Higher Learning with Micah Peters

[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Question the podcast Okay, so you're doing the tagline from the film

[00:00:28] Question the knowledge. I made it question The podcast So the poster for this movie, I am just trying to imagine seeing it in a multiplex, like the standee for this movie in 1995 The brisk January

[00:00:50] Right, a bunch of... Micah, please talk. Have you seen the poster? I assume you've seen the poster for Higher Learning, the theatrical poster Honestly, no. You're gonna have to describe it to me I'm gonna describe it. I love describing posters. Alright

[00:01:05] Okay, great, great, this is... Micah, get ready Yes, isn't it so much more fun this way? Is it so much better that I don't know what it looks like?

[00:01:13] Absolutely, and I would argue this is a poster designed to be described more than it is to be looked at I don't think it works as well visually as it does orally

[00:01:22] So we got a red background, so it's all in a red background. We got question the knowledge That's the tagline. The film is called Higher Learning Color of fire, blood, power Exactly, right Alright, so the title, the tagline, that's on the right side of the poster

[00:01:38] On the left side, we got this kind of series of abstract symbols that are stacked on top of each other Like a sort of a Jenga pile of symbols Yeah, okay, so at the bottom we've got the symbol, the male symbol

[00:01:55] A circle with an arrow coming out of it and Lawrence Fishburne's face is inside that Which already I'm having seen the film. I'm not sure where that's coming from But okay God damn, alright Next up we've got a...

[00:02:11] I'm sorry David, just to stop you, you described that symbol weirdly I think just the cleaner way to... Circle, arrow coming out of it Well no, it's the Austin Powers necklace. Let's just save Let's just save our listeners time and mental energy

[00:02:28] So you start at the bottom with a classic Austin Powers pendant Right, exactly. Okay, so you've got an Austin Powers symbol And then on top of that, so sort of balance on top of that We have... it's actually two female symbols

[00:02:43] So circles with pluses coming out of them when Christy Swanson's face is in those Now balanced on top of that, we have a fist, a raised fist Wait, it's just... wait, hold on, hold on, hold on

[00:02:58] With the female signs and Christy Swanson's face is in both of them It's not Christy Swanson and Jennifer Connolly It's just Christy Swanson So we're already just abandoning the internal logic of the grouping of the... Okay, alright. Absolutely

[00:03:13] I mean, I do want to bring this back a second I still don't totally get why Lawrence Fishwood's in the male symbol Like I don't think that's really his vibe in this movie but whatever But yes, we are kind of abandoning the internal logic

[00:03:27] Maybe they tried it with Connolly's face and it looked weird Maybe that's what I don't know I don't know what the situation is there I mean she does have like more square features You know, maybe it doesn't fit in the... whatever Anyway, continue

[00:03:43] I don't know. I mean look, I'm not going to question them But let me just say, I just think it's always good business practice To put Jennifer Connolly's face on a poster Right, just from a graphic design standpoint I mean points, yeah Yeah, compelling elements Yeah, exactly

[00:03:57] So as I said, on top of the female symbols we got a fist with Ice Cube's face in it Next to that we've got, I hate to say it A swastika and whose face is in the swastika of course, Michael Rappaport

[00:04:11] On top of that we got two things We have a peace sign Yes You know, the little plain symbol with Omar Epps's face And then sort of balanced on top of it a gun Just a gun And those are the symbols of higher learning

[00:04:31] Gun, peace sign, swastika, fist Two female symbols, one Austin Powers pendant I love dorm room philosophy You know That's the thing, that's the thing Can I just say, the part of this poster that jumps out to me the most

[00:04:48] Is that with all the other characters they're doing sort of like that X-Men first class thing Where you're just sort of making out a sliver of the actor's face within the symbol, right? Omar Epps's face is so perfectly formatted within the peace sign

[00:05:03] He looks like when there were talking letters and numbers on Sesame Street Yes Like his mouth is like right where like the peace sign bifurcates You know, his eyes are right at the top

[00:05:15] I think that's just like you know, the, you know, the close to perfect construction of his face It's just like he's just You know, it's just well arranged, you know Because Michael Rampaport, you're just going like okay that's the reflection of a Nazi in a swastika

[00:05:35] When you look at Omar Epps you're like that is an anthropomorphized talking peace sign That is, this is a character, the character is a peace sign Yeah, this is like you want to root for him You want to?

[00:05:47] It's just, it would have been funny if they literally went for The symbols have to absolutely reflect the character So sure, maybe the female symbol is Christie Swanson And Jennifer Connolly But you know, maybe Omar Epps not the peace sign but he has like a little jogger

[00:06:07] You know like a sort of a stick figure running I don't know something like that Maybe he's the walk symbol from a street light Yeah But there's speed lines behind him so you see he's walking fast Lawrence Fishburne could be like in a mortarboard or something right?

[00:06:24] Like it's, I don't know Sure Just some ideas He's in a book He's in the pages of a book He's the smoke coming out of a pipe It also just rude, I mean we've already said this but rude there are six Am I correct about this?

[00:06:38] There are six actors with single card billing in this movie and five of them made the poster Connolly is the one who's left off Yeah, yeah that's true Tyra Banks didn't get single card billing? Hmm, maybe she did Maybe she did

[00:06:53] I don't think she does though because it's alphabetical And Connolly is first I'm looking at, yeah the credit block on the poster is Connolly, Cube, Epps, Rappaport, Swanson, Fishburne And Fishburne Yeah, no justice for Jennifer Connolly And we don't stand for that here on Blank Check

[00:07:12] Which is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby

[00:07:26] This is a mini-series on the films of John Singleton It's called Pods in the Cast I'm Griffin I'm David Ooh you're getting good there, so I was trying to throw you off I was ready

[00:07:39] I could see, when I didn't say it at the part where I'm supposed to say it I could see that you were stealing yourself You were lofty Yes, I appreciate it You're getting sharp Today we're talking about higher learning Which I would argue is his biggest

[00:07:57] His first of two consecutive blank checks Right? Poetic Justice feels to me strategically and I talked about this too much, repeated myself too much in the last episode Poetic Justice feels to me like a second film where he's saying I am not going to swing for the fences

[00:08:09] I'm not going to do the big ambitious follow up I'm going to keep my check warm for a little bit I'm going to hold on to it I'm going to pocket the blank check for a movie This is certainly a blank check Yeah sure, yes

[00:08:26] I think there's some scenes In terms of scale, like with crowds are scattering around I'm like, God this thing was a whole fucking production And it's his third Columbia movie He's making, you know what I mean? It's only with the next one that he moves to another studio

[00:08:44] Like this is him continuing the relationship Yeah Stephanie Allen who is vice president of production at Columbia at this time said He had carte blanche He could do whatever he wanted to do I think that the biggest indication of that is the fact that

[00:09:01] The university is named Columbia University And in a sense, like you know Our main character literally gets up and runs out of there He said it was his last movie on Columbia Feels very like, you know, alright fuck y'all I'm out You know, you're absolutely right Yes

[00:09:21] And just also he just threw everything into this movie I think is the nicest way to put it Right? Like if you're talking about a blank check project, yes I've never seen this movie before You have been sort of prepping me for your thoughts on this movie

[00:09:38] Being sort of a very ambitious mess And I unsurprisingly as is my want to do Totally just kind of unabashedly love how ambitiously messy this movie is It is very messy though Yeah, but it is, but it's just any movie that's got this much

[00:09:55] It's trying to say with this sort of like narrative ambition I'm kind of just in the bag for I'm not surprised I'm slightly surprised? I don't know But I'm intrigued, keep going Introduce our guest as well obviously Do we introduce the podcast? We introduce the podcast

[00:10:15] You introduce yourself to David I forgot to ask how our guest wants to be introduced Uh, well, you know You can, I will just say that this is a sound only co-host Staff writer at the Ringer Micah Peters

[00:10:35] Well those are great things to say, yeah, Micah Peters is our guest today Yes, those are things I should have asked in advance You know, it'd be like that sometimes, Griff It is, it is, we're all losing our minds Micah, thank you for doing the show

[00:10:53] Of course, of course What is sort of your relationship to Singleton's filmography at large And to this movie in particular in the micro? The thing is, I don't really have a strong attachment to Singleton I'm not really a completist like that

[00:11:13] Obviously I was four when higher learning came out But this is one of the Singleton films that I remember distinctly Watching, this being like, it was on stars at 930 After your parents went to bed So you sit down and catch half of it

[00:11:32] Then you come back like a week later and watch the whole thing Or maybe you only start for the beginning And then a week later you watch the whole thing But it's the only one that I can really remember

[00:11:43] And I rewatched it for the first time in a very long time Earlier this week But, yeah, I wouldn't say that I am a Singleton scholar Although I do remember reading about how he did a TV spot

[00:12:04] Like I think it was like a PBS news hour or something And they were just like, what are you going to do now that you've made something as tacked down Subversive and personal as boys in the hood And how are you going to top that

[00:12:16] And he's just like, well, I'm 26 and I'm black and I'm in America So I think I'm just going to write about angst And like that is basically what the movie is There's not really any sort of centralized message to it

[00:12:29] It's just people being angry and attempting to like reckon with themselves and each other I mean, yeah Micah, you're landing on a more eloquent explanation of why I fall for this kind of movie I generally like the overly ambitious messy movies that are just driven by anger

[00:12:49] When someone's just like, I got so much shit to say And I don't know how to say it, give me three hours And this very much feels like a three hour movie that was cut down to two hours

[00:12:59] And I think he said that there was a large chunk that the studio made him cut out just for runtime reasons I think Connelly in particular got the worst of it I feel like they had to be more Buster Rhymes too Yeah Definitely more Buster Rhymes

[00:13:14] He should have cut more Jason Wiles, no offense to Jason Wiles But like a little offense to Jason Wiles That's a wet blanket, Karen I mean, that act, Jason Wiles who is in kicking and screaming and somehow does not ruin it Is the worst

[00:13:27] I'm so sorry if he's listening to this episode I have no idea why he would be I'm rarely that mean but I do not like Jason Wiles But to Jason Wiles wearing a Ben nickname shirt Drinking out of a no-bits pro smits mug Right

[00:13:44] He's just quietly dropping it, a single tear running down his cheek It's just like there's one skit for Family Guy Where like there's the douchebag with the acoustic guitar so they go underneath the tree and like bounce like a bird on his knee

[00:13:59] And he's just like I keep every beer I've ever drank on a shelf And it's like he's singing off key and shit That is Jason Wiles in every fucking movie he's at He belongs in the college movie No question he's the most college ass actor ever

[00:14:14] Yeah, the flowing hair and the Henleys and the hiking boots I'll say this too, like he's so ineffective in this movie That I was like is Michael Rappaport a psych out? Like is he gonna be the one who shoots everybody? There has to be something

[00:14:32] Sitting there mumbling to himself and you're like maybe he's alright though Fuck Jason Wiles I was just like but somehow like Michael Rappaport's giving this is all somehow Wiles is more unnerving to me I'm more worried about this guy Um, yes

[00:14:49] Hi Erlert, what you're saying Griffin, I just want to check did you introduce that this is Pods in the Cast A miniseries about John Sincleton I did say it was Pods in the Cast Look, I did a lot of things in the reverse order

[00:14:59] I didn't ask Micah what credits he wanted listed Maybe this is my big ambitious messy episode Mr. Big Time Track Star Yeah, exactly The classic narrative of our podcast

