Blank Check with Griffin & David - Boyz n the Hood with Aisha Harris

Episode Date: May 9, 2021

Join us as we pour one out for John Singleton, the subject of our new miniseries - PODZ N THE CAST. Griffin and David welcome Aisha Harris (NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour) to chat about Singleton’s iconic debut feature, which saw him Oscar-nominated straight out of film school at the age of 24. Take that, Orson Welles. Griffin also lays out his “Cloverfield Monster” theory of movie-watching, and the boys discuss the reasons for Ice Cube’s success as a movie star (“great sneer!”) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

any fool with a dick can make a baby but only a real man can record a podcast. Yeah, definitely true. Thank you, Griffin. I mean, they're words to live by. I feel like podcasters overall as a breed are renowned for their maturity, right? Right, definitely. There is a grave, solemn responsibility. Right. And it's so hard to do one. It's not like anyone can make a podcast.

It's very it's very, very difficult to do. You have to be so skilled. You have to I mean, you have to do it with a very steady hand. You know, podcasts, they can't be indulgent. They can't be formless. They can't be overly long and rambling. You know, you really have to record a podcast with great caution and consideration. Thank you, Furious Griff. Furious Griff. It is. I did. I did not put together that he started out his career with Furious Styles and then went

too fast and too furious. He did go Too Fast. Later, that's true. Right. It's just nice that he, because he didn't get to direct the first Fast and Furious movie. Because he,

Furious is in his wheelhouse, right? That he gets to do a Fast and Furious movie. Right. Yes, absolutely. Because I imagine he goes in for the meeting on Too Fast and they go, we don't know,

it might be tough for someone to just go straight to two without doing one. And he's like, no, no, no, I did one Furious. Right. Exactly. I can do two furious. Who are we talking about, Griffin? We're talking about John Singleton, ladies and gentlemen, one of the most prestigious directors in American history. I mean, he still is the youngest Academy Award nominee for Best Director ever. True. He also was nominated for Screenplay, and I guess Nicky Reed beats him on that record,

but otherwise he must still be the second youngest, right? That's funny. Oh, I didn't think of that. Of course, Nicky Reed. Remember that? Yeah, but there can't be anyone else younger than him who's nominated, right? For Screenplay? I don't know.

Maybe a child wrote a screenplay and won an Oscar. I don't know every nomination. I'm sorry. I did forget that Green Book was written by five men in a trench coat. Five little boys stacked up on top of each other in a trench coat. Trying to order a pizza and they accidentally wrote a screenplay. Hello, I'm Nick Valawonga. I'm a grown up. Wait, why is she Valawonga. I'm a grown-up.

Wait, why is she not? Why am I not? She didn't get nominated, Griffin. Nikki Reed, not nominated. No, they never nominated 13 for screenplay. Okay, so then Singleton probably has the screenplay record as well, I'm guessing. Now I'm going to look it up, but keep talking. I was so certain that 13 got that nomination.

Interesting. It didn't. It got shut out. Only Holly Hunter. Yeah. John Singleton, the youngest man, the youngest director period ever nominated for uh an academy award uh the first african-american ever nominated for best director a massive blockbuster uh success a cultural tidal wave and it's his first movie he's right out of film school uh you know david it's

been said that this is blank check a podcast about filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks make whatever crazy passion projects they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby and a few people represent that thesis more than this guy. Absolutely. He blank check out of the gate in a way. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Absolutely. And that's why we've always talked about him. Not only had a blank check career wise, but kind of became a celebrity. You know? I do know. I'm furiously trying to figure out who is the youngest screenplay nominee ever. And I guess like the age of writers is less like public. Maybe that's why this is harder.

But carry on. Carry on. Yeah. The age of writers sounds like a like an eighth Transformers sequel. A bad one. What's the name of this miniseries? We haven't decided. I'm realizing right now we have not decided.

There's a may series see i thought you would just have something on the films of john singleton i didn't think about obviously we could call it two pod two cast but then it sounds like a more of a fast and furious miniseries which is disrespectful to the rest of the man's work i think but yeah pods in the cast i mean that's the obvious the obvious is you do do P-O-D-Z and the cast. Because most of his movies have one, two words. They're short titles. Right, and if we called it podcast, we'd have to put parentheses underneath it,

next to it to make it clear if it was the 70s version, the 2000 version, or the 20... Do you get the joke? Yeah, I do. Three Shaft movies all have the same title. The only delineation is the the year how about how about uh podetic just cast no no no no all right no takers i just i mean ben i want you to think about how difficult it was for you to say that right now it rolled right off

the tongue i think it's called Pods in the Cast. I think that's what this is called. But I'm also going to introduce our guest and see if they have any alternating opinions. You know her as a co-host of Pop Culture Happy Hour on NPR and a great critic in her own right in various places. Folks, please welcome on to the show, Yasha Harris. Hello, hello, hello. Pod, in various places. Folks, please welcome onto the show, Yasha Harris. Hello, hello, hello. Pods in the cast.

