MSNBC debuted new “Lean Forward” ads today featuring the network’s four primetime hosts: Chris Matthews, Lawrence O’Donnell, Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz.

But there’s something different about the ads this time around. They’re directed by Spike Lee, and Oscar-nominated Matthew Libatique, who worked on “Black Swan,” served as the director of photography.

Continue reading… FishbowlDC

21 years later, Do The Right Thing is coming to a book, written by Spike Lee and Jason Matloff. Available this holiday season, the book will use behind the scenes photography, interviews, and information previously unreleased with the DVD packaging of the film. The book also looks at the racially-charged film’s impact since its release, including being the focus of a first date between President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. - hiphopdx

Review of Do The Right Thing (2010)

Spike Lee busts open the archives on his most incandescent work, setting the candid tone by donating his own handscrawled script (reproduced here in its spilling mistocky glory). As ever, Spike’s photographer brother, David, was on set, and his panoramic shots capture the heat of the shoot, but the real juice is in the words. The all-new cast/crew oral history is riveting, revealing antagonisms between the director and star Danny Aiello, eye-gouging incidents with John Turturro and gales of laughter. A definitive doorstopper.

Recalling reactions to the film’s violent climax, Lee would later remark, “If in a review, a critic discussed how Sal’s Famous was burned down but didn’t mention anything about Radio Raheem getting killed, it was pretty obvious that he or she valued white-owned property more than the life of this young black hoodlum.” The frankness of Lee’s rhetoric and the film’s content led the mainstream media to label him an angry, confrontational filmmaker. In her 1989 Time review of Do the Right Thing, titled “He’s Got to Have It His Way,” Jeanne McDowell observed, “Looking for racism at every turn, [Lee] finds it.” An August 1990 cover of US asked, “Spike Lee: Why Is He So Angry?” And in a classic example of ironic racism, an October 1992 Esquire headline declared: “Spike Lee Hates Your Cracker Ass.” (via The Nation - ‘Do the Right Thing’: Still a Racial Rorschach at 20)

Recalling reactions to the film’s violent climax, Lee would later remark, “If in a review, a critic discussed how Sal’s Famous was burned down but didn’t mention anything about Radio Raheem getting killed, it was pretty obvious that he or she valued white-owned property more than the life of this young black hoodlum.” The frankness of Lee’s rhetoric and the film’s content led the mainstream media to label him an angry, confrontational filmmaker. In her 1989 Time review of Do the Right Thing, titled “He’s Got to Have It His Way,” Jeanne McDowell observed, “Looking for racism at every turn, [Lee] finds it.” An August 1990 cover of US asked, “Spike Lee: Why Is He So Angry?” And in a classic example of ironic racism, an October 1992 Esquire headline declared: “Spike Lee Hates Your Cracker Ass.”

(via The Nation - ‘Do the Right Thing’: Still a Racial Rorschach at 20)

Do The Right Thing (Race Rant Scene) (via timeforevolution)

I was reading this post that Lawrence wrote and it immediately made me think of this scene (one of my favorites) from ‘Do the Right Thing.’

I’m sure that a lot of people don’t think of Obama as being really black. I wonder if his co-worker thinks the same.

Also, the Puerto Rican line always cracks me up. - kl7