast Club, like, fist in the air.

Steve

I won this.

Nic

And gets like high-fived by a little kid.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

Uh, yeah, so I enjoy that there.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, so now Vito and Mookie are, are still talking and stuff, right? And they're having this great '80s sports argument about, uh, about who's the best pitcher. Uh, is it— and Mookie's like, oh, it's Dwight Gooden. And, and, uh, Vito's like, no, it's Roger Clemens.

Steve

This is also a Mets versus Yankees thing as well.

Nic

Oh yeah, yeah, because Clemens was on the Red Sox back then.

Steve

Oh, was he?

Nic

Oh, that's right.

Steve

Oh shoot.

Nic

Um, and it is interesting that these guys are into like Boston, you know, a lot of Boston stuff. But, uh, it's funny that that was an argument at the time, and it was like maybe a legit argument for a couple years.

Steve

It was 100% at first. Yeah, Gooden was amazing at the beginning of his career. And then—.

Nic

And so excited too. I mean, for him to come along to that Mets team at that time and be so good at age like 20, 19, like when he first came in the league, was insane.

Steve

But, you know, history has proven that Well, the cocaine hit him as hard as it hit Strawberry.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

And had even worse effects. So yeah.

Nic

So, um, they're kind of interrupted here. Uh, Buggin' Out is showing up. He's got his new Jordans and stuff, and they're, they're hanging out in the street.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And this white dude walks through with his bike wearing a Larry Bird jersey, right? Long-haired white dude played by John Savage, who we might have seen in Enter the Dragon as a karate guy.

Steve

Oh, that's right.

Nic

Yeah. It's a weird role for him, but But he goes in there and he— I don't know if he steps on or runs over, uh, Buggin' Out's shoe.

Steve

I think it's the, the bike tire. The bike tire runs over his shoe.

Nic

So he smudges his fresh Jordan, right?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And they're all in this guy's fucking face, right? He is the perf— it's so funny how little the, um, the picture of the gentrifying white guy has changed.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nic

Right?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So definitely a guy who's bringing his bike up to his fucking apartment. He's got long hair. He's kind of like, oh, what do I— I own this brownstone. So Buggin' Out is just like, just getting increasingly pissed at him, right? So he's like, what the fuck? He's like, you smudged my shoe, what's wrong with you? He's like, well, I live in this neighborhood. Who told you you could live in my neighborhood? Well, I own this brownstone. Who told you you could buy a brownstone in my neighborhood? You know, so they're all going after him.

Steve

One of the guys in the crowd is like, Black Panther would whoop his ass.

Nic

Like, uh, so kind of a funny scene of that tension there. And, and he goes off into his place. So I realized as I was watching this thing thing, and I'm like, oh fuck, like I'm wearing a Boston Celtics hat right now. And I felt like just the worst, you know, I'm not doing the right thing here as far as watching this movie. And I went to look at my wife and go comment, and I was just gonna be like, hey, can you believe I'm like— and I look back and she's wearing one of those red light therapy masks.

Steve

Oh.

Nic

I'm like, Jesus Christ, fucking Spike Lee, kill us both right now.

Steve

Oh man. So then we cut back to our trio of kind of corner guys, and they're talking about how the Koreans who own the store and how, you know, nobody in the area who owns a store is Black. And so that's, you know, they're having this conversation about some of that. We get—.

Nic

And they're saying, you know, like, either they're super smart or we're super dumb. That's what ML's saying to it. And it's— I mean, it's an illustration of, like, that's how the psyche can go in those situations, right?

Steve

Right, exactly.

Nic

Is you bring it back down on yourself, even though it's, you know, a lack of opportunity and historical stuff. All this shit.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, yeah, and the cops drive by them, right?

Steve

I think, yeah, at this point.

Nic

So, so the cops drive by the 3 old men there, right? And the cops are just kind of looking at them like, what a waste, right? And then the 3 old men are watching the cops, right? And they stop talking, right, completely, as the cops drive by and they're staring them down. It's like, what a waste, you know? So as I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted— Man, you weren't saying anything.

Steve

They're a very funny trio. Uh, we also get the mayor sending a kid in for a quart of beer, uh, which is an interesting way to refer to it because that would be like, what, 32 ounces? That's a lot of beer. I mean, you never see him drinking like, you know, any out of anything bigger than a can.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

At one point he does. Um, and then Pino and Mookie have a conversation in the— in Sal's, and this is a conversation where like, I can't— I don't really know what Pino's point is, but he is talking about you know, just sort of like Blacks versus whites or Blacks versus Italians, whatever it might be. And Mookie is like, man, don't you— you like Black, like you like, you know—.

Nic

Who's your favorite?

Steve

Who's your favorite basketball player? Magic Johnson. You know, who's your favorite like singer or whatever? It's like all these different stuff and it's a lot of Black folks. And he— and his comment is, they're more than Black, quote unquote, which is like showing us the depth of Pino's racism here, right? He's even figured out how to, how to balance his anti-Black racism with the fact that there are Black entertainers and sports stars that he appreciates. And he can both of those. That's not cognitive dissonance. He can hold both those views at once. And it's sort of this, it's the exact same sort of argument that people will make of all races about, quote, one of the good ones, right? They think people do this all the time. And this is an example of Pino embodying that racist viewpoint.

Nic

Or you have some good qualities that transcend your race.

Steve

Yeah, in spite of who you are. In spite of who you are, You did okay, right? Or whatever, which is like horrifically insulting, right?

Nic

Yeah. And you know, it's a good scene though. I mean, Mookie working on Pino, 'cause he could just be like, fuck this guy forever. I'm not talking to you unless I have to talk to you. But he's like, he's trying, you know? And he's standing up for himself. Like, he's pointing out Pino's bullshit to him, which is, you know, not a lot of people probably do.

Steve

For sure.

Nic

So now we've got DeMaio sitting down and he's kind of, he's getting fucked with by Martin Lawrence and this crew of the 4 guys, right? Right? And they're just kind of like, you're a fucking loser, man. You're all drunk. Yeah, DA. Uh, it's DA Mayor because DA stands for drunk ass, right? And they're saying all this stuff to him, you know, get a job, respect yourself. And, and the mayor's like, you don't know me, you don't know my pain. Like, you don't know what it's like to, to have 5 kids starving and you can't do nothing about it. And, you know, like, real, you know, he's really opening up to them, but they're not sensitive to that. And they're like, you know what you should do? Get a job. Right.

Steve

Yeah, like, that would never happen to me because I would get a job and get food on my kids' table. Yeah, which is not a bad argument. It sounds like DeMayer probably drank too much for a long time in his life.

Nic

For sure, for sure. I mean, DeMayer is definitely, um, he's hiding a lot of shame in trying to be this, like, wise old man in the neighborhood. But I mean, he, he does not feel like he has any of the fucking answers. Um, so, uh, Mookie, uh, Let's see here. Oh, Mookie's talking to Tina on the phone. Here's another Sal's Pizzeria thing that confused me, and maybe this was an '80s thing.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

The phone for the pizzeria is a payphone?

Steve

That's weird.

Nic

That's bad for business.

Steve

Here's my thought. I wonder, okay, I wonder if it was only for income. So like, here's, I think, the idea. Incoming calls can come to that phone number. They can list that in the phone book as the number for Sal's Pizzeria, right? And so incoming calls don't cost them anything on their own, right? You answer a payphone, you're not putting money, right?

