Twenty Years Later – Looking at “DO THE RIGHT THING” Through Today's Lens

Most things show their relevance and real nature in retrospect. Film is absolutely not an exception. This Summer I’d been thinking about “Do The Right Thing” because it’s on my top ten list and because it has been a nice round number – 20 years – since its theatrical release. I remember thinking at the time the media and public reaction was equally as bizarre at that for “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which came out just a year earlier.

The response that was most odd to me was the assertion that by just exploring the sources of racial and gender bias and misconception, you’d ignite a firestorm that could actually spill over into the physical. There seemed to be this strange consensus that if you just didn’t talk about it, didn’t confront all the messy truth, it would recede and we’d all go to bed safe that night in our conspiratorial silence.

The truth simmering just underneath it all was this: A film about inequality isn’t as likely to provoke violence and unrest as – say – actual prejudice. If there was going to be a riot or a demonstration that didn’t stay peaceful it was going to be because there were actually problems that hadn’t been solved.

So, I was absolutely struck by a statement Spike Lee made in a recent CNN.com article about this film on its twentieth anniversary (http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/07/20/spike.lee.right.thing/index.html?eref=rss_showbiz): "It's not like this thing has disappeared because {President Obama} is in the White House," he said. Some things have improved, particularly the atmosphere in New York itself, he said. But, "We've got a lot of work to do."

He’s basically saying we’re not living in a post-racial America now that Obama is in the President. And after reading a story about a Harvard professor who was charged with disorderly conduct after police confronted him when he was trying to get into his own house (http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/21/massachusetts.harvard.professor.arrested/index.html?eref=rss_topstories) I can only think how little – despite the election of Obama – has actually been accomplished. The same questions people asked after the first theatrical showing of DO THE RIGHT THING are still the ones we’re asking now:

How long will we deny prejudice based upon race, gender and oodles of other things still exists?

What will it take to address these problems with sensitivity and respect?

And – please, oh please - when will this film be more of historical significance that a current reflection of where we are with how we view race?

Before there was"Fear Factor" there was just Fear

One of my favorite teachers in high school was my AP Freshman English maven, Mrs. Eberly. She used to say all the time that we’d be the same people we were right then in five years except for the people we met, the books we read and the movies we went to see. I’d add that you almost never know what form the change will take until long after it’s happened.

At some point in 1978 or 1979 I went to see the Michael Crichton thriller COMA with my parents. I remember really wanting to see it because the trailers were simultaneously hypnotic and terrifying and I remember my mom and dad thinking the themes and story might be a bit much. When my ferocious pre-teen whining won out, I’m not so very sure I won in the end. I can tell you – without a doubt – the remnants left by this film, sandwiched between the folds of my cerebellum, are the main reason I was so freaky freakersoned out before having my recent surgery. My residual fears lived on like so many popcorn nubbins left in the folds of the seats at The Village.

In case you haven’t seen this movie, let me issue a huge SPOILER ALERT right now. What follows below pays creepy homage to Crichton’s delightfully macabre and wickedly imaginative storyline. In this film, oodles of perfectly healthy patients (amongst them a young Tom Selleck and Lois Chiles) come in for routine surgeries and mysteriously all fall into comas. They’re then all sent a long-term care facility where only their exterior husks are preserved so their loved ones can visit them from time to time. Unbeknownst the patients’ families, THE ORGANS OF THESE HEALTHY MEN AND WOMEN ARE HARVESTED AND SOLD (holy crap!).

At the time the idea seemed nearly impossible to me. But – because it was just likely enough to happen – my paranoia neurons fired like it was the Fourth of July. Bam! Pow! The world – and the authority figures in it – were never quite the same for me.

Besides upending trust I had in doctors, Crichton was also pretty slick in his choice of main character. The rockstar whistleblower in this film is an unconventionally foxy female doctor (Genevieve Bujold). When her own doctor boyfriend (Michael Douglas) doesn't believe her and the evil, guilty male doctors around her try to paint her concerns and suspicions as “hysterical” it makes them look, well, like the manipulative a-holes they are and in the process makes her passionate outcry look like the noble act that it is.