[00:15:11] You know the directors we follow sometimes right where like each movie gets a little more ambitious and a little less like elevator pitchy Right like this at this one it's just like yeah what's he's like it's gonna be college and it's gonna talk about everything

[00:15:27] Like I don't know what he's even trying to sell the studio on here But it must have like that is that's the point at which he can kind of say what he wants right Yeah, let me find this article I saw earlier with Stephanie Allen talkie

[00:15:43] But I mean she just said it was like he literally had carte blanche Columbia was so into the idea of him being in-house there You know that they were just like whatever it is we just want a new John Sincleton movie every two years

[00:15:55] It speaks to his status as a guy who was sort of seen as you know someone driving conversation in the culture You know at a time where that was still barely valued in Hollywood

[00:16:10] You know if you could produce it on a small enough budget and you could you know turn a tidy little profit They were interested in the cachet of these movies feel important

[00:16:23] These movies get think pieces written about them you know at a time where we weren't all choking on think pieces I wonder how much do you think this movie cost like twenty million dollars I'm trying to like you know where are we here

[00:16:37] Yeah because I mean higher learning costs like ten I'm sorry poetic justice costs like ten right Right And boys in the hood cost significantly less than that It's like you were saying earlier like there are like a lot of

[00:16:51] Like I mean like it's a full college campus that we explore for like two hours Yeah right they I mean they just had to rent out all of this space and also it's such an expansive cast

[00:17:02] Morris Chestnut is in like Morris Chestnut is the anchor on the track team And I was just like holy shit I forgot Morris Chestnut is also in this movie and Tyra Banks is the love interest

[00:17:13] And like there is I mean there's yeah there's this there's all sorts of actors of this movie He's just kind of calling everything in yeah And Morris Chestnut I could not tell if that was a cut plot or if that's just Morris Chestnut like doing a solid

[00:17:33] For the guy who gave him his first job because like you said there's a lot in this movie where you're like Like when Christie Swanson is sleeping with Jason Wiles and Jennifer Connolly you're like oh okay well so like where's this going

[00:17:47] And then it doesn't go anywhere I was like this has to be some fucking thin red line ask you know Jason Wiles is at the premiere And he's like hey where's the end of my plot like you know like I don't know

[00:18:01] Like there it does it's not so like it is there are a few characters lose whose story lines get like resolved sort of But like I wouldn't say that anything comes together at the end of the movie

[00:18:16] Like there's not like a no the ending of this movie in fact makes things more complicated I would argue there's they could end this movie 10 minutes earlier and it would have more power in sort of its ambiguous mystery

[00:18:30] And then it does 10 minutes of trying to offer resolution that somehow makes everything feel even less resolved Like I was like this is like the okay so the strongest that like Malik ever is in the movie is like the last sequence where he's talking to Christie Swanson's character

[00:18:50] After like Deja is shot and killed for no reason and her death is like Tyra Veig's death is ugly and long and it's so unfair and it's like tough to look at It's like platoon yeah Yeah it is exactly it is She literally says why

[00:19:11] She screams to the sky Like you know is gurgling it's like it is it's gruesome it's like but then after all that and the first person that like he like opens up to you know like trying to reintroduce himself back into

[00:19:27] Like you know the school community is kind of like I lost my girl here First thing she says is I feel like it's all my fault and in he like that would have broken the Malik from two hours earlier in the movie

[00:19:43] Because he goes you know you can't blame yourself and it's like I think it's a really great note that he's like shaking the entire time he's doing it Yeah But like he doesn't press her any further about why we haven't talked before any of that

[00:19:59] I was gonna say right she says like you know it's actually kind of funny I don't think we've talked once this entire year

[00:20:05] And he's just like yes funny and it's like the sneer he like but no the thing is that like that is how that's like that is exactly how a person like that would Because it's just like I feel like that's how singled over respond it's just like yo

[00:20:18] Sure I you know probably he wants to say something about how you know it either assume full responsibility for it or accept it that's just a thing that happens because there's nothing anyone can do with I feel like it's my fault It's great

[00:20:34] And then like or you know but instead he like understands like that you could feel guilt although it's not his to help process like which is you know the God is so cheesy to say ever like you know the biggest

[00:20:51] Signifier of like growth or mastery is kindness especially like the kind that you isn't like really deserved because Lord knows that was an annoying thing to say

[00:21:03] No but it's it's true. Yeah, I do think I mean the the Melly characters obviously the singleton sir and he said as much and in trying to figure out where this movie came out of beyond just I have a lot of things I want to say

[00:21:22] The the incident with the wrap up work character getting in his face about the Black Panther shirt singleton said happened to him at USC and he kind of extrapolated a whole movie from that.

[00:21:36] You know it feels like he took that incident and unpacked it into his Nashville at a college campus.

[00:21:44] I had well the thing is that like it wasn't it's it wasn't like he didn't get all the way to like a physical altercation but it got into a shouting match about a poster from like the 68 Olympics that I had in my in my door room

[00:21:58] And I think it's like you leave home and you go to this strange alien place where the only people that know the rules like you can't trust the way that they explain them to you.

[00:22:11] And it's just kind of like a powder king like and it's things like that happen. And yeah you can see where it was just like where you can create an entire

[00:22:23] We can catastrophize from a situation like that because it really could go like any kind of way. Yeah and he was also just such a prodigious guy I mean he was so you know through talent and circumstance and luck, and also just sort of like a persistence

[00:22:40] He got to make films so much younger than most people do that he was pretty much getting to make films as he conceived of them. Whereas I think a lot of filmmakers by the time they get to make their first film they've had like 10 ideas lying around that they've been trying to push uphill.

[00:22:57] It's like Boys in the Hood was like his his pitch for his application to film school, you know and then that essentially becomes his thesis film. And then poetic justice is this reworking of his follow up idea and then it's just like everything sort of just like coming to him in real time.

[00:23:14] I mean I found this other quote from him that is just kind of so telling where he did an interview with an Australian network in 1995 promoting this movie and he said American college campuses are the only place you can see America in its purest form.

[00:23:32] I'm so glad you said Australia. Yeah, because because it is a great opportunity for me for me to take this running leap to the outermost bounds of the known universe.

[00:23:45] Because I recently watched Waking Freight on the recommendation of like a close close friend of mine and you see y'all seen that movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:57] So this is the first time that like this is the first time I'd ever watched it but like it is it was you know that movie came in 71 after years of like Australia and living memory being this like bright sunny like place of cheery hospitality were literally anyone even the gas station attend that can serve you a beer.

[00:24:21] But then like Waking Freight makes like makes that like incredibly sinister and like the main character is like this showy hot shit teacher that is basically has his confidence sense of self and like sanity eroded like by this really hostile environment that everybody thought was chill.

[00:24:41] So it is kind of like a similar story.

[00:24:44] Yeah I also just it's it's another thing I love Margaret one of my favorite modern movies is another movie I think that kind of does this which is just like make a film about America with teenagers representing America itself because of how unique our nation is in terms of just being so fucking young and so arrogant.

[00:25:11] You know there's this uniquely American thing to just like how little history we have how often it has repeated itself and how cataclysmic we view every event.

[00:25:24] And just the perception of just like we're number one where the greatest we know how to be a country better than anyone else even though we've been here for a micro second.

[00:25:33] And I just think this film captures that really well with just all of these teenagers who are getting like activated for the first time kind of having independent thought for the first time and having that confidence of like what I'm thinking right now is the first time anyone has ever come to this conclusion and it's incredibly important.

[00:25:55] It's page 50 confidence. That's perfectly but but this movie also has that energy. As a byproduct of being such a young filmmaker you know. Yeah where he's just like I'm ready to say everything right which is good that is magic.

[00:26:14] The other thing this movie has going for it is that when you watch it now anytime you're like I don't know this feels on the nose you also have to sort of check yourself with like it's not like things aren't on the nose now like you know you can't get right.

[00:26:28] It's tough to it's tough to quibble with the plausibility of this movie even though there's plenty to quibble with just because there's so much of it that just seems like embarrassingly relevant but it's embarrassing that it's relevant that I guess that's my complaint.

[00:26:46] To quote the zoomers that's that's the biggest cringe for me is how much of this feels like is this still what we're fucking dealing right you know it just like it's such a bummer to watch this movie.

[00:26:57] 26 years later and see how many things are just like point for point arguments that are being made and people are pushing back on saying like why is this suddenly a thing.

[00:27:08] I mean David I've been watching all of Mary Tyler Moore show I finished it recently and got you into the idea of rewatching it as well.

[00:27:16] And it is just like so depressing the episodes where feminism is at the forefront and you're just like they're presenting things as like you hear this new argument that women are making.

[00:27:28] And it just feels like verbatim the exact same wording that you would see some troll use tomorrow. I mean it's like the same issues framed in the same way with the same pushback. It's like calling over their shoulder from the breakfast table.

[00:27:44] Honey yeah apparently I'm not saying that Michael Rapaport is the character he plays in this movie because certainly that is ridiculous but when Michael Rapaport is yelling about reverse racism like at me you know I'm just like yeah Jesus Christ like I can't I can't get the I guess this is just still that's like basically a sentence I might read like in the news.

[00:28:07] I was more so having I was having that moment like you know the scene at the top of the stairs like near the climax after like he gets a lucky shot and kicks Malik down the stairs and he's and like the way that it's framed is him standing between like the glass stained window and the in the oil painting of George Washington.

[00:28:30] He's just like I'm a man. I'm the man. I'm whatever and it's just kind of like wow you know he's still doing the same thing on Instagram live. Yeah and there's like you have the scene where ice cube what's his name fudge white.

[00:28:49] Yeah fudge one of the all time great character names after calling a character do boy he calls another ice cube character fudge if I'm ice cube. I'm like John what's up. Do you have a problem with me.

[00:29:04] Why are all my characters food right he needs to complete his ice cube dessert trilogy right but but there's the scene where he asked him about like what about if they played the national anthem would you stand.

[00:29:19] Oh yeah and Singleton did like an interview for the 25th anniversary of this movie right before he died like months before he died when this film was being released on Blu-ray.

[00:29:30] And he was like I really watched it for the first time ever and I could not believe I had written that line into the movie right you know he's like saying that in 2019 when the Kaepernick thing is at like the forefront of the conversation.

[00:29:43] And this is 1995 before like the NFL even introduced like the the military flyover big show of like the national anthem shit which like started in the mid 2000s.

[00:29:55] But it's part of this whole fucking like America as an adolescent country for me thing where it's just like the shit resets every 10 years.

[00:30:04] You know every 10 years I feel like culture acts like we're having this conversation for the first time be it any subject and just everything in this movie feels 100% relevant today.

[00:30:15] I mean here's the one thing about this movie that isn't relevant that dates it is that the Internet doesn't exist.

[00:30:22] But my take on this film is that this movie is sort of made me realize how much the Internet has just become a global college campus where everyone is like as Mike said I have page 50 knowledge. Everyone needs to hear my thoughts.

[00:30:38] I believe I am the most correct. You know it's just everyone screaming at each other. Yeah the the flattening our context.

[00:30:45] Right right right that's that's all the Internet is which is you know college campuses are that in a microcosm and it's a vaguely safe space intellectually because everyone is equally hormonal and ramped up and then you leave and then you go into the real world try to figure out how to fucking behave yourself.

[00:31:01] And the Internet everyone's just showing their ass all the time for their entire life. Higher learning I mean we can't go through the part of this movie.

[00:31:12] Narrate like you know it's front to front to finish just because like it's all over the place but I feel like you just kind of have to tackle the characters as to talk about it right like you know character by character.

[00:31:27] Yeah I think we can go like plot line by plot line.

[00:31:29] I also just I mean I read as many articles as I could and as many things from around the 25th anniversary and also from when he passed and I just found so little context about the development of this movie.

[00:31:41] It's because it's the least discussed of his movies I would say. Yeah but all the stuff I found was just castings that almost happened to Pock was supposed to play Malik he got arrested. De Caprio was supposed to play Remy. Damn.

[00:31:59] Michael Rappaport was going to play the Cole Hauser part which would have been disastrous. De Caprio was supposed to play Remy but he was entirely too pretty to be played. Yes absolutely too confident couldn't do it.

[00:32:12] I would I agree with that but at the same time it is hilarious that it's like we didn't get De Caprio I guess let's get Michael Rappaport. Michael Rappaport right now.

[00:32:22] Yeah if you're casting like Inception and Nolan's like okay De Caprio is busy I guess call Michael Rappaport. Yes I guess we'll just have to you know cast this correctly. It's it's just wild.

[00:32:38] De Caprio only wasn't in it because Quicken the Dead ran over schedule and they were both Sony movies. So it was yeah Rappaport had already been cast they bumped Rappaport up to the bigger part and then put Cole Hauser in there.

[00:32:53] He wanted Sidney Padier to play Professor Phipps his backup choice with Samuel L. Jackson the studio wanted Fishburne weirdly he didn't want Fishburne. That's interesting because Fishburne right you like make sense I mean I guess he's pretty young at this time to be playing he's playing older.

[00:33:15] Well the thing is what else was there around that because I mean there was what else was he because like is him doing the like yeah playing the older professor character was just kind of like you know after being a king of New York.

[00:33:31] But he's coming off his Oscar nomination though. He gets the Oscar nomination in between the two Singleton movies but also it's like with Singleton and Fishburne working together there's like an interstellar time disruption where Fishburne characters keep on getting older and older and everyone else ages appropriately.

[00:33:52] So it's like he's playing like seven years older and boys in the hood now he's playing like 20 years older in this movie.

[00:33:58] Yeah he's got like the light gray hair and like the like the barely there Pat Juan like this is Hordem glasses of the bow time Mr. Big Time Track star.

[00:34:08] Here's my thing speaking of time dilation though Omar Epps and this is not a criticism of anything Omar Epps in this movie is playing college student he's about the right age for it I think he's about 21 years old.

[00:34:21] Five years later he's playing a high school student in Love and Basketball. I know he plays you know he ages into an adult in that movie it's just funny that it's not that crazy in Love and Basketball. No no I buy it. It's pretty plausible.

[00:34:40] And it's five years after this. Here's the here's the single weirdest casting.

[00:34:45] I mean there are like so many like I just think this was a very sought after project every young actor was trying to get cast in this especially since there was the feeling of like Singleton might this might be his big movie.

[00:34:57] Gwyneth Paltrow almost played the Chrissy Swanson part Julia Lewis almost played the Jennifer Connolly part I think those were his first two choices. Drew Barrymore also was up for the Chrissy Swanson part Vivike Fox was up for the Tyra Banks part but this is the wildest fucking thing.

[00:35:15] He wanted originally and I guess it was written differently Dustin Hoffman to play Professor Phipps. What?

[00:35:25] And Hoffman sat down with him and was like I this is I have some story notes and the story notes were the whole movie should be about the mentor relationship between the teacher and the student. You should get these subplots out of here.

[00:35:40] But I found I found one thing which is interesting. Jonathan Demi is the one who when Boys in the Hood was in pre production at Columbia in pre production. And I guess maybe he just had buzz around him.

[00:35:55] Demi wanted to make a movie about racial issues on a college campus. So he asked Singleton to come up with a script for him and they were developing the movie together at Orion and then that fell apart when Orion fell apart.

[00:36:09] So I think by the time Boys in the Hood's come out poetic justice has come out. He's had this in the back pocket a little bit. He never wrote a full script but I think he had started incubating it. Right. Okay. That makes sense.

[00:36:25] But yes let's go through a character by character thread by thread now. Okay sure. So the movie is called Higher Learning because it's set at a learning institution a higher learning institution. Should I do the should I do the thing? Should I for in the movie? Do it.

[00:36:42] Please. What is high? What is higher? What is to learn? What is higher learning? It is Eurocentric indoctrination. It is learning in an environment that is mostly white. What is it? What is higher learning? Okay I think I'm done. Thank you.

[00:37:12] Yeah so it's set at a fictional college. You've got well you know you've got Omar Epps as Malik Williams who's a athletic scholarship. He's a track star. He's a runner. There's a whole thing early where he's is he on a partial or full scholarship? Okay.

[00:37:37] That whole part early is kind of bizarre. Here's how I read that situation. And the thing is that like it's just not a thing that can happen. Like it's just not a thing that like would happen to an incoming like prospect like that.

[00:37:55] So Omar Epps is like you know Mr. Hot Shit, Freshman, Trackstar, you know supposed to boost the teams four by four time. Anyway like he shows up with sunglasses on the first day of practice and not his track spikes and he's not like dressed for shit.

[00:38:17] And the coach like gives him a talking to sends him back to his door and then all of a sudden he's on a partial scholarship. And this is kind of like I just don't see that being like nobody would be able to fuck with your money like that.

[00:38:31] Like just yeah, that's that's what I couldn't track. No pun intended is was he on a partial scholarship to begin with and he's trying to work his way up or was he on a full scholarship?

[00:38:44] And then the coach knocked him down to partial because he showed up lazy the first day. I mean either way it's like it doesn't come back and also he doesn't get a job.

[00:38:56] So I guess it just I assume that he got back on to a full scholarship after he you know came back to practice and got his act right.

[00:39:07] But but he's he's like a very curious strong minded young dude who I think kind of not I think he presents the fact that he's there on any sort of a

[00:39:19] athletic scholarship that that's the perception that people have of him and he wants to sort of grow intellectually. That's that's his main thrust right?

[00:39:28] He's looking to get activated here and he does not want to be pigeonholed as an athlete and to have that be his only worth in the eyes of the university. Right. Well, yeah, it's like he kind of like he's the character that finds himself through.

[00:39:49] Via the vociferous rejection of the labels that people force onto him, foist onto him, I guess it's like he said he has a lot of lines like I ain't no dumb athlete.

[00:40:01] You know why are you busting my balls about obviously I wrote this paper I worked really hard on it. Why can't you accept that? Right. He basically immediately runs into Professor Phipps the Lawrence Fishburne character who first choose him out publicly for not paying his college.

[00:40:19] Bill which like you would just get fired for. Yeah, I mean like that's just that's just not happening. Right. I just let me read off the list.

[00:40:29] Right. If every student who has any sort of unpaid balance on their tuition out them in front of all their classmates and tell them no free rides here. Yeah, this is your first lesson in politics. It's just wild behavior. That's not really right. It's it's wild behavior.

[00:40:47] I mean I get you know Phipps is supposed to be the sort of like inherently conservative kind of edgy person like that's like you know but there's this edge to his arc with Malik that is I'm going to invoke er two episodes in a row.

[00:41:00] Omar Epps has a huge run on er right after this movie playing a doctor who Dr Benton Eric LaSalle's character is really hard on and the sort of unspoken thing is that Benton is like being hard on him because he's black.

[00:41:15] And Benton has that kind of chip on his shoulder of like you need to you know prove yourself and like like you know you got to be better than everyone else and all that. I feel like that's sort of what's going on here too. The Malik Phipps relationship.

[00:41:33] I feel like much like a lot of things in this movie is interesting gets kind of dropped and then when it's picked up at the end I do feel like I was missing a real slightly because he's like oh now I really believe in you.

[00:41:45] And I'm like what it took Tyra Banks getting shot for you to believe in him. It took some fridging for that to happen. Like it's just it's yeah. Fishburn's performance is also kind of odd. I couldn't totally figure it out.

[00:42:03] I don't know how much of it is just that Fishburn is one of those people who has such an iconic voice that to hear him affect any kind of accent sets off some bullshit alarms. To accept him sounding different. You know. Yeah sure.

[00:42:21] But I mean the relationship is like honestly the relationship is plainly paternal. It's not like it's not the he doesn't take the role of like an educator. He's not a friend. He's not a confidant. He's not any of those things.

[00:42:38] The thing is that you get the sense that like the least character needs just to be told that he's not crazy and nobody can do that for him. And the one person that can dies at the end of the movie.

[00:42:45] Like which is like why it's like it's and it's just like in the other person the next closest person tells him like I don't know why you're looking at me. You got you got to figure out what to do with your life.

[00:42:59] The scene then feels like it should be the linchpin to me weirdly is and Singleton uses this trick a couple times where the camera moves back and forth.

[00:43:08] In coverage between two characters and then the second person in the conversation changes right I mean obviously there's the whole Connolly Swanson styles love scene that's like the three of them switching places.

[00:43:25] But there's that scene where it starts out with Omar Epps and Phipps talking and then turns into Swanson and Phipps. And it feels like that's the scene that should be getting at something and what is the subtle difference in how he relates to her.

[00:43:41] Yes, because he's very much trying to argue to Malik like I don't view you as special. I am not holding you to a different standard. I am not trying to teach you a lesson because you're black. I am not trying to be a mentor figure for you.

[00:43:56] I am unwavering. This is my philosophy. I do not want to teach but it does feel that he is more openly dismissive of her whereas he's perhaps a little more antagonistic with Malik in a way that gets something out of him.

[00:44:13] You know, yeah, that scene with Christie Swanson is interesting because he seems to be saying that she just wrote him a Wikipedia article. I will say right. He's like your piece needs an argument. She's like what about objectivity?

[00:44:26] And I'm like, did she literally just like write down the facts of some sort of moment in political history? So his critique of her is pretty fair if that is what happened. I will say. Yeah.

[00:44:43] Like it's like his relationship with Malik is more antagonistic and those are just like you meet people along your journey to like, you know, along the sort of journey like in college you meet these types of characters that just like want to they want you to know that they understand what you're doing.

[00:45:13] But they also don't care because no one else does. Right, right. It's it's just like you don't have like you would say that those people are like important figures in your life maybe but you wouldn't say that they're special to you. They just are.

[00:45:32] They were there something for you to like reflect off of. But it also feels like Malik is like is challenging Phipps to be special to him. You know, yeah.

[00:45:42] Whether it's as an antagonist or a mentor he wants it to mean something and Phipps is kind of like I'm just some fucking teacher you're one student in my class. I don't give a shit. You know, you have I have no personal connection to you.

[00:45:57] Yeah, because I mean like really. And the thing is that like that is life. But also like not at all what Malik needs. Like he doesn't just need to hear run faster, but that's what he gets and that's what he does at the end of the movie. Yeah.

[00:46:15] And I mean these first three singleton movies like you know have a lot to do with fatherhood and the roles of fathers in shaping young lives. And this is a movie where you don't see parents at all.

[00:46:30] The only real parent you have invoked in a meaningful way is Remy's dad when he talks about his upbringing. But I feel like that's the thing he's getting at here is Malik struggling to form some kind of, you know, paternal relationship with Phipps.

[00:46:49] In one way or another he wants him to function that way. Either as a character who challenges him to, you know, feel like he needs to overcome the low expectations or someone who guides him. But he wants him to have some meaning in his life.

[00:47:02] Yeah, well I would kind of like challenge that there's no parents in the movie. There's because like it's like you said, like Malik is looking for a father and Phipps. He also kind of looks for a father and fudge like Kristie looks for like to be reparent.

[00:47:21] And by Jennifer Connelly's character the same way that Remy ends up with Nazi.

[00:47:26] It's just like looking for something like this is you just get out into like you get after like the no parent sugar high wears office just like, oh, I actually need somebody to help me figure out what I'm supposed to do tomorrow. That's no, that's a good point.

[00:47:42] It's it's that it's this one is more about surrogate parental figures, you know.

[00:47:47] Yeah, yeah, whereas like Poison the hood is so much about how much his life is defined by the fact that his father is there and guiding him and placing these ideas in his head in this sort of way.

[00:47:59] And poetic justice is so much about Lucky coming around to taking on his responsibility as a father. And then this movie is people just searching for someone to fill that role for them in some kind of way. Yeah. Yeah, right.

[00:48:13] The the arc of Malik as an athlete is kind of strange too. I think the arc of his discomfort with his his role in the university is well done. The thing that's a little confusing to me is how good is he at running or not?

[00:48:33] Because they start off the movie by being like you think you're hot shit but you can't come in like this all cocky. You're going to need to actually work and he's like I'll work so fucking hard.

[00:48:43] And then he tries his hardest and he comes up short and everyone's like you're the weakling. I think it's this but that's like I also think that that's honest about like if you play a sport at college is like you're the best from your hometown.

[00:48:57] But like, you know, like he says the first day of practice like there's five other people that like on their day who can whoop your ass out here by like a few strides. Like so you're going to have to be on it like every day.

[00:49:11] And then you are and then, you know, the same shit that happens with sports that always happens. It's like, you know, the scales are tipped into or out of your favor by a capricious trickster God.

[00:49:27] Yeah, I mean that's probably my complete naivete when it comes to sport showing but that all makes sense to me. But yeah, I like but it is.

[00:49:37] It's also like, you know, I you it's very difficult to understand exactly what kind of role like sports plays in like Malik's like overall campus life. Like the way that he apportions his time doesn't make sense. But really, you know, I don't know.

[00:49:57] I think that it does well to tell you like how he it's good. It's a good vehicle to explain like how he deals with disappointment like early on. Right. Yeah.

[00:50:11] It just at a certain point it feels like it shifts all its focus away from the athletics themselves and yeah that plot line becomes represented through the the Deja relationship.

[00:50:24] Yeah, it's just kind of like it really does that is how the how it works in the movie is that like he just kind of goes from being on the track team to I have Deja practice every day.

[00:50:34] Right. Right. It's Deja practice and it's like intellectual sparring about their their roles. Yeah, I mean like it's it's kind of like she is the first.

[00:50:50] Well, okay. So up to that point he's like suffering all these microaggressions and taking everything super personally and getting all worked up and then she's like the first person in the movie not to say that like you know these my circle these microaggressions are never going to stop.

[00:51:09] And you might as well just get used to it and you know nobody cares like fifths does and then you know not getting like jabbed by everybody else in the movie.

[00:51:20] Like she's just like, you know it's not that deep and you need to get over yourself which is like you know somebody has to say it in the movie.

[00:51:29] It's just that you know and yeah it is sort of like she is just kind of like you should only be as angry as it is useful and then after that you need to let it go. Can we do a little Tyra Banks sidebar? Sure.

[00:51:47] Because because just the process of watching this movie made me start thinking about her in a deeper level. She she is almost a good actor I would argue.

[00:51:56] She's coming into this off of the Fresh Prince is her only acting role right like that's the only other acting she's done. She's obviously been modeling since she was right like a teenager you know so.

[00:52:10] But this is her first movie and I feel like in the 90s there was this perception of like oh she seems like one of the models who might actually be able to transition to being an actor and it never really took.

[00:52:26] But she she like it always felt like she was on the precipice of being good you know and I wonder just to some degree I feel like every model who has successfully become a movie star was never super famous as a model.

[00:52:44] With someone like Charli's where you're like they modeled and then they became an actor but they didn't have a real reputation as a model to overcome.

[00:52:51] Whereas Tyra Banks might have just been too fucking famous to ever be able to accept her playing a normal person in a movie especially when she wasn't like transcendently talented.

[00:53:03] Yeah I don't know do you have Tyra takes my guy I mean she I like her but she became this like weird mogul. Yeah my Tyra takes all I have to do with America's next top model.

[00:53:14] Well this is my thing because then right by the 2000s it's like America's next top model in the talk show but it feels like that was her shifting because the acting didn't stick.

[00:53:25] This does like feel like out of phase with like my cultural cache for like Tyra Banks.

[00:53:33] Like it's this definitely like more of like a serious vivi role than like anything else I've ever seen but I'm also like not well versed in all Tyra movie stuff you know like it's just a but I mean then again I also can't think of a counterpoint to a really famous model that

[00:53:55] then had a really successful acting career.

[00:53:59] It was just that was the thought spiral I started going into is just like I feel like everyone who successfully transitioned from being a model to being an actress as much as that's thought of as a pipeline is someone where a decade into their career people have to be reminded that they model as opposed to someone like Kate Upton where you're just like well that's Kate Upton in a movie.

[00:54:21] Yeah I mean she is on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue next the next year after this movie. She's the first black model to do that. I feel like that's the point at which she is a sort of inescapable superstar in that world.

[00:54:38] Right and it's kind of like okay well you're on that track and when you know she does a couple movies she pops up in Love and Basketball obviously she's in Coyote ugly.

[00:54:46] But like I do feel like when she's in America's next top model it's when they're crafting that around her it's like yeah well because you are one of the iconic models of the 90s so you make so much sense with this and because you've been on camera and done movies

[00:55:03] yeah you know you know how to have a personality on screen like you'll be perfect for this which she is she's completely terrible for the talk show was the disaster where she has this sort of thinking like I can be the next great media personality

[00:55:21] and it's like no Tyra you're not that like magnetic that's too far but you know. But there was something both on America's next top model and on the talk show that was chaotic about her. She's very chaotic she's only gotten more chaotic yes I would say.

[00:55:38] I just think it's interesting where it's like it's higher learning love stinks which sucks and is four years later.

[00:55:43] Then she does Love and Basketball yeah horrible movie with another Bridget Wilson Samper's movie then 2000 is Love and Basketball life size Coyote ugly you know where it's like life sizing Coyote ugly are obviously the two that people actually remember her being in.

[00:56:01] Love and Basketball is a tiny role but in a great movie then 2002 is Halloween resurrection and then the next year is America's next top model and like a year or two after that she's on the show and from that point on she pretty much only does cameos act.

[00:56:13] She has herself in things she just becomes like I'm a personality.

[00:56:18] Yeah she's she's not bad in this movie for like a performance she is very close to being good in this thing she's like she's functional it's a it's it's in some ways it's a it's kind of a think this role because she has to shoulder a lot but is not really given any agency it feels like she should be the fourth major character.

[00:56:43] In the sort of four square of of Remy.

[00:56:46] You know Swanson Malik and maybe her but yeah but she's just kind of like an in person crit like she's in person credit she's the voice of reason like that's all she gets the voice of reason until she has to die and then when she dies.

[00:57:03] She is the innocence lost like and that's kind of like alright so yeah okay alright so moving on let's talk about Christie Swanson another 90s. Icon who does not translate past the 90s but Christie Swanson is.

[00:57:22] Kristen a very I mean how do you she's kind of just like a naive kind of dough you know like you know like what do you call it like sort of.

[00:57:32] She's a Rachel in the woods baby in the way she's a Rachel yeah it's it's she's she's from Orange County and she's you know. Afro Afebou and like is gaping at all the horseless carriages.

[00:57:50] She's and just kind of overly naive yes she's a pretty big yeah she's pretty big name at this point right would you say I mean she's been a lot of stuff. She's one of right I mean she's like Buffy is three years before this.

[00:58:09] I mean she's like working regularly in lead or you know lead adjacent roles she's in stuff like the chase and like the program and like these sort of like movies for young adults.

[00:58:23] Teenagers and college students and stuff like that obviously she first popped up in the in the John Hughes movies but right like yeah she's.

[00:58:30] This is this is like the end of her peak like after this it's the Phantom and a heads in a duffle bag and then she's kind of a joke.

[00:58:38] Yeah when she's in Big Daddy it's weird I was gonna say that then it becomes like oh she's like a weird punchline stunt casting.

[00:58:45] And also at that point by the point she's in Big Daddy Buffy is now hit on television and it feels like she's a weird trivia fact. Yeah I mean what's she doing now. Oh she's a Republican. Oh apparently apparently she loves I had no idea Christie.

[00:59:04] Yeah David this is this is my virtual background. Yeah I saw that well with with Rappaport right yeah Christie Swanson and Rappaport went after each other on YouTube. I mean this is not a long walk from her character in this movie to where she's at the present day.

[00:59:20] No no no she's a she's a she's a crazy person and Rappaport anti and they were they were fucking feudant. Rappaport for all his flaws is essentially he's just like an embarrassing MSNBC dad at heart really like that is his online energy I guess. It's so complicated.

[00:59:44] I guess it is. I know he's like the blackest man in America self-professed or whatever. He just I mean it's more confident like he he's just we don't if I see if I speak I am in big trouble if I if I speak I am in big trouble.

[01:00:02] I it's the Rappaport not is just like so hard to to pull at these days. He just he just should have less to say about black people as all you know. He should have less to say about everything.

[01:00:17] I do think he never got over the idea that in the early 90s a couple black people told him he was cool like that feels like it doomed Michael Rappaport you know. We and now we got to fucking hear about it for the rest of time.

[01:00:31] It's just like we got like it's just you know in this movie this it was just like you know because he was he was in a John Singleton movie and then he did the tribe called quest doc and now we got to hear about he has to fucking say about hip hop every two weeks.

[01:00:45] And it's just like you know if I had a time machine after I killed baby Hitler I would I would I would literally punt the like the first cut.

[01:00:57] I mean the final cut of the tribe doc into the sun and like ask somebody else to fucking like you know do it like so that we never had to because it's just like it's enough man it's enough.

[01:01:09] It's it's the Neil Brennan thing where it's like have you guys not heard I I've been given the pass you know it just feels like he's constantly trying to restate his bonafide that he's allowed to enter conversations like he's a leader of black thought.

[01:01:25] He's just such a first time long time ass motherfucker like. That is such a good description.

[01:01:34] Yes but he is so fucking well cast here and so effective in this movie like I was going into this sort of guarded and cringing of like I don't want to fucking watch the Michael Rappaport gets radicalized by neo nazis and becomes a school shooter are.

[01:01:51] But I think he plays this character better than most people do and this obviously becomes more of an archetype right after this. I mean you go like this is four years before Columbine.

[01:02:04] You know at this point the main thing that the shooting is riffing on in this movie is like the the Texas shooting in the 70s.

[01:02:11] He is like he's really good at this movie because it's he's able to go from seeming incredibly small to something like incredibly like gangly and unpredictable and maybe even a little scary like I'm thinking about.

