Movies

The Avocado Movie Club #16: Do the Right Thing (1989)

Welcome to the Movie Club! This week’s movie is the classic Spike Lee joint Do the Right Thing!

No fun posters for this one, probably due to its limited release, but this spoilery alternate version appeared in a few different languages.

Do the Right Thing follows the colourful inhabitants of a singular block in New York City over the course of one long, hot summer day. Spike Lee plays Mookie, a pizza delivery man for Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, whose owner, Sal (played by Danniy Aiello), lives in another part of the city. When Buggin Out (played by Giancarlo Esposito) gets in an argument with Sal over the lack of Black celebrities on a wall with many pictures of Italian-American ones, both it and the heat wave exacerbate the racial tensions in the neighborhood to tragic results. 

Spike Lee wrote, directed, produced and starred in Do the Right Thing, his third feature film. It premiered at Cannes on May 19, 1989, before receiving a limited release just over a month later on June 30. It was controversial at the time, as some people believed it would make Black audiences riot (which I find to be an alarmingly racist idea), but still went on to gross $26 million against a budget of $6 million.1

Trivia:2 

  • Kim Basinger called out the Academy during the 1990s Oscar ceremony for not nominating Do the Right Thing for Best Picture:
  • Ossie Davis (Da Mayor) and Ruby Dee (Mother Sister) were actually married in real life, although the characters they portrayed in the film were at odds with each other.
  • Radio Raheem’s speech about his rings was inspired by a similar speech in The Night of the Hunter, one of Spike Lee’s favourite films.

What did you think? Share your thoughts below! 

Up Next: Our next movie will be the Mariah Carey vehicle Glitter, directed by Vondie Curtis Hall. Has time been kind to Glitter? Is it truly bad or an underrated gem? We’ll find out in two weeks when we meet to discuss it on February 21 at noon EST. Check out the trailer and where it’s playing below, although it seems like it’s not available digitally unless you’re in the UK (or sail the high seas):

USA

  • Stream: Nothing!
  • Rent or Buy: Nothing!

Canada

  • Stream: Nothing!
  • Rent or Buy: Nothing!

UK

  • Stream: Nothing!
  • Rent or Buy: Apple TV, Google Play, Amazon, YouTube, Sky Store
  1. https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Do-the-Right-Thing#tab=summary  ↩︎
  2. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/554245/facts-about-do-the-right-thing-spike-lee ↩︎