Nic

Right.

Steve

And then they could earn money potentially. Maybe they have a deal with the phone company or whatever, or just like not have to pay. They don't have to pay for the line 'cause the phone company put in a payphone. So then it's like, you know, 'cause you go into restaurants, some people will be like, hey man, can I use your phone, make a call real quick? Before cell phones, right? This was a thing that would happen in bars or whatever. And this way they can say, yeah, sure, go put your dime in the thing and go ahead. So that they don't have to like pay for a phone line and let people use it. If people wanna use it, they can, but they gotta pay for it.

Nic

Right.

Steve

But phone numbers coming in, phone calls coming in, in, can they— can answer and take orders. I think that's the idea, but it is very weird.

Nic

But it's so important as a pizzeria to keep the phone lines open, you know? So you wouldn't want anybody on your fucking phone. No, it's very strange for sure. Kind of odd there. Um, let's see. Oh, so, uh, Pino— and so Mookie is talking to Tina on the phone here.

Steve

Uh, yeah, so I think he's talking to Tina on the phone.

Nic

They're like, hey, get off the phone, whatever. Um, and then Pino— yeah, this is where the conversation with Pino comes, where he's telling him about his favorite entertainers are Black and all this stuff. Because Pino drops an N-bomb.

Steve

Yes, he does.

Nic

Uh, hate to see it.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

You know, but, uh, but very— you know, it hits hard, right? And what, uh, one thing that Mookie says to Pino is like, you know, I bet deep down you wish you were Black. And the other thing that he brings up is something that comes up in a lot of like a Black and Italian back and forth and different things, is the idea that the Italians that are from like Sicily or whatever, actually like, you know, mixed with like African ancestry and stuff.

Steve

And Moroccan in particular.

Nic

Yeah, so like you're part— you're part black, and they fucking hate hearing that.

Steve

More than racist Italians.

Nic

He's like, your hair is curly, kinkier than mine.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

You know, which is true.

Steve

John Turturro's got that, that head of very sort of natty kind of hair, and that's how he's always had it.

Nic

Yeah. So they have this conversation, then we get this great scene here where it's kind of zooming in on these 4 different characters who were just letting out a string of racial insults, right? So we've got Mookie, who's talking about the Italians, like, you wop guinea, whatever, saying this stuff. They— Pino saying his terrible stuff about Black people. Then we've got the Puerto Rican guy who's saying stuff about the Koreans, right? Right. And we've got the cop who's saying stuff about the Puerto Ricans, I believe.

Steve

I think that's right.

Nic

And then the Korean who's saying stuff about Ed Koch and like Jewish people.

Steve

Jewish folks.

Nic

Yep, exactly. Uh, so that's like this scene And it's, you know, very well done. It's, as far as like a flowing movie, it definitely stops things short to like give you these 3, these like 5 scenes. But yeah, I think it's incredibly effective. And I did mention you earlier, like Spike Lee did this in The 25th Hour.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

Which is another early 2000s movie of his that I think is really well done. But it's kind of a Spike Lee thing of having these like extended, you know, people talking right to the camera in the middle of the film.

Steve

It's like Wes Anderson framing things in the middle of the shot. Like sometimes directors just get like a signature.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know, they put on things. So then, yeah, so then here's where we see Sal manipulating the dough too much because they're in the restaurant talking about getting off the phone and all that, whatever. I think we cut later to Mookie is now delivering pizza again, and I think it's to— I think he's taking it— no, not to Tina yet. He's gonna go deliver pizza. He runs into Rahim, and Rahim's got these new rings that say love and hate like along his knuckles. And there's a very long sort of like Radio Rahim giving an explanation of like punching with the love and the hate or whatever.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

It's kind of thing. Um, and then Raheem goes into Sal's to get his, uh, to get a slice, and he's got the boombox going, and Sal screams at him to turn it off. Like, he's absolutely screaming. Eventually Radio does turn it down so he can get his, his slice or whatever, but it's very tense.

Nic

So it's very loud, and, you know, no service until you turn that off. 2 slices, right?

Steve

Back and forth. And he calls it jungle music and shit. Sal's being pretty shitty about it for sure.

Nic

Yeah, definitely is.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, but also, you you know, correct. Like, yeah, walking into a business, you got to turn that shit just—.

Steve

If not off completely, at least down quite a bit. It's incredibly loud. They all have to scream to be heard over the sounds. It is ridiculous.

Nic

Uh, Mookie ends up buying one of those photos from Smiley. Like, he had run into him a few times, like, I'll get you later, I'll get you later. And he, and he gets one of those pictures from him. Um, and Mookie, I think, wants to go home to take a shower in the middle of the day. He's really hot. I just got to cool down. And his sister is pissed that he's not taking work seriously.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

It's like, what's she doing though?

Steve

I'm not sure.

Nic

I think she's supposed to be a student or something.

Steve

I'm not sure.

Nic

I'm not sure.

Steve

We see her braiding mother sister's hair at one point, but like, I don't really know.

Nic

Freelance braid business.

Steve

I don't know what she does. Maybe she is in school.

Nic

Yeah. Uh, the DJ, the Samuel L., this is another kind of Spike Lee thing where he does this long like roll call. He's like, oh, if you've been listening to us for a while, here's our roll call.

Steve

It's like 20 or 30 artists, like at least.

Nic

Oh, so long.

Steve

It goes forever.

Nic

And he's, you know, oh, we got Eric B. and Rakim and Charles Mingus and Miles Davis and James Brown and all that. And he lists so many. He doesn't list Michael Jackson, which is weird, 'cause I went and listened to it twice. I'm like, that's an odd one to leave out, 'cause he's hitting almost every other important artist of the time.

Steve

I also don't think I heard 2 that I kind of thought I would as he was going on, Billie Holiday and Etta James. I kind of would've expected to get, 'cause Ella Fitzgerald was in there. So I was kind of expecting, but no, just didn't happen. You know, obviously there's so many they could've picked. You can't get everyone. But like, yeah, Michael Jackson I think was a, a pretty, um, interesting, uh, uh, omission, right? I mean, he mentioned Prince and a handful of other like contemporaries of Jackson, but a little— it was interesting.

Nic

And, and, you know, another Spike Lee thing where he's like, look, you know, I'm gonna make an enjoyable, entertaining movie, but certain parts of this movie are like a pill pocket to insert like the history of Black America for you to like, you know, investigate later. Yeah, we're hitting you over the head with this shit because we want you to be like, oh, who is that? Yeah, look into it.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Yeah. So, so Pino is done with this, right?

Steve

He doesn't want to be in the right thing.

Nic

He's like, "This sucks. I hate this neighborhood. My friends are all making fun of me for coming to this neighborhood, for working here. I'm sick of N." Yeah, exactly. Right? Like, why? Why can't we open a place in our own neighborhood?

Steve

He's talking to Sal. He's talking to his dad. He's like, "We should move out of this." And Sal's like, "I've been here for like thirty something year." I can't remember what he says, but like for a long time I've been here doing this here. This is where this belongs. This Sal's Famous belongs here. This is in this neighborhood. These people grew up on my pizza. Like I'm not moving.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Like this is. The business. This is the history. Like, we're not leaving. And Pino doesn't get it. And Smiley comes up to the window and is, you know, he's stuttering, but he's trying to like get him to buy one of the pictures or whatever. And Pino basically just screams at him to get the fuck out of here, whatever. Um, I think at that point Sal actually gets up and like does buy.