Wherever Michael Crichton is now I’d like to invite him to suck it for making me so afraid of my own routine surgery…and say thank you for creating a female character so dynamic she’d still be a trailblazer if her kind appeared in a film thirty years after COMA.

My Oscar Predictions...

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE - SEAN PENN
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE - HEATH LEDGER
ACTRESS IN A LEAD ROLE - KATE WINSLET
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE - VIOLA DAVIS
ANIMATED FEATURE - WALL - E
ART DIRECTION - THE DARK KNIGHT
CINEMATOGRAPHY - SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
COSTUME DESIGN - THE DUCHESS
DIRECTING - SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE - TROUBLE THE WATER
DOCUMENTARY SHORT - THE CONSCIENCE OF NHEM EN
FILM EDITING - SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM - WALTZ WITH BASHIR
MAKEUP- THE DARK KNIGHT
MUSIC (SCORE) - SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
MUSIC (SONG) "Jai Ho" SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
BEST PICTURE - SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
SHORT FILM (ANIMATED) - OKTAPODI
SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION) - SPIELZEUGLAND (TOYLAND)
SOUND EDITING - IRON MAN
SOUND MIXING - THE DARK KNIGHT
VISUAL EFFECTS - THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY) - SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY) - IN BRUGES

SHOW ENDS AT 8:29 PM PST

Well, Sh*t

As it turns out - while thinking about this year's Oscars - I decided to look up the actual day Eric Stormoen sent out his top ten list near the close of the last century and it turns out it was May Freaking 6. The ten year anniversary of that date is LESS THAN 100 DAYS AWAY. Now it may sound to you like that's more than enough time to get through the second half of a top ten list but you must understand that for me this means working at a ferocious pace. I have - after all - taken roughly nine years and two hundred and sixty some odd days to get this far. I'm starting to think all those years writing on deadline make it easier to do it that way and nearly impossible to do it without one breathing down my neck. So I'll be seeing all of you *very* soon with some new posts post-haste.

THE CANDIDATE wants to be your eleventh choice

After taking a few months off from the blog/list, I've found another film to compete for eleventh place. But first, I've got the tell you about something. The other night something happened on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." I can't stop thinking about it because it goes to the heart of how I feel about politics right now.

Everywhere I go people seem to be talking about the elections. They're full of hope. They're full of dread. They want things to change. They're afraid things will change too much. They're all trying to figure out how to make it work between $5.00/gallon gas and what's happening to basic costs like food and health care.

As we say in Arizona, this isn't my first rodeo. I've seen a crappy economy (late 80s/early 90s) and I've seen someone ride into town and promise to fix it all (you know who) and then make a few miscalculations (I don't have to say it, do I?) in how to handle some issues both personal and professional. So the street cred and the policy wonk status of some key players dipped and something huge - health care - was never worked out before we reached the critical mass of now.

So that thing I mentioned at the beginning - that moment on The Daily Show that stays with me - happened a few weeks ago after Jon Stewart had done an interview with Barack Obama. The answers Obama gave were stellar and even Stewart made fun himself and how much awe he felt during the interview. And then the interview ended and Stewart went to commercial. When he came back Barack was gone and Stewart looked into the camera and asked impishly, "I wonder, how *will* he break our hearts?"

As much I love the philosophical focus of Obama's campaign and even though I voted for Obama in the California primary, I can't help but wonder if there's something waiting around the corner for those of us who want to believe. Turning myself in these mental knots reminded me of another political film favorite, "The Candidate." It's pure 1970s Redford - Idealistic guy looks to change the system and he does...but he also walks away from the fight with the goo of the system all over him.

Before I go further I have to issue a spoiler alert for the coming paragraphs. If you haven't seen the movie and plan to catch it, you may want to stop here.

The best part of this film for me was watching the campaign itself spin out of control. Robert Redford's character quickly loses control of the message and content of his platform as more and more political pr types show up when his candidacy begins to look real and feel solid. In short, when he looks like a possible, everyone wants what they believe to be their own piece of him.