[01:02:30] Like the earlier scenes where he's just kind of like you know swaying around milling about on the on the walls like trying to talk to like one person literally anybody at the party about nothing at all just to feel like you know hey.

[01:02:48] Like I'm in this room with the rest of these people to to like how disgusted you are by reading like the four word of mind comfort wherever the fucking as he's reading in his room to when he's to discuss you feel when he gets up in the league's face.

[01:03:06] And then the satisfaction you feel when he backs down but then like. The weird like sort of. Oh like pity slash maybe even like the fright that you feel when he's like destroying the entire dorm room because it's just like there's a gun in there somewhere.

[01:03:27] This is like as the performance is like really volatile and that's like why it's so good.

[01:03:34] I guess I also just feel like after this as loner who may or may not become a school shooter becomes a bigger archetype in films in America and a bit of a cliche like almost like a weird sort of comedy cliche in a kind of a sad way.

[01:03:50] Right. I feel like there's a tendency for actors to play them like they're the Joker. You know it's just like yes mannered.

[01:03:59] They're putting way too much in the bag and I think the thing that they don't get that rapper port weirdly gets totally right is what you said Micah how small he is you know that this guy's issue.

[01:04:11] It's an implosion when he when he when he becomes a shooter. Yeah. Right. This guy's issue is that he's invisible. He so badly wants to get any reaction out of anybody you know to be able to actually engage with people because yeah.

[01:04:27] Like what is the things that like as he comes to this big college campus from wherever the fuck it was in the woods where his dad taught him how to shoot and what are the things that you would say defends him as a person or like his hobbies or his interests are doomsday prepping and mega death

[01:04:43] and like the like the the Venn diagram for those two things at a normal college campus. You're not going to catch like a whole lot of people and it's just like you know.

[01:05:00] Not that there aren't people that like mega death and like probably carry around hunting knives on campus but like it's going to take you a while to find those people. And he just has no social intelligence whatsoever. Right.

[01:05:15] I mean there's that early scene where he goes to the party and it's that really embarrassing thing that you like we've all witnessed before where like someone just earnestly walks up and goes like hey how's it going.

[01:05:25] And people just respond and go like a social awareness on E bro. It is like. Right. Right. What. Hey how's it going. The energy is just so off putting that he's like yeah basic pleasantries are like what the fuck did you say to me. Exactly.

[01:05:45] He just yeah he can't find a way to get his foot in the door even to make small talk. Yeah I want to know if you guys had this experience with him.

[01:05:55] Michael Rappaport maybe I'm just so used to him now and also it's the fact that he has the straight hair in this movie and I think of him obviously with like the curly hair but he's just like he's jowling and he's bigger.

[01:06:07] I don't even I just you know that's just age but like he's so kind of angular in his nose is very pronounced that when I was watching this movie I was like.

[01:06:16] Is this who's this guy who looks like Michael Rappaport is a thought I had for a second.

[01:06:22] Yeah I was so struck by how alien he looks in this movie in a good way he's kind of unsettling before he cuts his hair honestly when he shaves his hair you're like OK I get it he's I'm sure he's a skinhead now. Right.

[01:06:35] I was just that was like whatever but it's just kind of he's kind of he's he's very striking in this movie. And he also was a guy who very often plays very slight variations on himself right. Yeah usually he's right some aggro New York guy.

[01:06:55] Right people are hiring him to do the Michael Rappaport thing. Except for when he was an alligator poacher from like from from Florida and justified. He was good in that. Yes it was yes he like it was that that show was fun.

[01:07:16] Yeah the best show the most unheralded show of the Golden Age of television is justified one of the great shows of all time not nearly discussed enough mostly remember I feel like for just like.

[01:07:28] Timothy Oliphant is hot Margot Martin Dale wins an Emmy you know what I mean like people don't talk about justified just five rules.

[01:07:36] Yeah but nobody nobody fucking talks about it like Deputy Tim Gunnerson who like like his fucking arc is incredible like the fact that he may or may not be you know working out some.

[01:07:51] Repressed homosexuality and he drinks about it all the time and like it's that shows good. I just think Rappaport is giving a pretty canny performance where he avoids all the pitfalls that actors usually fall into with these parts.

[01:08:10] I chief among them I think is just overloading the shit with mannerisms you know and and ticks and business and whatever and it's like no he understands that this guy needs to be like paper.

[01:08:22] He yeah he doesn't try to do too much with it which like which it's crazy to say that Michael Rappaport is doing subtle did well because restraint like that's.

[01:08:36] It's showing supreme judgment in a very volatile political movie is like you can't believe you're giving him that compliment but yeah he does it really really fucking well and I also think the performance is devoid of any kind of self pitting.

[01:08:53] But in the process it makes the character more tragic not in a way where you feel bad for him necessarily but where you're just like this is a way to get a full cycle right right.

[01:09:04] I mean the moment when Cole Hauser comes up behind him that scene is so well directed where they hold off.

[01:09:10] It's also just the exact cycle we see play out before us now with with how these groups recruit people you know I mean it's just like that that Cole Hauser scene is so well done of just here's this guy sitting outdoors reading a book on steps at night

[01:09:30] and they just like bingo here we go this guy's so ready to be turned into a Nazi this guy is just filled with sadness. What are you reading the Odyssey lot of lot of battles in that book right and this is like oh my God.

[01:09:46] Right and they stay on the back of Cole Hauser's head for so long it makes him feel like such an ominous malicious presence where you just know something's fundamentally wrong here and also who is this guy why is he so interested.

[01:10:01] There could be no good coming of this you know and now this shit just happens in chat rooms instead of on campuses.

[01:10:07] Yes yeah right you look for the shit posters yeah this is the shit with this movie though like where like when Cole Hauser shows up out of the shit.

[01:10:16] And he's like hello I'm like I will come on man but then I'm also like yeah well I also know that's sort of like a thing that goes on you know like. I can't get any fucking message to the. That's all they are now.

[01:10:30] It's one of the things it is like what the like the one of those grace notes that makes the film like feel as pressure like however many years later like those notes like it does like the fact that.

[01:10:46] It's just Cole Hauser and then the group of people like just kind of like aparate out of the dark.

[01:10:52] Yeah like yeah you know like let's go get a drink together and you know you know that that's something's off there there's also one of the one of the scenes I keep thinking about is like when.

[01:11:04] And maybe we're getting a little ahead of our thing here but like when Chris when Chris is like when she's stepping up to the podium to like you know give a speech about her about surviving her assault.

[01:11:21] Like the way that it's shot is like the podium looks like a cliff and on the other side of it like because it's all these people like these women holding these these these picket signs and screaming like you know dead men don't rape this then the other thing and it's just kind of like.

[01:11:39] Okay nobody here is actually there specifically for Kristen except for Jennifer Connelly's character everybody else is here exercising something so like it's like a really important note that the podium looks like a cliff because.

[01:11:54] You're just stepping up to whatever this is on the other side of it is just the unknown you don't know if like it's actually acceptance or understanding or any of these other things like which is a thing I've thought a lot of but like you know because it's just.

[01:12:09] Like she was saying earlier in the movie when Jennifer Connelly's characters is trying to like get her to report or she's like well nothing is going to happen anyway this people are just going to make me feel bad about it.

[01:12:20] Right it feels preemptively futile to even try to do anything about it to even try to reach out to anyone else and even like the the scene after she is assaulted.

[01:12:33] The thing that triggers the sort of sense of retaliation isn't her assault it's it's the you black bitch on the phone. Oh my God I felt like yeah yeah but like Regina King we got a.

[01:12:50] That's it is and the thing is that like it's such a great moment of relief after after that after the assault scene is that she goes and she's crying and like Regina King she's just like I finished my paper early about to like you know I'm all of early so I'm so.

[01:13:08] And like Billy calls and she's just like put her on the phone you black bitch she's like. And then she checks the time. Yeah it's just like oh we can go up this guy's ass right now like.

[01:13:24] Oh and yeah but I mean like obviously nothing that follows has anything to do with Christian but yeah. I like that weird irony. Yes the interesting nuance of the scene for me is that she goes there with them right. Yeah.

[01:13:41] Which you don't feel like was her choice you have to imagine Regina King dragged her she is still an absolute shock she is pretty much still shaking right she's wrapped up in a blanket they bring her with this whole like squad right there like 10 15 people.

[01:13:58] They really just like you know I mean honestly they've been waiting to walk up on like a Billy because and they can like because because Billy's have been running around like showing their ass like for however long ice cube has been in school and he's just like we got a reason now.

[01:14:17] Yeah right right and you know when they're holding him to the ground you know like threatening the punches facing they say like apologize to her. You know apologize to that beautiful black woman and he says I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.

[01:14:30] Just looking at it kind of shell shocked and then they don't invoke her you know they don't say apologize to her. Well because they don't know.

[01:14:38] You know she doesn't say anything right right but it just so quickly becomes something else and then you know she sees Bridget Wilson-Sampras and her other friend there who kind of like are just confused why she caused all this drama and then go back inside the house.

[01:14:55] You know she's sort of being completely ignored in all of this when she's truly the center of it. Just to invoke Leonardo DiCaprio one more time J.R. Ferguson who plays Billy best known to Stan from Mad Men these days I would say.

[01:15:11] Well but David I don't think that's really his best known credit we know what his real best known credit is. Tell me. It's founding member of the Pussy Pussy. Right okay yes for a second I thought you were going to bring up that he's on the Connors.

[01:15:24] That's the only other curveball I was because I know you love the Connors. Yes but- I mean I love Stan I love J.R. Ferguson but yes yes a forgotten member of Leonardo DiCaprio's Pussy Pussy. Is J.R. Ferguson. Yes Pussy Pussy Meredith yes.

[01:15:40] Ice Cube punches him in this movie. I just can't believe that's a thing that we have to seriously refer to. It's a thing it's a part of Hollywood history that we have to just be like the Pussy Pussy.

[01:15:54] Maybe maybe the fourth time we've had no choice but to bring it up on this podcast. It gives me no joy to mention that of course he was a founding member of the Pussy Pussy.

[01:16:06] I gotta say Ice Cube rules in this movie it's partly that he's playing a character who just kind of swings in and out and isn't as affected by the sort of like melodramatic clotting of the movie like-

[01:16:18] He's kind of the Wooderson right? I mean he gets to just be the guy who's just like on his own fucking wavelength running his own thing.

[01:16:27] Yeah and he's funny and he's smart and he's kind of you know intimidating and he's interesting and like I feel like he's just like I get what I need to do in this movie very well this is the year he's in Friday as well and it's just like

[01:16:43] Ice Cube is a movie star. I know this is not news. He gets such a movie star introduction too.

[01:16:51] I mean you go through that party and you make your way out to the back and you only see him from behind and it's just watching him roll while everyone else is in rapt attention

[01:17:01] and you keep on cutting to just reaction shots over his voice different angles of the back of the head. The fist afro pic. Yo man, can you turn the- I got class in the morning and he was just like it's over when it's over. That's his first line.

[01:17:16] Yes that's the first moment he turns around you see his face but they tease it out for so long because Singleton is like you know this is Ice Cube and you know that Ice Cube is a movie star now. We're going to treat him with that respect.

[01:17:29] And you know Ice Cube wrote Friday on Singleton's advice. Singleton was like look if you can write a record you can write a movie you should just do it.

