AFOS Blog Rewind: Do the Right Thing (Part 4 of 5)

It's Black History Month, so all this week, I'm reposting every single past AFOS blog post about one of my favorite films, Do the Right Thing, the timeless and still-bracing 1989 Spike Lee Joint. You can hear original score (or original song) selections from Do the Right Thing on AFOS.

(Previously on AFOS: The Blog: Parts 1, 2 and 3. The following is from August 25, 2009.)

After posting a bunch of interesting Batman concept drawings and set photos from the 20-year-old blockbuster's official movie souvenir magazine, I'm doing the same thing with a similar tie-in for summer 1989's other landmark film, Do the Right Thing. But instead of an official movie mag, the Spike Lee Joint spawned a now-out-of-print Fireside/Simon & Schuster companion book that Lee wrote with the assistance of ex-girlfriend Lisa Jones. The director has done several companion books for his films. Each of these books contain behind-the-scenes photos, the film's script and Lee's own production journal (some of the Do the Right Thing journal passages are like tweets with better spelling: "Haven't written in a couple of days. I've been busy trying to save School Daze from being dogged.").

I've discussed before why Do the Right Thing is one of my favorite films and why writers of color like myself cite it as an influence. One aspect of the film that I don't think gets enough props is the terrific production design by Wynn Thomas, who drew this sketch of the We Love Radio and Sal's Famous Pizzeria set exteriors. Using an old Coney Island pizzeria as the basis for Sal's, the film's crew built it from scratch on an empty Bed-Stuy lot. "The ultimate compliment was when real people would walk off the street and try and buy a slice," said Thomas in an L.A. Times oral history about the movie. Thomas later created nifty-looking sets for Mars Attacks! and brought CONTROL Headquarters into the 21st century for Steve Carell's Get Smart.

Extra mozzarella: Do the Right Thing concept art and behind-the-scenes photos from Spike Lee's companion book

After posting a bunch of interesting Batman concept drawings and set photos from the 20-year-old blockbuster's official movie souvenir magazine, I'm doing the same thing with a similar tie-in for summer 1989's other landmark film, Do the Right Thing. But instead of an official movie mag, the Spike Lee Joint spawned a now-out-of-print Fireside/Simon & Schuster companion book that Lee wrote with the assistance of ex-girlfriend Lisa Jones. The director has done several companion books for his films. Each of these books contain behind-the-scenes photos, the film's script and Lee's own production journal (some of the Do the Right Thing journal passages are like tweets with better spelling: "Haven't written in a couple of days. I've been busy trying to save School Daze from being dogged.").

(WARNING: Spoilers ahead. Yes, there are people out there who still haven't watched Do the Right Thing yet. They're like people who never saw Ghostbusters. They're weirdos.)


I've discussed before why Do the Right Thing is one of my favorite films and why writers of color like myself cite it as an influence. One aspect of the film that I don't think gets enough props is the terrific production design by Wynn Thomas, who drew this sketch of the We Love Radio and Sal's Famous Pizzeria set exteriors. Using an old Coney Island pizzeria as the basis for Sal's, the film's crew built it from scratch on an empty Bed-Stuy lot. "The ultimate compliment was when real people would walk off the street and try and buy a slice," said Thomas in an L.A. Times oral history about the movie. Thomas later created nifty-looking sets for Mars Attacks! and brought CONTROL Headquarters into the 21st century for Steve Carell's Get Smart.

"The Best of Jimmy J. Aquino on Twitter," Part 3

My archive of earlier tweets from my Twitter page continues.

Previously on A Fistful of Soundtracks: The Blog: Parts 1 and 2.

