Alternate Movie Tag Lines: Robocop

He's A Cop Even Rodney King Could Love.

Alternate Movie Tag Lines: Scarface

He Came For The American Dream.

He Founded The Stereotypical Latino Accent.

Alternate Movie Tag Lines: Alien

These motherfuckers landed on the wrong planet.

The Academy Awhaaaaat!? Awards.

In a few weeks the Academy Award nominations will be announced. Shortly after that the Academy Awards will be given out and films of this past year will be forever branded and legitimized as the best of that year in that specific category. But every year movies get looked over, passed over, or completely ignored. Choices are made by the Academy that leave me puzzled, baffled, and angered. The movies they choose make me go Whaaaaat?! So I present to you movies that I believe should have rightfully won the Academy Awards. Movies that I (and others I’m sure) consider classic, timeless, and award worthy but walked away empty handed. I’ve given them my own award. The Academy Awhaaaaaat!? Award.
I’m proud to announce that the First Academy Awhaaaaaat!? Award is being given to the 1989 Spike Lee directed film Do The Right Thing. How in the world did this movie not get an Academy Award! This is the first of many Awhaaaaaat!? Awards that Spike will be receiving but we’re just going to focus on this film in particular.
From beginning to end the movie this movie just hits you. Ka-Ka-Kow! The story, the characters, Ernest Dickerson’s cinematography is presented in a way that just hits you hard and doesn’t let go. The opening sequence has to be mentioned. The movie starts off with a black screen and we hear a saxophone playing the opening notes to the gospel classic “Lift Every Voice And Sing” while the opening title card tells you the title of the film and its director. The saxophone comes to an end and the screen changes to a wide shot of a silk screen Brooklyn neighborhood with a silhouetted Rosie Perez striking poses to the hard beat of a drum that is getting louder and louder and louder then BAM! The camera zooms in along with the sound of a plane as to signify we’ve reached our final destination and Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power” comes blasting at you with Rosie Perez dancing towards the camera with a look that says this is where your attention will be for the next 2 hours. She ain’t asking you either, she’s telling you. Powerful.
That’s the first of powerful moments in this film and not a word of dialogue has been said yet. That’s the one thing the Academy Awards did get right on this one. Do The Right Thing was nominated for Best Original Screenplay but unfortunately it lost to Dead Poets Society. If you don’t know what Do The Right Thing is I’m sorry for you but I’ll shed some light. It’s about a lot of things, racism, pride, choices, generation gaps, family, love, hate, ignorance, class. Basically it’s about America and it all takes place in a neighborhood in Brooklyn (Oh Oooooooh!) over the course of the hottest day in the year. In this case the less I say about the plot the better. Find it on Netflix and watch it.
The cast in this movie is great. Spike did a great job of casting well known great actors and, at that time, relatively unknown actors, to really give the film some strong original performances. He even gets some heavyweights to show up in cameo roles that at the time I first saw it I dismissed as some actor “I ain’t never heard of”. But knowing who some of these actors are today really shows how these actors who came in for one or two days of shooting knew they were being a part of something special that they couldn’t pass up. It’s an ensemble piece with a few major leads but everybody gets their turn to shine. Danny Aiello was nominated for a supporting role as Sal but lost to Denzel. I go back and forth as to who deserves the award more between the two of them. The way Aiello can make you love Sal, hate Sal, then feel sorry for Sal is really a great piece of work. John Turturro as Pino is a sonofabitch. Those two roles were initially going to be played by Robert De Niro and Matt Dillon. I wonder if De Niro’s casting in this movie would have made the Academy look at this movie differently? Other stand outs were Giancarlo Esposito as Buggin’ Out , Bill Nunn as Radio Raheem, Ossie Davis as Da’ Mayor, Rosie Perez, her voice, and her breasts as Tina, Robyn Harris as Sweet Dick Willy is laugh out loud funny. He’s so funny in this movie there are takes where Harris looks right into the camera but Spike uses that take anyway because the line he delivers are too funny. For a movie that is as serious as it tends to be it sure is funny as hell. In one scene two cops show up to handle a complaint from an Italian man (played by The Sopranos Frank Vincent) who wants some African-American kids arrested for spraying his car with a fire hydrant after he specifically warned them not to:

Cop: Could you calm down? Did you happen to catch the names of the suspects?
Man(irate): Fuck you their names-Moe n’ Joe! What do I know their names!
Cop: Moe and Joe what?
Man(irate): Moe N’ Joe what! Moe N’ Joe what! Moe N’ Joe Black! How’s that?
Cop: They’re brothers sir?
Man: Yeah they’re brothers.They’re fuckin’ brothers.

Shout out to Ernest Dickerson’s camerawork in this movie. The opening shot in the movie is a close up of Samuel L. Jackson’s face that pulls back in one take to show the neighborhood/street that we’re going to live on for the next 24 hours. The final shot is of Spike Lee walking away and the camera pulling away to show the remains of the neighborhood after an unforgettable night. Canted angles, long tracking shots, zoom ins and zoom outs, the whole movie is straight up eye candy.
Finally, Spike Lee. People who drink the haterade on Spike do me a favor? Take that hate—out’cha heart. Spike knocks it out in this one. He wrote, produced, and directed an all time classic. He presents us a story with a topic that’s important today as it was when the movie first premiered. And watching it recently I love the fact that he doesn’t have an answer as to what the right thing is. There’s a coda at the end of the film with a quote by Martin Luther King and a quote by Malcolm X then we see a picture of the only time the two men actually met. Spike could have easily ended the film after one of the quotes or made us hate Sal to the very end or shown Mookie do something redeemable as he leaves Sal’s. But he doesn’t. It’s left open. The day continues in this neighborhood. What are the choices that are going to be made by the characters today? Does anyone in the movie really do the right thing? Goddamn I love this movie. Do me a favor, do yourself a favor-watch it for the first time or watch it again. In my mind today you should do the right thing and watch this movie.

She's Dangerous On The Dance Floor-DAAAAANGEROUS!

I went to another bar on Rush St.. First of all screw me for thinking I’m going to have a good time on Rush St. That’s the area in Chicago where low-self esteem and drunk hot mess form together like Voltron to form the UltimateDisappointment-Bot. I don’t know why I allow myself into situations like that. I’d rather watch Schindler’s List The Musical! in DTS digital surround sound than be in any bar/club in that area. The Club was called Ricky Go Fuck Yourself so now you know which one to avoid if you ever get harpooned into that stankskankfest.
Women at the club. On the dance floor in particular. Not all of you. I’m talking to you ladies who have no concept of self out there. What are you doing? Really? You look like you’re hurting yourself. It’s not that serious. What are you poppin’ ass to? Why are you booty shaking to any damn song that the DJ plays? Liiiiiisten. It’s Simon and Garfunkel’s “Cecilia” not the Ying Yang Twins “The Whisper Song”. You’ve taken the line “You’re breakin’ my heart, You’re down on your knees” from “Cecilia” to skankalicious levels not known possible. Get a hold of yourself. Take it easy. Out there poppin’ booty like your ass has a disease and the Freakadeak behind you has the antidote. And hey will you turn around everyonce in a while and see who you are letting jack you up. It’s my man who still thinks it’s a good idea to wear pink polos. Homeboy! Kanye don’t even wear pink polos no’ mo’! My man ain’t trying to dance with you-he’s trying his best to be an Alien chestburster except he’s going in through your ass and ripping out through your shoulder blades. And he’s giving me the thumbs up about it! He’s doing the Patrick Bateman American Psycho hit it from the back slicking his hair back flexing his muscles move. And sister what are you doing? You look like you’re hurting yourself. Poppin’ ass like it’s going out of business. Looking like a reject from a 1986 Luther Campbell & 2 Live Crew video. That’s how ridiculous you look. If I was Luther Campbell at the height of my fame and about to shoot the video “Me So Horny”, I would say thanks but no skanks to you.