Giancarlo Esposito starred in "Do the Right Thing."
Gary Thompson: Philly native featured in 'Right Thing' 20th anniversary edition
THIS WEEK marks the 20th anniversary of one of the most influential movies of all time - Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing."
It's being commemorated with a special-edition DVD, featuring four hours of documentary material with contributions from the original cast and crew (including Philadelphia native and production designer Wynn Thomas).
There are many African-American faces, and that was the point - Lee wanted to publicly shame Hollywood into putting more blacks to work behind the camera, and used "DTRT" to prove that such a crew (Lee, Thomas, Ernest Dickerson, Terence Blanchard) could do first-rate work.
"DTRT" is influential because Lee's gambit worked - the movie is still the most fluid of his non-linear, episodic features, one of the first Hollywood movies to look and feel like it came organically from African-American culture.
And Hollywood took note. There were a handful of Hollywood financed-and-distributed movies directed by blacks before "DTRT." Since then, there have been hundreds. No mere coincidence. *