Redford's character stumbles along the way, too. He's not without a dalliance here and there and in the end he's not sure why he ran or what he'll do next. It's sort of shocking to think of how prescient this film was at the time. And the irony of why I watched this film at such a young age - my mom had a huge crush on Redford - is not lost on me. I imagine there were all sorts of people who paid $2.75 to see Redford's hotness and came away with a deep and maybe even unwanted reflection on the U.S. political process.

As It Turns Out, I Like To Watch

Today while I was working I found myself looking out of the window of our upstairs guest bedroom/office. The window faces the upstairs windows of half a dozen townhomes near us and overlooks the walkways that slither between them.

During the late morning, I overheard two arguments, one declaration of love, someone's toddler fall down while trying to pet a local stray cat and someone on the HOA order the groundskeepers to pay closer attention to the newly planted Magnolia trees. If only I could have witnessed or overheard a murder. Instead, I'll have to tell you all about how this reminds me of another favorite film that *also* ranks eleventh - the classic Alfred Hitchcock film REAR WINDOW.

If you're the sort of person who just thinks it's just too rude to listen in on the conversation at the booth next to you, please run from this blog entry now. I'm listening to everyone I can - Pee Wee Herman style with a giant plastic ear. There are millions of little and big dramas happening all around, us all the time. It's my belief that in every life there are moments grand love, heartbreaking devastation, magical hope and grinding angst. And if you're lucky enough you're able to catch a glimpse of a few of them happening around you.

REAR WINDOW is one of my favorites for both its lurid, tawdry minx side and for its compassionate, human depth. Jimmy Stewart flies a freak flag with his binoculars as he peeps his neighbors. His motivations are floating just above illegal for some time. Then he crosses over and finds himself compelled to become involved when something goes terribly wrong for one unlucky lady.

When I first caught REAR WINDOW at a revival screening in Tucson, the decency of Stewart's character really struck me because I'd just read about that horrible Kitty Genovese murder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Genovese) in a Sociology class. Fundamentally Genovese's murder has become a case study in why people do not become involved when a crime or murder is committed in front of them.

In addition to broad Sociological concepts, this movie reminds me of handbags. Not just any handbags. Fabulous damn handbags. Ones that are not just for a wallet and keys but ones that can become overnight cases and hide all kinds of treasures.

Grace Kelly makes a sublime Hitchcock blond if you ask me. She holds the line between fire and ice better than any of the others and manages to reveal a rich intelligence in the way she plays the part of a spoiled socialite.

And of course there's Hitch. Few directors can handle their subject matter with such deceptive ease. Every single time I watch this movie I marvel at his ability to glide between sexual tension, voyeuristic obsession and the good old fashioned creeps. He was a technical master and one of my favorite dark humorists.

Care for a kiss from Ms. Kelly?

A Note To Paul: "Birthday...RIGHT AHEAD!"

I still covet the TITANIC souvenir cup Paul Suarez bought at the Plaza movie theatre with the wrong release date on it. Can you even imagine how much a cup like that - in mint condition - might fetch on eBay today?

It really doesn't matter because I'd give him twenty lashes with a wet noodle if he ever sold it. TITANIC (HEAT being a close second) is probably the movie that I associate most with Paul. When it came out - more than ten years ago now - we instantly started running lines from the film just about every time we ran into each other whether it was at the Plaza for the midnights or anywhere else. And when Paul escorted me down the steps at La Venta Inn on my wedding day, he even found the perfect line from the movie to whisper to me just before we started walking.

I tried to find my favorite TITANIC moment on YouTube - the moment when Rose looks up at the Statue of Liberty after she's survived everything and is on her way to safety - but it was nowhere to be found. It's funny - and more than a little ironic - that moment contains no dialogue whatsoever but still manages to capture the grandeur, hope and tragedy in the movie for me.

When Dave was running the movie over at The Village he'd let us slip in and watch parts of it here and there. No matter what point I entered the film I was immediately taken up into its story. And there's nothing quite like being able to share something like that with other people who love movies just as much as you do.

Happy Birthday, Paul.

P.S. At least the trailer was online: