Do the Right Thing: 20th Anniversary Edition

Spike Lee’s third film is still his best. Set on a single block in the Bed-Stuy section of Brooklyn on the hottest day of the summer, Do the Right Thing is a tinderbox of race, politics, and pizza. It’s also a tense time capsule of pre-gentrification New York, with a never-better Danny Aiello tossing pepperoni pies while bickering with his African-American customers and motor-mouthed deliveryman (Lee). Public Enemy’s ”Fight the Power” kicks things off right, Ernest Dickerson’s color-saturated photography looks like each scene is lit by Roman candle, and the controversial ending remains as tragically inevitable as it ever was. EXTRAS include Lee’s terrific new commentary and previously unseen deleted scenes. Most of the other features, though, are holdovers from a 2001 Criterion edition. A