In a set of tweets from April, I liveblogged 1991's The Rocketeer.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------


I've been rewatching Rocketeer as research for uh... something. Last time I saw it was when it aired on Disney Channel in the early '90s.
4:31 PM Apr 25th from web

3 Disney employees need to be pimp-slapped: Miley the racist ho, the equally racist Joe Jonas and whoever handled Rocketeer's DVD transfer.
>4:33 PM Apr 25th from web

It's nice to finally see Rocketeer in WS, but Disney's transfer is so janky I had the same expression I get when I hear Miley Cyrus sing.
4:34 PM Apr 25th from web


The Rocketeer DVD's non-anamorphic, grainy transfer doesn't do justice to Hiro Narita's cinematography and Jennifer Connelly's cleavage.
4:36 PM Apr 25th from web

Why do many of my favorite actioners (Rocketeer, the original Taking of Pelham, Johnnie To's The Mission) get the crappiest DVD transfers?
4:37 PM Apr 25th from web


Billy Campbell--TV's go-to guy for middle-aged scumbags when Eric Roberts is busy acting in rap videos--looks like he's 12 in The Rocketeer.
4:39 PM Apr 25th from web

I forgot that Locke was in The Rocketeer. Because it's a Disney film, Terry O'Quinn's Howard Hughes doesn't collect jars of his own piss.
4:42 PM Apr 25th from web

Though I think Timothy Dalton is underrated as 007, @nathanrabin is right on about him being more compelling as Neville Sinclair than as JB.
4:47 PM Apr 25th from web


One of the funniest scenes in Rocketeer is when Neville tries to spit game at Jenny, and she notices all his lines are from his movies.
4:51 PM Apr 25th from web

Jennifer Connelly's Jenny Blake: hottest-looking film geek ever.
4:52 PM Apr 25th from web

A lot of H!ITG!'s in The Rocketeer: Margo Martindale, Jan from The Office singing at a '30s club, Midnight Run "Hopalong Cassidiche" guy...
4:59 PM Apr 25th from web


Am I the only one who thinks Rocketeer--which tanked in '91--has aged better than the more popular actioners from that summer (T2, RH:POT)?
5:01 PM Apr 25th from web

In Living Color did a then-amusing Latino version of Rocketeer after the film came out. I remember his leafblower doubled as his jet pack.
5:03 PM Apr 25th from web

@pfunn If there'll ever be a Rocketeer double-dip, it needs an extra pointing out each of the film's countless references to Old Hollywood.
5:12 PM Apr 25th from web in reply to pfunn



A couple of clickworthy pieces on The Rocketeer, by @nathanrabin (http://tinyurl.com/d35dvz) and Scott Tipton (http://tinyurl.com/dah5o6).
5:14 PM Apr 25th from web

In his obit for Dave Stevens, @evanier said that after Rocketeer tanked, DS lost interest in doing more Rktr comics, which was unfortunate.
5:16 PM Apr 25th from web


The Rocketeer got me pumped over IDW's Rocketeer reprints, which I'm dying to read b/c I want to research more about Dave Stevens' creation.
5:18 PM Apr 25th from web

From April '08: A FISTFUL OF SOUNDTRACKS: THE BLOG: What if Rick Berman continued making #StarTrek movies?: http://tinyurl.com/cznosm
2:38 AM May 6th from web

I was searching my parents' garage for some old Starlog issues that contained articles about The Rocketeer and Gerald Fried and...
10:16 AM May 8th from web

...in my parents' garage, I stumbled into some '80s G.I. Joe comics by Larry Hama, whose work all of us Secret Identities creators admire.
10:17 AM May 8th from web

A fistful of classic Larry Hama G.I. Joe comics = some kickass bathroom reading. (Tweet number 300. This! Is! Cobra-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!)
10:19 AM May 8th from web

Among the G.I. Joe comics I unearthed from the garage: G.I. Joe #61 (July 1987), which has a dope Mike Zeck cover: http://tinyurl.com/p8nkqq
10:21 AM May 8th from web

G.I. Joe #61 is about the rescue of a U.S. reporter accused of espionage, an eerie precursor to the imprisonment of Laura Ling and Euna Lee.
10:22 AM May 8th from web

G.I. Joe #61 makes me wish for a special ops unit to sneak into North Korea and get Laura Ling and Euna Lee the hell out of there.
10:22 AM May 8th from web