Nic

Yeah, here, here you go, Smiley. Gives him a couple bucks. And, um, you know, Sal is— this scene I think is so important for Sal's character because he could have been just a cartoony— like, if we need like an angry racist Italian guy, like, boom, he nailed it.

Steve

That's Pino.

Nic

But right, but like to get to the depth of Sal actually being like, like, I've seen the kids grow old, I've seen old people get older, like, these people grew up on my food and I'm proud of that.

Steve

Yeah. And you know, it's, it's a, it's a common thing here and in a lot of other movies. I don't know about specifically for Lee, but like, you know, the idea of food as like the ultimate kind of method of communication, right? The ultimate way of like handing down stories, the ultimate way of like showing love for people, And hospitality, right? Food is like the ultimate version of that, and I think that's very true across cultures. I mean, really every culture in the world, in their own way, food is how they express like love and caring. And so, and that's kind of what Sal is—he doesn't like nail it on the head exactly that that's the point, but that is kind of the point. He's talking about how they are embedded in this community because this community has grown up on his food, loves has eaten his food for years, and he shares that continues to share that. And it's like, also, I think to him is a source of pride of like, all these folks who are not Italian keep coming to my restaurant to eat my heroes and my pizza and my whatever else because they love my Italian food. And that's an incredible source of pride for him.

Nic

Totally, totally. Um, and it like, just so important to have that scene there, right?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Uh, so Smiley, he buys the picture from Smiley, and, um, and Buggin' Out is going around still trying to get this like petition to boycott sales.

Steve

Buggin' Out is, uh, using a toothbrush to try to scrub that scuff off his Jordans. Not working very well. Very well. Jade comes up to him and she's saying how she's gonna go get a slice and, you know, whatever, she's gonna go see Mookie at Sal's. And Buggin' Out's like, no, no, you can't do it, we gotta boycott. And he, you know, she doesn't buy it, so she goes into Sal's. And Sal immediately, you can tell, is like sweet on Jade, like really, you know, really kind of flirting with her. You know, it's like, oh, so your beautiful face needs to come in here more often, like all this stuff. And it's, it's, it's kind of gross, like a little bit, because Jade's like, well, yeah, like early 20s, and Sal is like 60 years old.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

It's a little Bruh, like, back off. Like, she's definitely young enough to be your daughter by quite a ways. Totally. Uh, and you know, but he's telling her how beautiful her big brown eyes are and like all this stuff. Um, Mookie does not like this. But before we get to that part, uh, we get back to Radio Raheem walking down the street, and boy, suddenly Fight the Power don't sound so good.

Nic

Yeah, it's slowing down.

Steve

Like, which is so funny because like that's not the effect that anybody of today's generations would understand as like they would never hear that because that is specifically what happens as a tape deck, right? It's gotta be a tape. Yep. Because it's like it starts returning the little, you know, spools slower. So because like a CD might start skipping but then would just cut out. And certainly for like, you know, an MP3 player, an iPod, something streaming Spotify, it would just stop working. Like there wouldn't be a signal of an indicator of this. But this is so specific to a tape deck and it's so great.

Nic

I mean, if it was a CD player, cinematically to show the battery dying kind of stinks. It's not that Cool. Yeah. So with the tape deck, it really does give you that like slow down there. So Raheem goes into the Korean grocery store, and he needs his D batteries, right? Twenty D batteries. Yeah. And they're you know kind of misunderstanding him at first. Like oh, you need C batteries. Like no, no, no, no. D motherfucker D. Which this is a hip hop connection here. Okay. The the Kanye West song Good Morning, which opens the Graduation album. Yeah. He has a line where. He's like, I mean, damn, did you even see the test? I got D's, motherfucker, D's. Rosie Perez. So he, he references Rosie Perez's titties and Radio Raheem's line in one line in that movie. So, uh, I don't know what's happened to that guy since then, but shout out him. I'm sure he's fine. Um, so, so he gets his batteries, like, very contentious, but he gets his batteries. And, uh, and he's like, count those motherfuckers. He's so angry. They hate each other so much. I mean, this is a menace to society, like, tension level Like, and there's a really interesting thing.

Steve

He notices that they're taking from like the back of the rack, they're not pulling up the front. So he asks them about the date on it because there's an expiration date on batteries, and it's a couple years away still, so it'll be fine. But he's— he knows to ask like, oh, you're not giving me the shit that's gonna die tomorrow? Like, you know, right? Also, I looked it up, 20 D-cell batteries weigh about 6 pounds altogether. I mean, that's insane, like how heavy that is.

Nic

Um, but yeah, I wonder how much, uh, playtime he's getting out of like that loud, that consistent He shouldn't worry about the expiration date. He's like, these are gonna be— this is a week, right?

Steve

A week at most. It'd have to be. But 20 is a shit ton of batteries. A lot of batteries. 20 Ds.

Nic

Um, so the mayor goes into the, into the Korean store, or he's outside and he's looking at the flowers, the fresh flowers on display. And he's like, oh, I'd like to buy all these flowers. And they're like, they're very expensive, you know? Yeah. Like, hey, you're used to spending a bucket of time on, on a beer. He's like, it's okay. Like, I'll pay for them. I'll pay for them. Right.

Steve

Yeah, very nice that he goes and like brings them to mother's sister. Mother's sister. She doesn't want to. She doesn't want anything to do with him still. She's sitting on her windowsill, but he mentions like, hey, it's the summer out here. All you can smell is the garbage. Yeah. So here's some flowers. So at least your world smells a little better, which is really sweet.

Nic

Like that he gave a practical reason for it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Steve

It's not just because he's sweet on her. It's he's trying to help out. Like yeah. And then we get back to the three, the three sort of corner gentlemen chit chatting some more. One thing I noticed in all this conversation is that sweet the actor playing Sweet Dick Willie keeps looking straight at the camera, and I don't think he was supposed to. Like it really feels like.

Nic

I don't know if he was doing— or if he had like a lazy eye, but yeah.

Steve

No, he looks like he looks right at it a couple times and then glances back to the other actors. But it's like when he's not looking right at either of the other 2 men he's on screen with, he kind of looks straight at the camera, which is like, really breaks things a little bit for me. But hey, what are you gonna do? It is what it is. And this is when the ice cone man shows up. Is that what we would call this guy? He's got a big block of ice and he just, you know, shaves off a bunch of ice, puts it in a little cone, and throws like some flavored syrup on it, right? It looks like maybe a quarter for the kids. And the kids are super happy about this at first, and they're lining up, they're giving— but then—.

Nic

The real ice cream truck comes.