[01:17:36] Like they are still very much like twinned here and I'm trying to think do they- I don't- does Ice Cube do another Singleton movie? I think this is it right? Yeah that's too bad.

[01:17:50] Singleton had said that like Tupac was the guy he wanted to be his the denero to his Scorsese that he wanted to keep working with and yeah he wrote Malik for Tupac and then he also wrote Baby Boy for Tupac

[01:18:05] and Tyrese just becomes his fucking muse for the last half of his career. Yep Tyrese is in like the three of his movies in a row. Yeah yeah but Tyrese totally becomes his guy. But yeah Cube is unreal in this movie he's so fucking good.

[01:18:23] Yeah he is he's great. I mean Micah maybe you completely disagree with me you think Cube is so cheesy in this movie?

[01:18:31] Oh no no no no no I think that like it's really like you know I also like the fact that like Singleton just kind of pokes fun at his character like although he gets to be like this cool interesting intimidating whatever type of character

[01:18:49] he's still a sixth year senior you know nobody knows why like if he ever goes to class you know nobody knows how he pays for anything.

[01:19:01] That's what's great is that like he's like he's like he's like the center of radical thought on this campus but also he's kind of Bluto Blutofsky you know like I was like what's the what does he do anything what's his deal?

[01:19:14] You just get the sense that like he's read all of these books but hasn't interrogated anything that he's read from them sometime like or or is like still in the process of like you know I don't know.

[01:19:30] You get the sense that like Ice Cube's characters in this movie if he read a different book at a different time he'd be a different person.

[01:19:37] I also think that this is sort of a guy who if he were more a careerist would go like oh I should become a professor because clearly I thrive in campus life but instead he's just like.

[01:19:51] He should be on some sort of TA track thing and like instead he's but like he's too angry still. Right right and he's too sort of skeptical of the institutions and so instead he's just like

[01:20:06] a super student a perma student who also just casually sort of like slides off lessons to people who walk by him. And Buster Rhymes is there just kind of chilling with him at all times.

[01:20:19] I was going to say but Buster Rhymes hired just to be able to throw in some big supporting screams when he needs to. Buster Rhymes in the background would be like oh god nigga oh god.

[01:20:31] Like I know he'd been like popping up doing like guest appearances popping up. He's about to be a thing right like you know the first album is like the next year I think. Yeah this is early for him.

[01:20:46] Right like he before then it's what's it called leaders of the new school or whatever his yeah his his early group.

[01:20:55] Very much enjoyed Buster Rhymes energy just a lot of energy in general in this movie which I appreciate one of the guys in the skinhead gang is Andrew.

[01:21:06] What's his name Brinarski who like plays Leatherface you know just like what I just like I just feel like singleton was just like just give me the largest white man you can find like this crew just has one guy who's two guys.

[01:21:22] He let you yeah one guy that looks like he ate the next leg largest guy and he just has like massive rings on every finger and he's just kind of like yeah white power and it's like he's just constantly pink like it's really he's a very unsettling like.

[01:21:42] What's his character's name. Naco his name is Naco. His name his name is Naco. He should just be like in the bleachers at a Yankee game getting really pumped up you know about Bernie Williams but instead he got lost. He's in this fucking garage.

[01:21:58] Oh fuck you don't like that like he has you remember fuck what was that oh like Bruno you remember like the part of Bruno where they go like the MMA match and there's the one guy that they keep panning back to who's like losing his fucking mind on the front row.

[01:22:16] Sasha bro going and like the guys start making out at center and like instead of Reagan he just like so screaming no. Yeah he just like shorts falling yeah and this is like that is not goes energy in this movie.

[01:22:32] Is that the first Bruno shout out on the podcast I feel like that's a first for the blank check.

[01:22:37] I feel like I may brought up because I've always been of the opinion that Bruno is better than Borat but now I think Borat to is better than either Bruno.

[01:22:47] But but I rewatched the whole Baron Cohen canon before Borat to and I still contend that Bruno is better than Borat. I rarely take out that opinion because it is not liked.

[01:22:58] I just want to say I went to Andrew Brunarski's Wikipedia to look up his character name before you guys said it.

[01:23:07] Not go and I well yes so I see here that his name is not go but I was looking at classic Wikipedia filmography grid and I accidentally looked one up on the spreadsheet. Oh that's right.

[01:23:21] I thought his character's name was Zangief and then I realized no just played Zangief. Wait Zangief in the Street Fighter movie? But I was just like man that's a little. The God awful Street Fighter movie?

[01:23:35] Yes yes but he's yes yes he's literally Zangief and I read this and I went well that's a little on the nose that Singleton just named this character Zangief. But it's like no first he played Zangief then he played Naka.

[01:23:49] He also I didn't realize this he plays Christopher Walken's son in Batman Returns. He's Christopher Walken's large adult son doing a Christopher Walken impression in that movie. Oh sure Chip Shrek wow this guy's got a career also.

[01:24:03] I mean the only other thing on this Wikipedia page is he got in a huge fight with Texas Chainsaw Spans when he he got apparently he had beef with the original leather face with Gunnar Hansen who they would get like in fight at cons or something. Wow.

[01:24:21] You see him this he like cheered his death on Facebook. I have to read this I have to read this verbatim Gunner Gunnar Hansen the original leather face died.

[01:24:32] Brunarski on Facebook responded to the death by commenting boo who a fan said to him just get ready Micah a fan said nice of you to insult the legend that is Gunnar Hansen and Brunarski's response was could give zero fuck suck his dead nuts.

[01:24:56] He's he L.E. wet he doubled down. Honestly no no thoughts had empty. Well OK yeah so this is this was then he was getting a lot of backlash to the backlash and then this was him trying to settle the beef.

[01:25:12] He said on Facebook I was a big supporter of his and was cool with him. He was cool with me dot dot dot then he started going around to promote Chainsaw 3D and he started talking shit at cons and whatnot dot dot dot.

[01:25:25] I'm not somebody who takes shit from anybody and I tell it like it is. I originally posted a Facebook comment that said boo who yes no tag just by itself read into it what you will.

[01:25:37] I never wished for his death or suffering from pancreatic cancer which I didn't even know he had let's make that a bigger issue upon his sudden death. Cancer sucks worse than haters y'all have a nice day. Cancer sucks worse than haters.

[01:25:54] I mean that the you're distracting from the real enemy here. Don't get mad at me get mad at cancer is why it sucks worse than haters. He's not wrong honestly honestly you know I'm I'd like I'd like a coffee mug. Is there an Etsy shop.

[01:26:15] Cancer sucks worse than haters y'all have a nice day. I also think there's a real vulgar poetry to eulogizing someone by saying could give zero fucks. Could give zero fucks. Suck his dead nuts. Suck his dead nuts. His dead nuts. I don't know man.

[01:26:35] It's really sad that like he that a guy died from like pancreatic cancer or whatever but like you know I don't know why y'all are like trying to block my shine. You know I'm just. RIP to your RIP to your leather face but I'm different bro OK.

[01:26:57] I've been waiting years for this moment. Don't let me distract you from the real enemy cancer. I can't I can't get over. He's angry. I'm sorry I'm still kind of hung up on that. Cancer sucks worse than haters. He's right. I'm sorry. It's an argument enter.

[01:27:22] Who's going to take the opposite side in that battle. Well he's he plays a he plays a dumb Nazi in this movie that that's his role in this movie a very pumped up Nazi.

[01:27:36] So that's another one of the major characters we've discussed now we've now taken knock off the board. We've discussed all of the major characters really.

[01:27:46] Jennifer Connolly is the one that we haven't really dealt into but the movie kind of just doesn't have time for her like I don't know how else to put it like this is a weird point in her career where she's trying to get into being a grown up actor.

[01:28:01] You know what I mean like I feel like she's only she's still best known as like the girl from labyrinth she's in the rocketeer but she's still kind of like a young teen actor type like she's like a young teen actor type.

[01:28:11] She's in teen movies kids movies and like it's this. This is the period where right.

[01:28:18] Inventing the habits dark city waking the dead recon for a dream like that's her run of she starts playing hyper sexualized characters because she wants to age out of being a child star right.

[01:28:29] And but I guess so I mean she she'd already been in like the hotspot and so but yes absolutely and it's also it's just like I just remember that year when she's in waking for the dead requiem for a dream in Pollock was the year where it's like.

[01:28:41] Oh my God like Jennifer Connelly what a serious talent this person is and like she had not gotten that cred throughout the 90s in the 90s it was more like oh Jennifer Connelly like a famously beautiful woman who was also in labyrinth when she was younger.

[01:28:56] And she's good in this she's very striking I she has nothing to do. She's always good. I just always like Jennifer Connelly she is one of the most just sort of can foundingly attractive people to ever be in movies. But I also just think she's always good.

[01:29:16] She's always got a lot of integrity and presence.

[01:29:19] I you know I mean Singleton said that like it was three hours and they cut it down and the bulk of what got cut out was her and that I really think she was maybe supposed to be like the fourth or fifth major character of this film.

[01:29:34] And he doesn't really delve into it in any of the interviews I read which are all like 25th anniversary retrospective interviews he was doing when this came out on Blu-ray right before he died.

[01:29:44] But the subtext seemed to be that perhaps the thing the studio was most uncomfortable with in this entire movie full of hot button debates was homosexuality that that was just the one bridge too far for them.

[01:29:56] Not remotely surprising I would say that totally tracks for the mid 90s where they're like OK come on come on come on. Right which on top of the fact that it's frustrating to see her be given short shrift because she's very compelling in this movie.

[01:30:09] It also just kind of unbalances the film at large because the first half is so heavy on Swanson. And then it feels like she kind of disappears in the second half of the movie probably because most of her footage was with Connolly. You have to imagine.

[01:30:27] Yes and the movie sort of turns into a school shooter movie like it just kind of has to be dominated by that because that's going to be so dramatic. Like yeah so we can no longer be like us sort of like being like anyway.

[01:30:41] So Remy just basically stuck a gun in Adam Goldberg and Omar Epps's face and ran out of the school. So what's going on with Christie like you know like you can't just kind of like let's hit the B-plot now.

[01:30:57] Yeah it's just kind of like me but let's let's figure out what's happening with Christie's sexual awakening. You know. Right. I do think that love scene is pretty skillful and interesting.

[01:31:09] It's very interesting to the point where you're like oh is half of this fantasy and half a reality like that's initially what I was wondering like is she with Jason Wiles but thinking about Jennifer Connolly and it's like yes.

[01:31:21] No she's just kind of doing both and it's well presented. The problem I have with it more is like it's happening at a point in the movie where I'm like I'm not sure where I am with her character with Christie and Kristen sorry.

[01:31:35] Christie Swanson and I and then it doesn't go anywhere but I like the scene individually. It's just it's a narrative dead end. It's a good set piece.

[01:31:47] I mean there's also there's other interesting stuff there like you set up Regina King sort of homophobia her very casual homophobia with her you know. She is like very much viewing their whole relationship as scant and says like oh thank God when she goes on the date.

[01:32:02] I was like oh I was beginning to worry about you yeah. Right right. David has now changed his virtual background to a picture of Zangief. That's him that's him. Yeah this is Zangief telling him Bison off camera boohoo. Suck my dead nuts. Suck your dead nuts.

[01:32:23] I'm going to kill you and then suck your dead nuts. Yes. And you're gonna have to be happy because at least you didn't die at the hands of the real enemy cancer. That's that's what he's saying.