Though I enjoyed Abrams' #StarTrek, I'm sick and tired of time travel and madmen trying to destroy Earth a la Khan, Kruge, Soran & Shinzon.
10:14 AM May 12th from web

Trek VI & Casino Royale proved you can have villains who aren't concerned w/ global domination & yet it still feels like plenty's at stake.
10:16 AM May 12th from web

An article from my past as a journo: De Niro and Brando sleepwalk through The Score: http://tinyurl.com/ocp3yv
10:24 AM May 12th from web

Favorite #StarTrek in-joke: Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" during prepube Kirk's joyride is a nod to Shatner's TAS "sabotage" pronunciation rant.
3:26 PM May 12th from web

Why so few Filipinos during JJA's #StarTrek? "Must have been a Pacquiao fight going on that day," jokes @moonielantion: http://bit.ly/xKLUv
3:28 PM May 12th from web

To be continued.

Composer name pronunciation key

"Joy, we're back in Brooklyn, alright? Alright? In Brooklyn, it's Joy, not Joie, okay? It's not Jackée, alright? It's Jackie. It's not Sade, alright? It's Say-dee, alright? Whatchu gonna call me next? Whatchu gonna call me? Spi-kay?"

--Spike Lee (Tommy Davidson), reminding his sister Joie (T'Keyah Crystal Keymah) to stick to Brooklynese pronunciations of names, In Living Color

The most challenging part of playing film and TV score music on Internet radio is having to pronounce the composers' often baffling-looking names. Over the years, I've Googled the correct ways to read their names and compiled them to create a pronunciation key for myself. Here's an excerpt from it:

Bruno Coulais (Coraline composer): [coo-lay]
Christopher Tyng (Futurama and Rescue Me composer): [ting]
Craig Safan (Cheers and The Last Starfighter composer): [saw-fawn or sawf-on]
Elmer Bernstein: [burn-steen]
Ennio Morricone: [en-yo more-a-cone-ay]
Gustavo Santaolalla: [san-ta-oh-lah-yah]
Jan Hammer: [yahn hah-mer](*)
Leonard Bernstein: [burn–stine]
Maurice Jarre: [jar]
Michael Giacchino: [jah-kee-no]
Mikis Theodorakis (Zorba the Greek and Serpico composer): [thay-uh-doe-rahk-is](**)
Miklós Rózsa: [mee-kloash ro-zha ("zh" as in "leisure")](***)
Ramin Djawadi (Iron Man composer): [rah-meen juh-vaw-dee]
Randy Edelman: [eddle-man]
Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run and The International director): [tick-ver]
Trevor Rabin: [rah-bean]
Wojciech Kilar: [voy-check kee-lar]
Zbigniew Preisner (Three Colors trilogy composer): [zbig-new prize-ner]

And now, here are some actors, singers, filmmakers or music supervisors whose equally challenging name pronunciations I've had to research or double-check before saying them on AFOS:

Alexandra Patsavas: [pot-saw-vuss](****)
Amitabh Bachchan: (uh-mi-taabh buh-chun)
Bobby Cannavale: [canna-vah-lay]
Chris Douridas: [door-ree-duss](*****)
Djimon Hounsou: [jie-mon hahn-soo]
Franka Potente: [frahn-kuh poh-ten-tay]
Krzysztof Kieslowski: [kzhish-tof kee-es-lof-ski]
Nina Persson (Cardigans frontwoman): [peer-son]
Seu Jorge: [say-oo zhor-zee]
Sidney Poitier: [pwah-tee-yay]
Zhang Yimou: [jahng ee-mow (rhymes with "cow")]

---------------

(*) Source: New England Jazz Radio Cooperative

(**) Source: "Once Banned, Now a Hero of Greek Music" by Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times, October 23, 2000

(***) Source: SoundtrackNet

(****) Source: "Music of 'The O.C.'" by Cheryl Corley, All Things Considered, April 24, 2004

(*****) Source: "The Man Behind the Music of the Movies" by Michele Norris, All Things Considered, May 27, 2003