Steve

The classic sounds of The Entertainer playing out of the ice cream truck come around the corner, and all the kids are like, well, fuck the ice cone, snow cone bullshit. I want real thing. So they start running up, and there's this young boy running through the street to try to chase the ice cream truck. And for whatever reason, a crazy fast car is coming down the street, like, unreasonably fast.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

DeMayer notices and basically has to tackle the boy to keep the two of them from being hit by this car. And he saves this boy's life. I mean, really.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But the boy does scrape up his elbow. He looks kind of hurt. It was a young kid. He's like a 10-year-old maybe or something. And he looks like he's all kind of mad about it. The mom comes up and is like, what happened? You know? And he's like, oh, Demare knocked me down. Like screaming. And she's like, you should be ashamed of yourself. Well, Demare gives her the story. Like, hey, your son was running in the street. There was a car. I just saved us both. You know, like, you're welcome, basically. She starts whooping his ass, the little boy's ass, so hard. Everybody around her is like, whoa, yo, yo. Like, what are you— you don't need to do that. And she's like, I will not take fucking advice on how to parent my kid, you know? Which, like, I get, but also that was not at all unnecessary.

Nic

No, not at all. And I mean, part of it is that I think, uh, they just inherently don't believe DeMayer because he's an old drunk and full of shit. But it was funny the way he told the story, because the way you just said it, that's what he should have said. He should have said, there was a car coming and I saved him. He's like, there I was, minding my own business. It's like, you don't start a fucking story that way, dude.

Steve

It tells a whole tale. That is for sure.

Nic

But the car was flying. It almost looked like it was the Phil Leotardo guy coming back to, like, mow somebody down.

Steve

Was it a Cadillac? I don't know. I don't think so. Oh, man, that would have been good.

Nic

But it was like the only reason it would be traveling that fast is for revenge. Yeah, it's crazy. Exactly.

Steve

Oh, man. So then Sal, I think, and Jade are chatting, right?

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And Mookie, like, when it shows Mookie's face during this, Spike Lee does a great, like, I'm not impressed, like, this is not my shit face. Like, he really does the face I was making during Mallrats. But he is like, he's like, hell no. He's like, come on, Jade, we're out. And he doesn't even say like, hey Sal, I gotta go talk to my sister. He's just like, nope, we're done.

Steve

Like pulling her by the wrist, like full line. And this is his older sister, we should point out, like, you know. Uh, but yeah, he pulls her out and it's just like, stay away from Sal's, don't come in here no more. And she's like, what are you talking about? Like, I've been coming to Sal's forever. Don't come in here no more, stop it. Um, and this is— and you know, she's basically like, whatever, Mookie, I'mma go, right? So she leaves. And this, I think, is when we start to get the weather— or the, the, the light starts to change around here. This is— it's now dusk. It's starting to look like it might be cooling down. Um, and, uh, basically Mother Sister and, and DeMare are chatting a little bit more, and Mother Sister seems to be warming up to him a little bit. I mean, the flowers, I do think, kind of poked through the, the hard exterior. And he's telling this story about how he played baseball in like 19— the 1930s or whatever, in like probably in the Negro Leagues or whatever. But it's like he's trying to tell any impressive story he can to tell her just how, you know, I used to be something, you know, kind of thing.

Nic

Totally, yeah.

Steve

And it's like, and you know, to be fair, like he's getting through to her. I feel like he's definitely getting through to her. He is bit by bit. And these two, you know, I mean, look again, Dee and Davis just have obvious chemistry 'cause of who they are in real life. But even in the world of this block, these are kind of the only two like age-appropriate people for each other at their ages. You know what I mean? It's like not a whole lot of dating options if that's something you wanna do. Right side of the two of you, right in your neighborhood.

Nic

And, and mother's sister does say, uh, you know, like, I saw what you did. Yeah, that was pretty brave what you did, you know. And he's— and then he's like excited about that. She's like, all right, like, fucking chill. That's all you get from me right now.

Steve

Right, right, right. It's not done yet, but yes, you know, winnowing away.

Nic

Uh, so Mookie goes off now to visit Tina.

Steve

Well, he's delivering. He's delivering. She's ordered a pizza, so she's got to deliver to Tina.

Nic

And, uh, and of course she's there with Hector, the, the kid, and with her mom who doesn't like him.

Steve

It's Mookie. Yeah.

Nic

And, uh, and he goes in there and he's like immediately trying to get some shit happening with her, right? And I love this line of hers, like, no rawness is jumping off tonight. I just want to say that to my wife. Hey, I'm sorry, baby. No rawness is jumping off tonight. She's like, yeah, of course. It's not your fucking birthday. It's too hot to do the nasty.

Steve

No, but he also— like, she keeps— she has a bit of a sailor's mouth. I mean, she curses a lot.

Nic

Totally.

Steve

But she does— he does say something like, what are you doing cursing around the boys so much? And she goes, I don't fucking curse that much.

Nic

Yeah, she's, she's funny in this. It's and forth. And, um, and Mookie's like, all right, like, here, stand on the bed, like, take your clothes off, I'll be right back. And he goes into the kitchen and her mom is with Hector there, and her mom's like speaking to Hector in Spanish.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And this is where Mookie— you know, we see every, every character's biases, right? And Mookie's like, English, I want my son to speak English, right? And, uh, and he grabs some ice cubes out of the fridge, right? And then we get this kind of like goofy scene. It could totally be one of those like ultra like slow R&B horny scenes, but he's just like naming her body parts and cooling them off individually with the ice cube, right? Uh, we do see some titties, uh, which is great.

Steve

She— like, real quick, that we should talk about real quick, like, like Rosie Perez has been on, on record about how uncomfortable she was with this scene. Like, very uncomfortable, right? She was a brand new actress, had never acted before. The man who discovered her and was directing the movie was also this scene partner, right? So there's a lot of sort of like power imbalance.

Nic

Tarantino, Uma Thurman type shit a little bit.

Steve

Oh yeah, a little bit. Absolutely. And, and, you know, the reason that it is cropped the way it is, is that she couldn't stop crying during the part where he was putting the ice cubes on her breasts. So that's why it's cut that way.

Nic

I was thinking it was just a body double.

Steve

No, it's not a body double. It's actually Rosie Perez. And— but she was crying. She was so— 'cause— and what she said in her autobiography, she said that she was angry at herself for not standing up for herself and not wanting to do the scene. So once she'd agreed to it and was doing it, she then got so angry that it was like tears of anger, basically. So they couldn't use any shots that included her face. 'Cause it obviously would've ruined the scene. Um, just to kind of wrap it up, like, she also— they both have come out with— Spike Lee apologized to her, talked about how, you know, he was young at the time as well, but he definitely sort of, like, insisted upon things that, you know, clearly in retrospect she was not that comfortable with, and that he could, you know, should have done it differently. They are still friends. They have— there is absolutely no bad blood between Perez and Lee.

Nic

Nice.

Steve

So, like, they figured it out and squashed it. But for a while, like, this was something that really sat poorly with her. With her, uh, in the way that this worked out. And so I think it's just an interesting sort of like footnote because this is supposed to be sexy and it is supposed to be goofy in a friendly way. Like, you know, it's a very lighthearted moment in a movie with not a lot of lighthearted moments.

Nic

Him naming the body parts and then showing like— it's an interesting way to do the scene. But oh, that's, that's very good, uh, background. Yeah, because I was fully convinced. I was like, oh, it's got to be a body double because why would you not show her face?

Steve

I thought the same thing, and that's when I went down the rabbit hole of figuring out, was that— did Rosie Perez use a body double and do the right thing? Was like the first Google search, and I started like looking through articles and different stuff, and it's like, no, it was definitely her, but that's why they couldn't use any shot that included her face.