[01:32:35] Honestly I mean it's it's probably the biggest flaw of the Street Fighter video game franchise right that they never made cancer a playable character. That should be the final battle sequence or whatever. It's the ultimate Street Fighter. Sure. Yes absolutely.

[01:32:55] I mean no one fights more dirty than cancer. That's true. There's a history of cancer in my family anyway. I want to make it clear. I am not making that joke flippantly. Yeah me too. Who haven't we discussed? We pretty much talked about all the main people right.

[01:33:14] We just haven't talked about the shooting sequence I guess. The last 30 minutes yeah. Yeah I mean there's stuff in that that's so effective and feels just kind of like completely

[01:33:27] contemporary like it's mostly the stuff where the cops immediately just grab Omar Epps and start talking to Remy like he's their friend like all that stuff you're just like yeah unfortunately this is you know completely on the money like this doesn't feel over the top at all.

[01:33:43] Like there's other stuff like Tyra Banks you know getting shot like she's willing to phone Platoon where I'm sort of I get I get the the the energy that this movie is dialed up to but I whatever it sort of made me win.

[01:34:03] Like you know not in a good way I did not feel it in the same way. Yeah yeah I agree with that. It's also like I was convinced. Oh this is how the movie is gonna end. Sure.

[01:34:19] You know with the with the sort of Malik and ship looking at each other. And then I was very disappointed that there was 10 minutes following it of characters explaining everything they're thinking. Definitely. I don't know Michael what do you think of the whole fucking thing.

[01:34:38] Well I think that you know but like I agree with about the fact that you know that this is where the movie is going.

[01:34:49] You know from the moment more or less that Remy takes his head off in the library and he's like you know he shaved his head or whatever like it's it's more or less like the movie has just is building momentum up to this point.

[01:35:04] I would even argue from the moment he opens up his shirt in the first shot you see him it's he's just being presented as such an epic loner it feels kind of inevitable.

[01:35:16] Yeah yeah and I mean like I mean like the the the the the stairwell scene that I was talking about earlier and like you know after like the shoot it just has like the like the same feeling of like Night of the Living Dead where you know that shit is going to go south.

[01:35:33] In other words regardless of whether or not he gets his legs in this in the stairwell like the cops are eventually going to show up and then what's going to happen.

[01:35:43] The the other scene I think is really good is you know you have the t-shirt confrontation right which leads to Malik following him back and saying like say it you know you're not being honest with me say it which leads him.

[01:36:00] Yeah it's like I I'd like that scene a lot because it's not like it's obviously like it's not about the t-shirt and it's not about any of the like they're both really like very incredibly anxious and like it's like both actors are also like have like the same sort of like tense breathing.

[01:36:24] I am maybe as scared as you are sort of thing going on but like Malik is obviously in control of the situation because you know Remy is just such a wet noodle like but the.

[01:36:39] It's really just like they're just angry and like you know you want it to be true that this person is saying this shit when you're not around and it probably is I mean look at him but like you know.

[01:36:50] It's also like that's not what it's about right now it's about the fact that he just got you know I forget exactly what it was that happened to him immediately before you know.

[01:37:02] Is it the Seymour Cole how's there sort of questioning his like bona fides where he starts talking about his history with guns. There are two scenes like that.

[01:37:12] Yeah but but like the t-shirt scene right is really good because like although there's all of like the racially charged stuff and like the racist stuff and all the whatever like it really illustrates that it's more about what these individuals are bringing into the interaction like as well.

[01:37:38] Like it's everything else that happened during the day also right and then you have you know like him running out them chasing after him the campus cops stopping Malik of course you know Adam Goldberg having to yell at them.

[01:37:52] To let him go that they don't even realize they've just let you know an armed kid slip by them and then that scene afterwards where they take out the Nazi flag.

[01:38:03] And he does those really striking shots with everyone looking at the night Nazi flag and they're sort of going like oh look what we have here like kind of like half jokingly and then they tell fudge to break it up.

[01:38:16] Like that stuff is really good. That whole stretch to me is really good. The ask it like the them rolling around in the in the in the patrol cars and being like can we see your ID also a good note.

[01:38:30] Yeah yeah but in a way then when it builds up to this like Uber operatic sniper on the roof while the this once an event is happening and Tyra running in slow motion and everything that feels so much less.

[01:38:48] I don't know immediate and vital to me it feels so much more kind of manufactured in its drama.

[01:38:57] I know the I know what you mean like as it feels like after like the personal things like the indignity of like not having enough swipes on your card or having like campus officers harass you or teacher speaks you in a certain way and all the stuff that feels like you know granulated and personal like this is basically

[01:39:27] the world leveling threat. This is the energy spire of racism movies as a shooting like yes yes like the same way that like you would you might say that like a superhero movie is also is almost like a character drama like in the first 45 minutes but then they got to blow some shit up

[01:39:46] right then there has to be a hole in the sky that they need to close or whatever.

[01:39:50] Yeah. Right as someone described on Twitter recently is this superhero movie one of the we have to close the portal ones are one of the we have to bring the orb to the gate movies. Yes yes yes yeah 100%.

[01:40:04] 100% but yes yes it does also feel like once again you know the main cultural touch point for a school shooting a campus shooting at this point is a sniper on the roof in daylight you know hitting people on the on the quad and everything.

[01:40:22] It's weird to watch this now because you feel like well what would probably happen is Rappaport if he gets away with the gun then just proceeds to go from room to room and shoot people.

[01:40:33] You know it's sort of surprising that he just kind of gets away chills out they follow them they find them they beat them up then there's that scene of them sort of taking their licks and getting wound up and then they really challenge him to go do the full the full sniper thing.

[01:40:48] It feels like I mean this movie is pre right like automatic weapon.

[01:40:53] The good combine all you know like that right it's more inspired by like the University of Texas shooting with the tower shooting right the classic that that that is like the butt of jokes for for years that like dark you know gallows humor right like you know be careful he'll you know he'll get a rifle and climb the tower right.

[01:41:13] That's what's so depressing is it's like that was the one big one for 20 years you know and now it's just like there's a new reference point every six months.

[01:41:24] I really get it's really like I felt like like because I hadn't watched in so long and I was they have like the news car on at the end of the news hit at the end of it where they're you know tallying up.

[01:41:38] The debt like you know the fall of the day or whatever and she goes like three dead in one injured or whatever and like it was the most ashamed I felt in a while that I was just like well three dead in one engine that's not that bad yeah.

[01:41:53] Sure right yeah that's that's a very depressing thought. It is odd you brace yourself when he gets up there you're like oh my god he's about to kill 15 people you know.

[01:42:05] It is odd how much of a relief it feels like to watch it today and only have three people get gunned down which is a horrifying beyond the leak.

[01:42:16] But that's I mean I don't know that's all the potency of this movie for me can bind with the fact that it is someone who is just not filtering themselves you know it's a movie that comes out of like like this is like his mother or whatever right like this is like the primal scream.

[01:42:35] Blank check move where it's like I'm just gonna be so fucking angry and just say everything I have to say and I feel like as much as this film is messy in the way those films often are its points are just so. So.

[01:42:52] A tragically potent still and I just think the performances are good and the characters by and large are well observed and I just think. You know a ensemble.

[01:43:07] Within a college campus is the right sort of setting to be able to tell this sort of story I think it is a smarter structure for this kind of like I want to unload all of my frustrations with the world then most filmmakers find when they're in a similar position.

[01:43:27] I like all the ambition.

[01:43:30] I like all that I this movie does not totally work for me and I think it also totally doesn't totally work for me either I wish it was funnier in a weird way not at the end but like yeah kind of I wish I wish there was a little more life in the first chunk of it well.

[01:43:48] That's the boys in the hood does so well like that. Yeah exactly.

[01:43:52] It's the master shirka boys in the hood is that the middle act of it is pretty much a fun hangout movie by and large you know with a sense of dread creeping around the edges but it makes you really get lulled into a sense of security with those guys whereas this movie it's like you know the clock is ticking.

[01:44:10] Michael Rappaport is gonna blow up at some point. Yeah Rappaport is a tough character to have in any movie like that that character anyway I mean Singleton seems to be positive on this movie though right.

[01:44:20] Like I feel I read one of those interviews that you're talking about the 20th anniversary interviews.

[01:44:24] Yeah and I feel like he likes on balance this movie because he's like yeah you couldn't make that now like I'm glad I got that out even though it sort of got everything in it.

[01:44:34] Yeah I think he was very proud of it in that sense and it's just frustrating that it does feel like a movie that is begging for a kind of reclamation that would probably come with him putting together perhaps a cut closer to his original vision.

[01:44:48] But it's like they remastered this for Blu-ray the fucking year he died.

[01:44:53] You know he did press forward he didn't seem to imply that he had a cut that he could easily you know spruce up or that anyone was asking him to reconstruct it and now he's gone it just feels unlikely that someone else would take the effort to do it.

[01:45:08] There's kind of a sweet L.A. Times piece about this movie and from last year I think and just kind of how upsettingly relevant it is to rediscover but it was about Singleton's oldest daughter is named Justice he named her after poetic justice and she discovered this movie at a screen

[01:45:27] and while in the film program at USC after he died which is a pretty profound thing to think about like to be Singleton's daughter be 26 your father's just died young you're following in his fifth steps at his alma mater and you watch this movie for the first time one of his films that you

[01:45:44] hadn't seen and to feel like oh this is like my dad not only speaking to me but making something that speaks as much to all the conditions I'm living in right now. You know and all people my age it's it's a wild thing to think about right.

[01:46:00] Yeah that put a lump in my throat. No that's that's that's wonderful and sad that's very interesting.

[01:46:09] Should we play the box office game Mike do you have any more higher learning thoughts we didn't get to you didn't get to you know drop any any other bombs you want to drop. Do I have any other bombs that I would like to drop.

[01:46:22] Hmm about higher learning. No I don't think I do. No I actually in a thing is that like I was pausing as I was actually thinking I don't think I have anything else.

[01:46:35] We talked it out I mean it's like yeah it's an interesting movie I don't know like this has been an interesting mini series so far in that I do like a lot of the swings he takes post phenomenon instant phenomenon status like it's a tough

[01:46:52] It's a tough way to start your career in a weird way even though obviously let's it make it's tough to be saddled with that expectation of importance you know it wasn't just like oh this guy is like a whiz behind the camera it wasn't just oh this guy makes hits it was like this guy's fucking saying shit

[01:47:10] and I think if you're in your 20s and suddenly that's thrown on you every time you make a movie it's like he makes poetic justice and critics are like what's this this feels weirdly slight from the boys in the hood guy and then this one comes out and critics are like I don't know too much he should have less to say.

[01:47:27] You know it was like already they were kind of like he was in an impossible position it makes sense in a way that he took such a hard swing to like just let me make like popcorn movies you know let me make like action movies.

[01:47:40] And thrillers let me just try to be a really top shelf craftsman doing like good popcorn.

[01:47:47] I think it just probably started to feel a little oppressive to him here's the quote that you're paraphrasing which I found where he said if you look at higher learning which I was 25 years old making it I'm like chock full of everything that would concern young people everything I could put in that movie it was a great movie a fun movie to do but you could never get that movie made now never the guy shoots everybody know what I mean.

