#96: Do the Right Thing (1989) & #95: The Last Picture Show (1971)

Well, hello again! It’s been a while since I’ve written a review, so I’m gonna give you two for the price of one! As always, SPOILER ALERT!

Do the Right Thing (1989): If you are looking for a standard three-act kind of flick, this ain’t it. Yeah, it has your typical character introductions at the beginning, but there is no real inciting incident to propel the story forward. I was okay with that for a while because I was too busy taking in the very…interesting fashions and hairstyles of the 80s to pay attention to much else. And the cheesy dialogue was hard to ignore as well. From the beginning you know that you are following the story of a young black man named Mookie who is working as a delivery person for a pizza place owned by an Italian-American family in a mostly black neighborhood. Naturally, there are some moments of racial tension with Mookie often playing peacekeeper between his family/friends and his employers. He does a fairly good job of being referee to the point that I began to wonder if anything of real consequence was ever going to happen in this movie.

About three-quarters of the way through the movie I resigned myself to the fact that this might just be a “day in the life” kind of movie, so I just chugged right along with it. And then 1 hour and 32 minutes into this film, it took an incredibly shocking turn. A fist fight breaks out between the white restaurant owners and some of the local black residents. The cops arrive to break up the fight and in the process they end up killing one of the black men. In a matter of seconds, I went from watching a cheesy, dated, boring dramedy to an event that I could have been watching on the news today. And suddenly the “Fresh Prince”-style clothes and bad acting didn’t matter anymore. And the one thought that I haven’t been able to get out of my head over the past week-and-a-half is how so much and so little has changed in my lifetime. As a white woman, I’ve never been afraid of the police and I pray I never have to be. But now I can empathize a little more with those who feel they are judged guilty without trial. So if that’s what Spike Lee’s goal was when he made this movie, then I’d say he succeeded.

Now on to my questions!

• Did I like the movie? Overall, not especially.
• Did I appreciate the movie? Yes!
• Would I recommend this movie to a friend? If only for the moral of the story.
• Do I plan to see this movie again? Nah.
• Am I glad I have now watched this movie? Yes.

The Last Picture Show (1971): If you’ve ever asked yourself, “What kind of movie would John Hughes have made in the 1950s?” this movie is your answer! This is a coming-of-age story set in the early 1950s that centers around a group of people who are on the cusp of adulthood and trying to figure out just what that means. For this particular film, I only really had two notes to write down in my spiral notebook: “pretty real” and “awkward sex”. And that about sums up this movie. The kids in this movie do things that kids would actually do. They make out in the backs of movie theaters (which I guess was a thing back before you had to take out a signature loan in order to afford popcorn), they break up and make up, they go along with whatever their friends are doing to feel cool and included, they play pranks on each other that go a little too far, and, last but certainly not least, THEY HAVE REALLY AWKWARD SEX. Change up the cars, the clothes, and put a cell phone in everyone’s hand, and this could’ve been set in present day. There’s nothing special about this movie except for its realistic depiction of what it’s like to grow up, which is something that so many movies get so wrong. For that reason, I can appreciate it, though it’ll never be a top pick from me.

• Did I like the movie? Sure.
• Did I appreciate the movie? I guess.
• Would I recommend this movie to a friend? Probably not.
• Do I plan to see this movie again? No.
• Am I glad I have now watched this movie? Sure.

Now I am going to rank the movies I’ve reviewed so far from my most favorite to my least favorite.

1. Toy Story (1995)
2. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
3. Blade Runner (1982)
4. The Last Picture Show (1971)
5. Do the Right Thing (1989)
6. Ben-Hur (1959)

Today, my thoughts are obviously a little different than the last time I did this. I am beginning to value brevity a lot more highly than I did previously, so I had to put Ben-Hur at the bottom of my list today. Yes, it might be a better movie than some of the others. But you have to really commit to a film that long!

Next up is Pulp Fiction!!