Nic

Yeah. All right, well, thanks for that research. That's great. Um, so, uh, we're back at Sal's now, right? Yeah, yeah. And, uh, and the cops are in there to pick up their food, and they're chit-chatting with Sal. They're obviously going there a lot, right? They're cops in the neighborhood and buddy-buddy. And of course they have to be talking about fucking Donald Trump here.

Steve

I know, it's so weird because he said— because they say, how long are you going to be open, Sal? He goes, well, you know, like, whatever, we'll close tonight. No, no, no, no, no. How long are you going to stay in the neighborhood And he goes, oh, what are you talking about? I'm a real estate, you know, I own all this stuff. What am I gonna leave? Okay, Mr. Trump. Like, you know, kind of thing.

Nic

Which is like, you know, for those, uh, listening who weren't around in the '80s, Donald Trump used to be this, uh, like rich, like famous rich guy in the '80s. Like kind of cartoonishly rich guy, famously like was a dick and stuff. So he got talked about a lot in the '80s and '90s. I don't know whatever happened to him, but yeah, that's— he was mentioned a lot in our movies.

Steve

Nic, I have really bad news for you.

Nic

What? I haven't read the paper, uh, since 2015. What's happened?

Steve

We'll talk about it after the pod. Don't worry, folks, I'll fill them in. We'll talk about it later. Oh, man, that's gonna be a conversation. Anyway, so, yeah, so the cops are there, uh, and this is when Pino pulls Vito into the back, right? And he's kind of like, yeah, I gotta talk to you. And they— it looks like they're gonna get into a fucking fistfight at first. I mean, I know it's brothers, but they are going hard at each other. And Pino is basically trying to say to Vito, you can't trust Mookie. He'll stab you in the back. All their people do. I mean, he's being racist and everything. And Vito is basically like, look, he's got both guys in his ears now on other sides, right? He had Mookie in his ear earlier that if you keep letting people You know, do what he's gonna do, say what he's gonna say. Like, he's just gonna— he's gonna whoop your ass, he's gonna stay on top of you and whatever. Now he's got Pino saying, you can't trust Mookie, Mookie's gonna backstab you. So Vito is stuck between these two things. He basically goes to Pino, he's like, hey, I like Mookie, I trust Mookie, I don't think Mookie's got anything bad for me. I think you're wrong about Mookie in particular. At least he doesn't go as far as to say, I think you're wrong about Black folks altogether, right? But at least about Mookie, like, nah, come on, Mookie's like— he's like— he's like one of us. He's like, you know, he's one of the Sal's people. Like, what are you talking about, Pino? And so Pino does not get what he wants out of that interaction with Vito. Vito leaves the back room kind of not, you know, not listening to Pino, and Pino is stuck kind of like, goddamn it, you know?

Nic

And, and Pino, a good example of like the evidence that those type of guys generally provide when they're making those arguments, because he says, read your history, it's historical.

Steve

It's, it's the old version of do your own research. Now, now you get a fight with some, you know, asshole conservative online, it's like, well, do your own research. I was like, bro, you need to do your research because you're the one that said the mRNA vaccine turns everybody like sterile. You do the research because I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Like, fuck. Um, okay. Uh, I think we get radio and Bug in the back.

Nic

Okay. Yeah. So now, now we're— shit's starting to pop off here, right?

Steve

We're hitting— we're heading into a climax. We can feel things building. The night— it is now nighttime basically, or late dusk, right? It's twilight or night, whatever. And, uh, the day is wrapping and there is continued to be— there is more more tension as we're going on. And Buggin is trying to get people to do this boycott. He really wants to boycott Sal's, but Radio is like, yeah, man, I was pissed off. They made me turn my shit down last time I went in there. That pissed me off. What do we do about it?

Nic

Yeah, yeah. And they're, um, and, and, uh, Buggin asks Raheem, he's like, do you have any other tapes? He's like, I, I like this one.

Steve

He's like, yeah, but I hear it all the time. I like this one.

Nic

Yeah. Uh, and what did they threaten up? They threatened to boycott, right? And they're yelling back and forth with Sal.

Steve

Well, it's like right before that, Sal says he's going to change the name of Sal's Famous Pizzeria to Sal and Son's Pizzeria, right? And says specifically to Mookie, there will always be a job here for you, Mookie. Like, Pino is like, what the fuck? Like, I don't want to do this shit, and I'm not gonna— you know, I think in his mind he's thinking, when I take over, ain't no fucking Mookie working for me. Like, fuck this. Like, you know, but he is like clearly not pleased that his dad is talking about this long-term continued being in that neighborhood, continuing to work with, quote, these people, like whatever, right? Pino is not pleased with it. And this is when Rahim and Buggin and Smiley all show up in the place. Yeah. And Radio's got the boombox going, right? He's got his new batteries, so he's got Fight the Power just going, right?

Nic

They're closed, right? And they go to let in like Martin Lawrence and like the 3 crew. They're like, hey, hey, like let us just get one slice, whatever. Yeah. So it's like, hey, they love my pizza.

Steve

Yeah, 4 slices and then we're closed. Yeah, that's it.

Nic

Hey, I could, I could use the $6. Let's open up.

Steve

I need to give people more pizza.

Nic

Right. So, so they come in, um, and, uh, and they're having their pizza. And then of course, since the door's open and they're inside, first of all, I would have been like, sure, but it's a to-go situation. Like, we're not posting up at the table.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, well, especially because like they kind of like kick the garbage bag that Vito's— but I mean, they are a little shitty about the fact that they are trying to close up. These customers, they should have been like— because they got a fucking window there. He's got the window opens up. He could be like, yeah, wait right Right here. I'll make some slices and I'll give them to you out the window. Would have been, as it turns out for sure, much smarter.

Nic

Yeah, much better here. Yeah. Um, so, uh, oh, and we have, uh, Buggin', Raheem, and Smiley, um, where they're, where they're kind of yelling back and forth and he's like, I'll fuck you up quick. Yeah, yeah, right. And then Buggin' goes, 2 times. Or Raheem goes, I'll fuck you up quick. And Buggin' goes, 2 times. And Smiley's like, 3 It's a good moment. I say that actor was making that like a—.

Steve

It's not cartoonish.

Nic

No, it's not. Really well done.

Steve

It's like a respectful portrayal of a person with a speech impediment and probably with, with some learning disability or other mental handicap. I mean, the guy nails it for sure.

Nic

Um, and it's interesting the way that Sal is talking about this because it's kind of like the big theme of the movie is that like, okay, well, if you're a son of Sal, like, you will be an owner of this pizza place someday. If you're just a guy who works here exactly as much as the sons and does exactly the same shit as them, you will always have a job as an employee here someday. So it's like there's no way for the, the Black people to get any kind of ownership of their actual neighborhood, right?

Steve

100%.

Nic

Um, yeah, so, uh, so yeah, Buggin' and Raheem walk in and they're ready to fucking fight, right? They've got— he's got the boombox blasting. We've got some back and forth, like screaming back and forth. Turn that shit down. And Buggin's like, put some Black people on the fucking Wall of Fame. Like, put some Black people on that wall, right?

Steve

And Sal drops the N-word. I think the only time he does in this movie is here. And then gets the bat and is like, I'm gonna fucking stop this. And they're screaming, screaming, screaming. And he starts wailing on the boombox. I mean, destroys the boombox.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

With that bat, completely destroys it. And everybody is silent. Everybody is— I mean, everybody's looking. Everyone's looking around to see, well, what's the next thing that happens? Because nobody's quite sure what should happen next.

