By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --It's not the first time that Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" has been freshly urgent, but Lee's 1989 film has again found blistering relevance in the wake of George Floyd's death.
On Monday, Lee released a short film titled "3 Brothers" connecting the death of Radio Raheem (played by Bill Nunn) in "Do the Right Thing" to the deaths of Floyd and Eric Garner. Floyd died last week after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee against his neck as he begged for air. Garner's dying plea of "I can't breathe" became a rallying cry against police brutality in 2014.
Blazed across the screen is the question: "Will history stop repeating itself?"
"I've seen this before. This is not new," Lee said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday. "I was born in '57 so I was 11 years old when I saw the riots with Dr. King's assassination, later on with Rodney King and the Simi Valley verdict, Trayvon Martin and Ferguson."
"People are tired and they take to the streets," said Lee.
"Do the Right Thing," about rising racial tensions on a hot summer day in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, took direct inspiration from reality. In the film, Raheem is choked to death by a police officer, sparking a riot.
Lee modeled the choke hold that kills Raheem on the murder of Michael Stewart, a graffiti artist who was killed by New York City police officers in 1983. Lee dedicated the film to Stewart's family, as well as those of several other black people killed by police officers.
"His death is not just made up. Many years later, Eric Garner, automatically I thought of Ray Raheem," said Lee. "Then to see my brother George Floyd. I mean, he was quoting the words of Eric Garner: 'I can't breathe.' He was channeling Eric Garner. I'm sure of it."
As much as Lee sees history repeating itself, there's one element of the current unrest that strikes the filmmaker as new.
"I've been very encouraged by the diversity of the protesters. I haven't seen this diverse protests since when I was a kid," Lee said, citing the movements of the '60s. "I'm encouraged that my wife's sisters and brothers are out there.
"That is the hope of this country, this diverse, younger generation of Americans who don't want to perpetuate the same (expletive) that their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents got caught up in. That's my hope."
To illustrate the point, Lee cited cities with smaller black populations, like Des Moines, Iowa, where protests and riots have occurred.
"My young white sisters and brothers are out there in the streets. How many black folks are in Salt Lake City, Utah? And let's take into account that the NBA is not playing," said Lee, letting out an enormous cackle. "The Utah Jazz are not playing!"
"3 Brothers" is the second short Lee has released during the pandemic. While Lee has kept to his Upper East Side apartment with his family, he has also biked around the city to shoot. Lee's "New York, New York," set to Frank Sinatra, was released in early May as an ode to his outbreak-stricken city. Next week, he'll release on Netflix "Da Five Bloods," a Vietnam War drama about four black veterans who return to Vietnam to find the remains of their fallen squad leader (Chadwick Boseman).
Lee has only modest hopes for justice in the aftermath of Floyd's death. Attorney General William Barr he calls "not a friend to justice." "He's going to do what Agent Orange tell him to do," said Lee, using his favored nickname for President Donald Trump.
But Lee has been buoyed by a photo of New York police officers kneeling with protesters, an image he likened to Colin Kaepernick's NFL protests.
"They need to show the image more," said Lee. "Colin Kaepernick is a patriot."
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More