#365 Do The Right Thing (Bowery Boys Movie Club)

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, Society & Culture, Documentary, History

4.8 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2021

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're sliding into Summer 2021 -- ready for great music, hot dancing and breaking into fire hydrants -- and so we’ve just released an epic summertime episode of Bowery Boys Movie Club to the general Bowery Boys Podcast audience, exploring the 1989 Spike Lee masterpiece Do The Right Thing. Lee electrified film audiences with Do The Right Thing, documenting a day in the life of one block in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn on one of the hottest days of the summer. Inspired by both Greek tragedy and actual events in 1980s New York, Lee's film observes the racial and ethnic tensions that boil over at an Italian-American owned pizzeria serving a mostly African-American clientele from the neighborhood. Listen in as Greg and Tom recap the story and explore some of the historical context for the film — the incendiary nature of New York summers, the realistic portrait of everyday life in Brooklyn, and the true-life murders on which Do The Right Thing is based. PLUS Support the Bowery Boys Podcast on Patreon and get another episode of the Bowery Boys Movie Club, exploring the brand new film In The Heights and its fascinating local angles. Another film with great music, hot dancing -- and breaking into fire hydrants! boweryboyshistory.com Support the show on Patreon Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	The following show recorded for the Bowry Boys Movie Club in July of 2020 explores the New York City
0:06.9	history behind the 1989 Spike Lee Classic do the right thing. The Bowry Boys Movie Club is a
0:14.9	special podcast that we make just for those people who follow us on Patreon and we are so excited
0:21.9	to today be releasing our newest Bowry Boys Movie Club on in the Heights.
0:28.2	The brand new film adaptation of the Lin Manuel Miranda musical of the same name.
0:36.4	Greg now in movie theaters remember those and streaming on HBO Max if you're a patron head over
0:43.2	to Patreon to download this latest episode and enjoy the Bowry Boys Movie Club presents Rosie
0:51.6	Perez, Danny I.L.O and Spike Lee in Do the Right Thing.
1:03.9	Hi there welcome to the Bowry Boys Movie Club this is Greg Young and this is Tom Myers.
1:09.8	It is summer in the city it is sizzling the you know the sidewalks are filled with
1:15.6	melting gum just ready to stick to your shoe. So we thought that we would do a summertime movie here
1:23.6	and there is no film more relevant right now than Spike Lee's 1989 film classic Do the Right Thing
1:34.8	which was written and directed by Spike Lee and was originally released on July 21st of 1989.
1:42.6	This is a movie that is packed with amazing performances by amazing actors.
1:49.5	Yep just young people starting off in their career who would then become some of the finest actors
1:56.2	in Hollywood. I mean not to mention of course a few older established stars that also pop in as well.
2:03.5	This is really an ensemble piece Spike Lee introduces character after character and then we kind of
2:09.8	stand back and we watch them all go through the same day together and it's quite an extraordinary day.
2:20.1	Yeah it's all in one day and it's all essentially on one block on one street in Bedstuy Brooklyn.
2:27.5	So that's actually a pretty good description, like an initial description of what happens in the
2:33.3	movie because it is kind of bottled up in one place in time although it reflects a lot of things
2:38.0	that are happening in the real world. The movie takes place in the neighborhood of Bedstuy,
	...

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