Nic

Right.

Steve

And then Ray Radio bursts across the counter, grabs Sal by the neck, drags him out, and they're out into the street in just moments.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And it is a huge fight. Basically, Radio Raheem is choking Sal potentially to death. I mean, he really has his hands around his throat.

Nic

Yeah, he's much bigger than him. He's on top of him.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, and the whole neighborhood is out now in this fight, and there's people trying to, trying to pull it, you know, trying to, uh, trying to break it up and everything. The cops arrive, uh, pretty quickly.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

So the whole neighborhood hood's out, the cops are there, and the cops come and they pull Radio Raheem off of Sal, right? And they immediately have their nightsticks around his neck, right? So they're choking him, like he's subdued. He's still trying to get back to Sal, but like there's plenty of cops there that he is fully overpowered. Yes, you know, they could get him into a car, whatever.

Steve

And as big as Radio is, the, the cop played by Rick Aiello is even bigger. Yeah. And so he has him around the neck with that nightstick and off the ground. Yeah, because you can see his feet are inches above the ground, right? And, and they're choking him to death.

Nic

And it's crazy. I mean, just watching this, this scene, and the people around him are screaming like, you can't do that shit! Like, let him go! He's dying! You're killing him! Like, whatever. And as, uh, Buggin' Out is getting like put into the car, he's being arrested, right? And he's like, what the fuck, right? They, they fucking killed, uh, Radio Raheem. Yes.

Steve

And, um, they drag his body into one of the cop cars. Not like an ambulance, not an EMT. Response, just throw his body into the back of a cop car.

Nic

Pure self-preservation by these cops, right?

Steve

Ridiculous.

Nic

Avoiding accountability and self-preservation. They don't call for medical assistance, whatever. They throw this man's body into the car and they, and they leave. And this aftermath is you have, you know, this, this very well-known person in the society who's been murdered in front of everybody, and this chaos at the pizza place. This is where Smiley, after this scene, is so distraught. I I fucking lost it. This was the scene where I was like, holy shit. Like the— again, this actor, I need to learn his name because I brought him up so many times. But that was just so powerful. It's just like this guy who doesn't really have a full understanding of what's going on necessarily and has seen this incredibly traumatic thing. And the other thing is there's nobody for Smiley. No. Yeah, there's nobody looking after him. He is kind of on his own. He might have a parent or grandparent back at the house, but there's nobody He's out on the streets on his own.

Steve

And he gets shit from a lot of the groups, except Buggin', Raheem, and Mookie all treat Smiley very well. And Sal did too. I mean, to be fair, Sal also treated Smiley well. But like, among the Black community, really, Smiley's an outsider to a lot of these people, except for, you know, Radio and Buggin' and Mookie. And now Radio's dead. So it's like, of the 3 people that seem to care about Smiley at all, one's dead, the other's been arrested. He doesn't know when, if he'll see Buggin' again. And then there's Mookie, but it's like, yeah, he is just a stranger. And we have another point here where— and I love the way Spike Lee did this in these 2 different moments really close to each other— it's another moment of silence. Everybody looking around, not knowing what's gonna happen next. Like, where do we go from here? What is the response to this?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And Mookie, of all people, walks across the street, dumps out a trash can, walks right up to Sal's, and just launches it through the window. And it starts a complete and absolute riot.

Nic

Yep.

Steve

Um, people are destroying Sal's pizzeria. Um, and at one point it's actually Smiley that lights a match and just drops it on like a bunch of like— I don't know if it's like napkins or rags or whatever, but like the place goes up in flames super fast.

Nic

And, and Sal and the boys are kind of like across the street now, like looking at this happen, right? Uh, and nobody's, nobody's going after Sal or Pino or Vito right now. Um, but they're watching this happen and, you know, the, the people in the neighborhood Like you said, this is not this is not a do the right thing type moment, but this is also like yeah, I understand this.

Steve

It's a response that has a valid core to it, right?

Nic

It's a potentially inevitable result of what's been happening, right? Yeah. Even though it's like on an individual basis, you're like yeah, I probably wouldn't do that, but that many people someone's gonna fucking do that, right? So it's interesting that it's Mookie.

Steve

And then there's a moment here where some of the crowd, including ML, who we know has an issue with the Korean grocers, they turn towards the Korean grocer and is like. You're next kind of thing. And the Korean guy keeps saying, "I'm black, I'm black, I'm like you." And they're like, "What do you mean you're black?" But it's like what he's saying is, "The whites hate me just as much as the whites hate you, man. The cops bug me just as much. Like we're on the same side of this, even if we're not totally the same." Right. But he doesn't have the mastery of the English language to like fully say all that. So he keeps saying like what he means to be saying is, "I'm not white, I'm not white," which is also more accurate maybe. But he's just trying to point out like they fuck with us too, man. They they are they don't respect me either. We're on your side of this. All that was bullshit, you know. And it's not like you know, but that's And that's an example of this tension spilling out into places where it's not constructive, right? There would, and to the crowd's credit, they do not attack the Korean grocery, but it looks like for a moment they might. And it really, that would be incredibly counterproductive, even more so than enacting on Sal's, the vengeance for Radio's death.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Right, that at least has a through line of logic that attacking the Korean grocer would not.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And like I said, to their credit, they don't. This is when the fire— fire— yeah, people show up, the firemen, right?

Nic

So the firemen show up and they're— and they're trying to put the fire out. Yes. But also the crowd is very unruly behind them. And then again, Spike Lee being fucking brilliant and tying it together from like the joy we saw from the open fire hydrant earlier in the movie to now flashing back to like the '60s and Black people being sprayed with fire hoses to keep them away from, you know, whatever they're doing. Yeah. So the firemen now are kind of turning against the crowd to keep spraying them with— it's just this horrific scene. Of just chaos and people screaming, uh, sister, mother, or mother, sister. No! No! Just like, oh, man.

Steve

There was— I, I— when I was watching this, I immediately picked up on the reference to, to the riots in the '60s and using fire hoses as crowd control. Um, it was actually only when we were talking earlier in this episode about the fire hydrant scene at the beginning that I really put two and two together on that part of it, where, you know, Lee juxtaposing that joyous use of the exact same physical mechanism, right? The fire hydrant. Now, they didn't have a hose, but it came out of the hydrant fast, hard, you know, whatever. But it was like a moment of joy because it was like something that they were doing because they intended to do it as a community. It was like self-inflicted, essentially, but just not violent and whatever.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And then to have that same physical mechanism turned on them by the powers that be is what turns it mostly into something that's horrific. And I thought it really was a great juxtaposition. But I'll be honest, I caught the historical, you know, sort of reference to it much quicker in the moment. And it was more on rethinking through everything when we got to the fire hydrant conversation. Conversation earlier in this episode. I was like, oh shit. And then like in just a few hours they're gonna be attacked by that same fire hydrant essentially, right? Right. Yeah.

Nic

Um, yeah, great. Really, really powerful, chaotic scene. I think one of the last parts that we see here— so Mookie and Jade are just kind of sitting on the steps like watching all the chaos. And, uh, and one of the last things of this scene is we see Smiley walk into Sal's with his picture of Martin, uh, Luther King and Malcolm and he sticks it on the wall, on the Wall of Fame there.

