I've been using some of the COVID downtime to catch up on some older movies. Sometimes the pacing will be slow and feel out of date, but still be an amazing movie. It's funny how much some of these movies have entered the cultural ecosystem so much that I know the movie's beats and the highs even without having seen the whole movie before. Two that stood out to me as still being relevant are Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and Do the Right Thing (1989). I highly recommend both. Spoilers for 30+ year old movies follow...
Dog Day Afternoon is a bank heist gone wrong movie at the start, but quickly turns into something else. If you haven't seen, it it's the famous movie where Al Pacino chants "Attica! Attica!" About that point in the movie it turn from a bank heist gone wrong to a movie about police brutality and excessive shows of force. There are hundreds of cops involved in a bank standoff all with guns pointed at the bank. The robbers release a hostage as a show of cooperation and it is the black bank guard. He is instantly and roughly handcuffed at multiple gun points. Pacino whips the crowd into a frenzy about it and gets them to turn on the Police and their show of force. He chants "Attica!" to remind them of more police violence at the Attica Prison Riots. For a while the crowd is on his side. Then the movie twists again when it is revealed Pacino is robbing the bank to pay for a sex change surgery for his husband. Instantly the crowd changes back away from his side to mock his homosexuality. The transgender character has come from a mental institution after having tried to commit suicide. Surprisingly for the time, the character isn't used as a joke.
The many long pans across hundreds of cops all pointing guns reminded me a lot of the riots over the summer. Also we still haven't fully accepted transgender rights or figured out how to handle their health care. Transgender suicide is still a major problem in the community.
Do The Right Thing is the famous Spike Lee movie that I feel like I had seen and knew a lot about, but I was wrong. The main conflict of the movie is that an Italian pizzeria owner has famous Italian Americans up on his wall, but is ignoring black Americans for the wall who live in the neighborhood and make up all of his customers. The customers want to see black people on the wall, and Sal refuses. They both are a little right, and a little wrong. At one point in the movie Sal shows pride in how he serves the community by giving them quality food, but still refuses to honor them with his wall of fame. The feud rises from there to a riot at the end. I was completely unprepared for this, and didn't know it was a part of the movie. But Radio Raheem is needlessly murdered by the police, and then the police quickly remove the body to cover it up. I sat in shock as a George Floyd stand-in was killed in a movie with a choke hold 30 years before it happened in real-life. After Radio's death Spike Lee's character Mookie starts another riot that ends with the burning of pizzeria.
The movie is dedicated to many more victims of police brutality.
Either these movies were incredibly forward thinking, or we haven't really solved as many problems as we think we have in 30 years.
I make this post fully knowing it opens some political doors, try to be adults...
Dog Day Afternoon is a bank heist gone wrong movie at the start, but quickly turns into something else. If you haven't seen, it it's the famous movie where Al Pacino chants "Attica! Attica!" About that point in the movie it turn from a bank heist gone wrong to a movie about police brutality and excessive shows of force. There are hundreds of cops involved in a bank standoff all with guns pointed at the bank. The robbers release a hostage as a show of cooperation and it is the black bank guard. He is instantly and roughly handcuffed at multiple gun points. Pacino whips the crowd into a frenzy about it and gets them to turn on the Police and their show of force. He chants "Attica!" to remind them of more police violence at the Attica Prison Riots. For a while the crowd is on his side. Then the movie twists again when it is revealed Pacino is robbing the bank to pay for a sex change surgery for his husband. Instantly the crowd changes back away from his side to mock his homosexuality. The transgender character has come from a mental institution after having tried to commit suicide. Surprisingly for the time, the character isn't used as a joke.
The many long pans across hundreds of cops all pointing guns reminded me a lot of the riots over the summer. Also we still haven't fully accepted transgender rights or figured out how to handle their health care. Transgender suicide is still a major problem in the community.
Do The Right Thing is the famous Spike Lee movie that I feel like I had seen and knew a lot about, but I was wrong. The main conflict of the movie is that an Italian pizzeria owner has famous Italian Americans up on his wall, but is ignoring black Americans for the wall who live in the neighborhood and make up all of his customers. The customers want to see black people on the wall, and Sal refuses. They both are a little right, and a little wrong. At one point in the movie Sal shows pride in how he serves the community by giving them quality food, but still refuses to honor them with his wall of fame. The feud rises from there to a riot at the end. I was completely unprepared for this, and didn't know it was a part of the movie. But Radio Raheem is needlessly murdered by the police, and then the police quickly remove the body to cover it up. I sat in shock as a George Floyd stand-in was killed in a movie with a choke hold 30 years before it happened in real-life. After Radio's death Spike Lee's character Mookie starts another riot that ends with the burning of pizzeria.
The movie is dedicated to many more victims of police brutality.
Either these movies were incredibly forward thinking, or we haven't really solved as many problems as we think we have in 30 years.
I make this post fully knowing it opens some political doors, try to be adults...