[01:48:09] Yeah he sure does. So this alright good if this movie came out January 13 1995 I assume that's Martin Luther King Day weekend. His earlier movies are both summer movies right boys in the hood was to right yeah yeah both.

[01:48:28] Yeah it's kind of surprising that they would release this in January you feel like they would think of this as like an Oscar play but I guess maybe.

[01:48:37] From test screenings and whatever they knew it wasn't getting that buzz it just bizarre to release it like two weeks into January for a pretty high brown movie at least on its in theory you know. But that's where it is so.

[01:48:51] Yeah this is an interesting top five okay so it's opening number two at the box office $13 million 17 in the four day. And it makes like 40 domestic 38 domestic yeah.

[01:49:04] But the number one movie is one of those movies people just don't remember exist but it was a big hit it's a big period epic with some two big stars an Oscar winner and a young hottie.

[01:49:19] Now I'm assuming this is a holdover from the end of 94 from the holiday season or is this. It is it is it's in its fourth week but I think this is the first week it's going wide so it's jumped to number one.

[01:49:33] Because it's added like the fall it's legends of the fall Ed's with the hotties Brad Pitt Wow this is Anthony. This is how my brain works this is my only.

[01:49:44] I mean like the thing is that like despite my knowing despite my knowing that movie and having seen it a bunch of times I would have never been able to place an awful like that scant of a description and the thing is probably just because

[01:49:59] like I wasn't watching movies like that and 95.

[01:50:03] It's a two pronged thing one is that I mean I am similarly young I wasn't aware of this when it came out but I obsessively study box office charts for fun or at least did for the better part of like my teen years and early 20s.

[01:50:20] So now this stuff is burned into my brain. The other X factor now is now at this point David and I are like an old married couple and I sometimes guess what movie it is based on how David describes it.

[01:50:32] Because of what it alludes to in the movie itself but I just think like what would David think of this movie. I feel that that's beautiful. He would call Legend of the Fall two hotties being hot. It's not a good movie.

[01:50:45] Right but that's I just immediately you said to it's two hotties and I went it's Pitt Norman. I know exactly what David's thinking. So yeah I don't know I feel like it's mostly known for like the score these days right.

[01:51:00] Mostly known for the score in his hair right. His hair and it was like Orman's big debut and everyone thought she was going to be the next big thing and that didn't really happen. Aiden Quinn was going to be a thing too. He was he was coming up.

[01:51:15] All right. Number two is higher learning number three also knew this week also from a black director unusual probably to have in the 90s two movies in the top five from black directors. It's a horror movie. I don't want to say much more. It's a horror comedy.

[01:51:36] It's a horror comedy. It's not sort of. Lightly satirical perhaps. It's hard to describe this movie without describing it which would immediately give it away. It's a black director though that gives it away. It's a black director. Is it a slasher movie. No.

[01:51:59] It's a horror movie with a black director in 1995 that is somewhat comedic. And is it a one off does it have sequels. It has a sequel. It's based on a TV show and it has a sequel. It's based on a TV show and it has a sequel. Yes.

[01:52:22] That's a horror comedy. Yes. But don't worry too much about comedy because it's sort of like that's sort of complicated. This is so hard to describe.

[01:52:33] I'm just trying to think even through like black directors working in the studio system in the early 90s and it's like OK so Friday's the same year it's not F. Gary Gray it's not Spike Lee it's obviously not single 10. It's not an earnest Dickens Dickerson movie is it.

[01:52:50] It is an earnest Dickerson movie. Fuck I was looking at Ernest Dickerson's filmography today. Oh is it the Tales from the Crip movie. Yes what's the subtitle. Fuck it's called Demon Knight. It's Demon Knight that is the movie.

[01:53:11] Billy Zane Jada Pinkett CCH Pounder William Sadler Dick Miller Thomas Hayden Church every talk. It's all happening. Yeah Demon Knight opening big for Tales from the Crip movie. Ten million dollars. Nobody's mad. That's number three.

[01:53:34] They thought this was going to work and then Bordello of Blood killed it so hard we forgot to mention this when we did our Tales from the Crip episode for Zemeckis but you know what the third Tales from the Crip movie was supposed to be right that was lined up and ready to go.

[01:53:47] I don't. I don't know if you mentioned this what was it. We didn't mention this the Frightners.

[01:53:52] Oh yes I yes I right right we didn't mention that I did know that Peter Jackson's the Frightners was supposed to be the third Tales from the Crip movie and then Zemeckis was like I think you got a good thing here you should make it stand on its own and not tie it to the Tales from the Crip thing and he made that decision right before Bordello of Blood which was very smart.

[01:54:13] Right right right right like then Bordello of Blood came out and would have killed its chance to get me anyway anyway. Demon Knight.

[01:54:20] Demon Knight number fourth box office was number one the previous weekend it is it has dropped it has added 3% to its total it is a word of mouth smash hit comedy. It is it was a December release it's in its fifth week. What is it Griffin. Huh.

[01:54:40] It's not is it a Jim Carrey. It is. Is it dumb and dumber. It's dumb and dumber the third of his 394 releases because it's Ace Ventura at the top of 94 the mask in the summer dumb and dumber at Christmas that was his 1994. Right it's bananas bananas bananas.

[01:55:01] Crazy crazy opening there from Jim number five is an Oscar holdover it's expanding this week it's getting a best actor nomination for sure for its star.

[01:55:14] Who is a legend it's a sort of comedy drama I auditioned for this movie in that weird way where like someone came to my school you know to PSA seven children yeah yeah and like talk to some kids one by one in like an empty classroom you know what I mean and then later my dad was like.

[01:55:35] Yeah you were auditioning for that movie that you know that they were looking for a kid for that movie.

[01:55:40] Yeah they did that unsurprisingly at my the fucking gross precocious New York private middle school for Royal Tannin bombs and I absolutely blew it because I knew it too well and wanted it too badly like they were like we're just looking

[01:55:57] They were like no get this get this kid out of here. Yeah they all had cast of people just just swinging by your school like it's New York man.

[01:56:04] Yeah yeah I mean look I went I did not go to private school but yes but still I may feel like it's just New York they're just like let's just swing through New York City and like we'll we'll just we'll find some precocious as kid right. Right.

[01:56:22] I just feel like they were looking for precocious kids and they were looking at all these different schools and they came and I like recognized from the flyer like oh this is the new Wes Anderson movie because I'm a 12 year old Wes Anderson fuck.

[01:56:32] And I was like oh I love Rushmore and they were like yeah automatically disqualified. Well I saved Latin what did you do. I was quoting shit I had my own fucking punctuality pen and they were like out of here you're not in this movie. Anyway what's the movie.

[01:56:48] It was like Bart Simpson trying to get cast as fallout boy. I was walking in with the pinstripe suit and the tiny dog. Okay I'm sorry the movie the actor gets the nomination. I think it also gets a screenplay nomination. It's not Mr. Hollens Opus is it.

[01:57:05] No it's not it's it's not as well known a movie as that it's not a bad movie but it's a it's kind of forgotten it's one of those nominations for this actor and he must have like 10 or something you know he was nominated many times where you're like oh yeah right oh yeah that one yeah sure sure.

[01:57:23] He would have won for this but he'd already won yeah he's dead. He's dead he had already won at this point it's in the 90s he was legendary it was one of many.

[01:57:34] 10 nominations this guy got in his career plus he won an honorary award and a humanitarian award. But did he ever is a Paul Newman. It's Paul Newman. It's not nobody's fool is it. It is nobody's fool why wouldn't it be nobody's fool.

[01:57:51] I thought of that earlier and for some reason I think of that movie as being earlier. I don't think of that being 94 yeah I actually like that movie a lot.

[01:58:01] Yeah that movie is pretty good right Bruce Willis yeah isn't it like kind of making an effort because he's an Paul Newman movie like yeah I like that movie. But now I'm just imagining a little a little Sims being sprinkled in David.

[01:58:13] Yeah I don't even know who they brought in for that movie who I could have I could have vaulted to start him. Maybe you were reading for the Bruce Willis part and they just decided to flip it a very different way. Went into a different direction.

[01:58:27] Anyway yeah I'm just even looking for anyone who would have been young at the time of the Alexander Goodwin born 1987 this has to be. That sounds right I was born in 88 yeah 86 yeah.

[01:58:39] Yeah he's in this he's in Mimic he's in I'm not wrap up or anyway you could have you could have been Alexander Goodwin there but for the grace of God go you.

[01:58:51] Thank God I was not but that's I just I just remember it later that my dad was like oh no that was for like that movie nobody's fool that time that the whole third grade from PS87 was rounded up or whatever yeah that was you.

[01:59:06] Yeah you must have felt like somebody's fool when you heard that that's the movie you had almost been cast in.

[01:59:16] Absolutely and thank you for saying that and it was brave that you said that I want to say that the other movies in the top 10 this week were house guests which I saw in theaters and thought was a masterpiece disclosure.

[01:59:27] One of the wildest movies ever made a little women the crew you know Claire Danes little women. Kristen Dunn's the jungle book the live action jungle book which I also saw in Peterson scared the shit out of me this summer's movie.

[01:59:43] Terrified good movie in my memory just absolutely wild to think like you know in the last decade they're like here we're doing like a big happy family state of the art special effects showcase jungle book.

[01:59:56] Movie and in the 90s they were just like we're just gonna put Jason Scott Lee on camera with a bunch of wild animals and hope that nobody's gonna fight a tiger.

[02:00:04] It was like almost roar you know yeah I pulled up the trailer for that movie a couple times because I've been like did that really exist or am I misremembering it and you watch the trailer and you're just like it is astonishing that no one was scalp during the production of this film.

[02:00:18] It's just him doing long scenes with like a bear in a jaguar. That's that's great. Yeah wild and far from home the Adventures of Yellow Dog that's new this week at number 10 far from home the Adventures of Yellow Dog with Jesse Bradford.

[02:00:33] I could forget a title like that far from home the Adventures of Yellow Dog. Like saying it. Micah thank you so much for being on the show. Of course of course of course thank you for having me. Thank you so much swinging in higher learning for for enrolling.

[02:00:48] People should listen to sound only they should read your work on the ringer credits I will never ever forget to associate with you again in my life. I appreciate it Griff that's that's that's what we call that's what we call growth you know we're some higher learning.

[02:01:07] This episode is dropping in like May but I do you got you and Justin did just talk about Malcolm and Marie that was the episode I was just listening to. Justin Sharady friend of the show passing Future Guest.

[02:01:24] We did we did yell at each other for a while about Malcolm and Marie.

[02:01:28] But look David by the end of May we're still going to be trying to unpack Malcolm and Marie I mean this is one of those it's a sticky text we're not going to let go of this one. Absolutely.

[02:01:40] Can't we can't we can we please just to a sticky text Malcolm and Marie. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate review and subscribe.

[02:01:52] I realize I realized recently I've been trying to improve my diction on the outro because I feel like I've started slurring all my words together and you want to show whatever right that's one of the ticks I've realized is I no longer say the D and and subscribe.

[02:02:05] I go rate review and subscribe like it's my a lady's name and subscribe please remember to rate review. And subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media. Thank you to our editing team Alex Baron and AJ McKinnon. Thank you to Joe Bonaparte Reynolds for our artwork.

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[02:02:49] And then the brakes tune in next week for Rose Wood. And as always I could give zero fucks. Suck his dead nuts. Thank you. Cancer sucks worse than haters.