Steve

Yep. So they get their picture up on the wall.

Nic

So they get their picture on the wall there.

Steve

And there's a great, a great little moment between, uh, Demayor and Mother's sister where Demayor comforts her because, you know, she's distraught just over all the violence and all the things happening. This building is now on fire in their neighborhood.

Nic

And, and, and imagine people that age, yeah, what they've seen. Yeah, right. And the same kind of shit like over their entire life and just hoping every year that like it gets better. And then something like this happens, you just lose your You're fucking—.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Ugh.

Steve

And then, uh, we cut to the next morning. Um, I think maybe first we see Demare and Mother Sister together in the morning. Apparently they comforted each other over the night at Demare's apartment. Uh, there, Mookie and Tina— wakes up with Tina because he promised her he'd be back that night, and he did come back. It's good for him. Um, but I love that Mookie is like, I gotta go get paid. Sal owes me my money from last week.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And I'm thinking to myself, bro, you're the one that threw the trash can through the window. I would not expect to get paid for that week. And when Mookie goes to get the money from Sal, and Sal pays him, I am so conflicted about how I feel about that. Like, there's a part of me that says, this is Sal being a stand-up guy. There's part of me that says, this is Sal deliberately insulting Mookie, showing him, yeah, here's your pittance.

Nic

Mm-hmm.

Steve

Right? I've got plenty of money, so fuck off. Like, you know, kind of thing. There's a lot. And then for Mookie, it's both like, yeah, you were owed that money. You worked that week. You should have been getting paid. And also, like, how dare you? Dare you? You started the riot that burned this man's building, you know, his entire business down, right? And so many conflicting things.

Nic

He's like, you couldn't begin to pay for that window, right? And he's just like, you have fucking insurance, just pay me my money. Yeah, like, and you know, realistic too, right? Sure, businesses are insured. Yeah, but, uh, but yeah, the way that he's paying Mookie, it is like, is he trying to insult? Because he wads up the $100 bills and Sal says, or, uh, Mookie says, I, I'm owed $250.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

Yeah. And, uh, Sal throws $500 at him, right? Wads him up. And Mookie's like, picks $300. He's like, I'll owe you $50. Yeah. That's right.

Steve

Take the rest of it back. I don't want more than I'm owed.

Nic

Yeah. And they have this back and forth and then Mookie's just like, yeah, I'm gonna go see my, uh, I'm gonna go see my kid. Yeah. And he picks up the other $200 off the ground.

Steve

Well, I mean, when push comes to shove, he's not gonna leave it there. No. You know what I mean? That's the thing. No, not at all. If Sal's really not picking it up, Mookie'll take it. But like, yeah.

Nic

Yeah. I mean, this is Sal. This is the do the right thing moment for Sal. Yeah. Honestly. Where he's like, yeah, this guy destroyed my whole business, but he did work.

Steve

I do owe him for what— for the work he did. I mean, I get it. That's what I'm saying. Like, you know, it's— it's— Sal is a very— I'm very, very conflicted about Sal as a character. He obviously also is deeply racist. You know, he's not as open about it as Pino. He's got elements of his personality, Sal does, that clearly— maybe it's this way. Maybe it's, yes, he's racist deep down, but more regular people cross that good— one of the good ones line for him than for Pino. Like, you know what I mean? It's like maybe his bar for whatever that is his mind is lower, so therefore more regular people in the neighborhood he's all good with. Because it really did seem like on a person-to-person level, outside of Buggin' and Radio, he was pretty much cool with the people that came in, right?

Nic

Oh, for sure.

Steve

But clearly deeply ingrained racism. Deeply ingrained.

Nic

Yeah. And I mean, generations of it probably, like, leading up to Sal. Um, so, so that is, uh, that's it. We get kind of a voiceover now by, by, uh, Mr. Dr. Love Daddy. And then we've got a couple of quotes up on the screen about, you know, the use of violence, one by Martin Luther King and one by Malcolm X as the movie ends.

Steve

And there's deliberately no resolution here, right? Like, the 2 quotes are in conflict with each other. Martin's quote is specifically that violence is never the reason to do something, never the answer, never the right path, because it always begets more violence. It's always destructive. And Malcolm X's thing is like, I'm not supporting violence, but in self-defense, violence is not violence. It is defense. And that is something we absolutely have to do, right?

Nic

So yeah, exactly. It's like if you refuse to use violence at all, you're opening yourself up for violence to be used against you.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

So, um, so yeah. And then, and then the end of this film, a very Spike Lee thing, is where, you know, it says dedicated to the families of, and it lists, uh, these 6 people: Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Griffith, Arthur Miller, Edmund Perry, Yvonne Smallwood, and Michael Stewart. And I looked into these cases, and they all just talk about one of them. But, um, these are all people, you know, who were killed not necessarily by the police. Some were killed by, you know, different like racially motivated things, but all happened in New York. Eleanor Bumpurs, I think, was in the '70s. Uh, she was an old woman who was being evicted from her apartment, and the sheriff's deputies like forced her out and during the eviction, uh, shot and killed her during that.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Which is like, I, I'm very sad for her, but on the other hand, you know, the landlord wouldn't have been able to get Mark if he didn't get her. It's like, it's so disgusting to me. I mean, how much of this stuff happens in the fucking service of property?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Of protecting private property, right?

Steve

And that's near the end of the film before it actually cuts to the quotes from King and Malcolm X. We hear the radio from like regular New York, not Senior Love Daddy, but like, you know, it says like, you know, the mayor's gonna look into like the disturbance in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn last night and quote, you know, New York will not— New York City will not stand by while any property is destroyed.

Nic

Right.

Steve

And it's about, the properties, right? It's not about people, it's about the property. The one that— I don't know if you were going to keep going with those names, but Michael Stewart's the one that I think is important to call out. He died in exactly the way Radio Raheem died, with that chokehold. And that chokehold was outlawed specifically because of Michael Stewart's murder.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So the, the way that Raheem was killed was a— is a move that police in the early— from the early '90s on were not allowed. Like, it's illegal to do that. You cannot use, uh, a weapon, any kind of weapon or hard object directly on the throat or neck anymore. And so that— and it was Michael Stewart, was that case. And so, yeah, it's, you know, it's Spike Lee. Everything has a connection. Everything has a tie to real world, to the real culture, to real history. And there's— Spike Lee is nothing if not aware.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Everything he does, he is eminently and predominantly aware of how he and it and everything else fits into the broader broader conversation, the bigger historical picture. Like, this is a man who— there is nothing that is done by accident. This is all absolutely done with all of that context and culture in mind, and it makes for a spectacular film.

Nic

Yeah, definitely. Well, that is it. That is it for Do the Right Thing. We have done the right thing, and here we are. It's time to rate. Yeah. So yeah, I'm really glad that we did this one.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

I, I know I saw it once before, but I needed to see this again. And I actually watched this twice leading up to the pod because I wanted to have one full viewing, like no notes, just kind of like soak it in and everything. Um, and it's incredibly powerful and incredibly relevant. You know, it's crazy how like you change the outfits and you can make this movie about like today.

Steve

Oh yeah.

Nic

Although, I mean, honestly, the way that things have evolved where we've seen all these like livestream, you know, police snuff films over the this one probably wouldn't have even made the news just because, like, well, Radio Raheem was actually in a threatening sound. And it's crazy to think that, 'cause ultimately, they could have dealt with this. They could have arrested him. They could have de-escalated the situation.

Steve

He was still executed in the street, right?

Nic

He was executed in the fucking street, you know? And these things like the chokehold, that was, I think, the issue with Eric Garner, who was murdered in New York City in 2016 or 2017. And then we have like this, this effort to like posthumously make these people into criminals who are victims of police violence. Michael Brown, I think Ferguson, Missouri, 2014. And he was accused of like, well, he was stealing Swishers from the fucking store. It's like, what the fuck are we doing?

Steve

Why is that a death penalty?

Nic

What are we doing, dude? Yeah. So, um, I think this movie is just like, it's very powerful. It hits super hard. I mean, it hits harder knowing that none of this stuff has been resolved. We still see this all the time.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And— but God, so well done. And really, like, for as heavy of a movie as it is at the very end, I think it's an enjoyable watch. I really like— I really like Spike Lee as a filmmaker and as an actor in this. Honestly, I think he's very good. I am going to give— Do the Right Thing is a 4.5 out of 5 for me. And I think honestly, in a couple of years, if I watch it a couple more times, it might creep more towards 5 territory. Because I've been thinking about this a ton since I've seen it.

Steve

Yeah, so I mean, a few things I want to kind of echo or kind of talk about that you mentioned there. One thing is like, I was thinking for— this movie stuck with me hard, and it actually made me tear up a little bit about an hour and a half to 2 hours after I finished watching it. I just kept thinking about it and thinking through. And initially I thought to myself, the worst part is, is that nothing's gotten better in like 37 years or whatever. And my wife and I had a conversation about that, and she basically pointed out to me like, that's not really true. It's not that everything's better. But things have improved. When you live in a racist society, you have to celebrate every win and every bit of progress, because despair is a luxury.

Nic

Sure.

Steve

Okay? And, you know, things like that chokehold being outlawed, the fact that, yeah, we're just more aware of when these things happen. When Spike Lee made this movie, no one outside of the Black community that it was occurring to really understood what the police were doing to the Black community. Now, at least it's known across the country, and there are places where it's getting better. And I'm not saying that it's better-better, But it's like progress is getting made in small doses, not fast enough and not complete enough. But I think that if we allow ourselves to sort of think of this as not getting better at all, we miss out on, you know, recognizing the progress made and the sacrifices made by the people along the way. And so that's just something that I kind of wanted to call out because I felt quite a bit of despair kind of after watching this. But the reality is that it is better today than it was then. It is not a non-racist society in any way. Any way, shape, or form, but we are seeing things getting better in some ways. And I think that we do need to kind of recognize that, personally, myself anyway.

Nic

Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's been improvements. I guess my kind of— I'm more from the despair sense, just that we've seen these things that are on fucking video. We have video evidence of it, and still there's no justice for these people, you know? So that's what's like extra disgusting to me, because this situation would have been a word of, you know, the cop's word versus the community's word, and that's always going to go the cop's way. But if you have a videotape and it still doesn't go the way of justice, it's fucking crazy and maddening to me. Um, but yeah, I mean, there have been people who've been working very hard on this decades before this and decades after we're long dead, uh, that do need to be recognized for like what they've done to try to like mitigate this a little bit.

Steve

For sure. Uh, as a movie, uh, I love the sort of like Aristotelian kind of Greek tragedy-like elements of this, our dual chorus, you know, even like there's all these kind of references to things that are great. Like, you know, Tina dancing at the beginning is very reminiscent of the opening of Bye Bye Birdie. I think it's Ann-Margret dances at the beginning of that. Like, you know, there's all these kind of things. Spike Lee is just such an intelligent filmmaker and such a—.

Nic

He's a movie guy for sure. Like, back to the first movie ever made.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

He's really, yeah.

Steve

Total cinema head, and it shows. And then there's so much that's very classically story-based. About this. I loved this movie. There is nothing about this movie that I would ask to be different. And so I'm gonna be a 5 out of 5 on Do the Right Thing. I really enjoyed it.

Nic

All right.

Steve

Thank you so much for bringing it to the podcast because I don't know that I would have gotten around to seeing— I don't know that I would have made a priority of seeing it. And that clearly would have been a mistake if I hadn't. But, but it turns out now I've seen it, I know it. I will absolutely be watching it again. It is a movie I will absolutely be showing my kids.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

Mine are 12 and 8, so maybe in— the 12-year-old, maybe when he's about 14, 15, we'll sit down and watch this, and I'll tell him, is, is the world exactly like this today? No. But is it different? Not really. Let's understand this relationship. And so there's that. So yeah, Do the Right Thing, uh, it's 9.5 out of 10. Awesome. Uh, from the 2 dads on Do the Right Thing.

Nic

Well, uh, you're up next, Steve. What do we got coming up? Are we gonna stay on the same, uh—.

Steve

We are going to— same vibe. We are going to lighten things significantly. Uh, next week's will be— next week we'll We'll have a much, a much lighter-hearted conversation, um, because we're going to switch gears. Uh, actually very similar, I think it was like '88 or '89, very similar time period. Um, but we're switching gears very hard, uh, and we're going to do a little storytelling. Okay, we're going to follow along as, uh, Peter Falk, uh, reads to his grandson Fred Savage a beautiful story by S. Morgenstern called The Princess Bride. Wow, love this movie. This, this is another one of those movies that like, uh, I know a lot of people like it, but this hit so hard for theater kids when I was in high school. Like, this was like, this was an absolute— like, if you're a theater kid, you, you, you loved, you, you worshiped this movie. Uh, Cary Elwes and, you know, Robin Wright, uh, uh, Mandy Patinkin, Andre the Giant, uh, you know, it's just absolutely brilliant people up, down, left, and right. Wallace Shawn in this movie, they're all amazing. There's quotes that just will never ever die. You know, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die. Or, you know, life is pain, anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something. Like, there are just so many things in this movie that will survive forever. Billy Crystal makes a great appearance. I cannot wait to watch this. Uh, are you familiar with The Princess Bride? I hope.

Nic

Yeah, I'm familiar with this, and I feel like this, this is gonna be our biggest day one. I, I'm calling it now, is that I think our downloads for the first Princess Bride, first day of Princess Bride, is gonna Break our record, our internal record that we have.

Steve

I think right now the Big Lebowski holds that title for day one downloads. But yeah, we'll have to check it out because yeah, The Princess Bride is one of those movies that people love. And I think honestly, I don't know, I have never met anyone who saw this movie and hated it. I know people who haven't seen it, and I know people who kind of don't care. Yeah, but like this is not Mallrats where it's polarizing that way.

Nic

It's not divisive in any way.

Steve

And for a lot of people, The Princess Bride is like a top five movie for sure for a lot of folks. So that is what we will watch.

Nic

Beautiful.

Steve

Next week. All right. That's a wrap. If you like what you hear, please consider heading over to Apple or Spotify and leaving us a 5-star review. It helps new folks find the show. Be sure to check out our website at twodads1movie.com. That's the number 2 and the number 1. There you can explore the movies we've covered, sign up for our newsletter, The Rewind, and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. Once again, this has been Do the Right Thing, another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you next week.

Nic

Thanks, everyone.