We didn't think about this. I think it has to be, right? Yeah, I mean, Potty Boy? Potty Boy? I don't know. Potty Boy is funny. Or Potty Boys. Podcasty Boy.

With a Z. But I might want to save that name for when I do my podcast about sitting on the potty. That's like my own show I'm going to do at some point. I have the answer. And unsurprisingly, the answer is John Singleton is the youngest nominee. But can you tell me the youngest winner in Best Screenplay? The youngest winner in Best Screenplay. Let me ask you, are they also a director?

These days they are. But they weren't at the time. No, they're also best known as an actor. That was going to be my follow-up question. It's Matt and Ben? But which? Oh, Matt. They aren't identical twins it's not matt it's ben affleck the youngest

winner of original screenplay he was 25 now i have another uh follow-up here uh joseph mankiewicz is the youngest writing nominee ever younger than singleton nominated at the age of 22 for writing skippy the jackie cooper movie yes in 1931 so he's the youngest ever and jackie coogan is still the youngest acting nominee ever right uh look griffin don't make me look up more tale i know he's young wasn't it yeah kavanjane's you know you know there's been a lot of uh i think cooper's the youngest lead Kavon Janay? The year that it was shot that age, when it played at Sundance and when she got nominated is a three year span. She was nominated at age nine, much like Jackie Cooper. Uh huh. That's a matter of months then.

Right. Yeah, she was six. But I like that it was the other Mank that that is the actual youngest writer ever nominated. Hot Mank. We all saw Mank. There was there was, you know, there was regular Mank and ever nominated. Hot Mank. We all saw Mank. There was regular Mank, and then there was Hot Mank. Yeah, yeah.

One of them was Hot. Do you think that was Fincher's pitch to Netflix? Like when they pitched the King Arthur reboot? They were like, Ah, Mank. I don't know. And he's like, Don't worry, don't worry.

There's a Hot Mank, too. They're like, It, Mank, I don't know. And he's like, don't worry, don't worry. There's a hot Mank, too. They're like, it's a big family. Eventually we'll be able to do the movie about Ben Mankowitz hosting at the movies. Well, it's like two popes. It's like two Manks. Yes. One is hot, one is not. Right.

But then also it's like, it's also like the young pope. You know, it's like they were saying, like, what if we could combine the two Popes, the new Pope and the young Pope with no Popes? They're all monks. Yes. Affleck, the youngest winner. He was 25 years old. Who's the oldest winner? It just happened.

The oldest winner was the King's Speech guy. No, it's James Ivory. He won when he was 89 freaking years old for right. Call me by your name. Remember? And he wore a T-shirt with Timothee Chalamet's face on it. I forgot that that won. It won.

Yeah, me too. It was his sort of career Oscar. He'd never won an Oscar. Yeah, that's wild. Pod's in the cast. Aisha's here. We're talking Boys in the Hood. We're talking John Singleton.

Is there anything else we need to set up? Yeah. You have been a big proponent of this film uh not that you're alone in that but i feel like you've written about in a lot of places i've seen you tweet about it very often you wrote the piece a couple years ago of trying to establish the new black canon and wrote about how this movie needs to be like regularly discussed as one of the big directorial debuts of all time. Absolutely. Which it is. And I think to some degree, it's enduring success as like a mainstay of cable.

You know, it's become one of those movies that people just watch over and over again on TV has diminished in people's minds how much of a shockwave this was to come out of nowhere, you know, from a dude just out of film school. For sure. I mean, Cable was actually the first way that I saw this movie. Same here. And I didn't every time I rewatch it now from the beginning to the end, I always forget

about the first part of the movie, which is when they're kids. Yeah. When they're kids, when they're like there's the first 30 minutes or so is you know trey styles as a young kid tearing it up in the uh in class and then being sent to live with his his dad and i always forget about that because for whatever reason i always came into it on cable in the middle like usually by the time they were all adults. And so but but it's 30 minutes. And then and I really think those first 30 minutes are so crucial to setting the scene for for the Furious Styles character, for the relationship between him and his mom.

I just I just think it's really, really great. But I do think that the last third and I'm sure we'll get into this, but the last third of the film is probably the best parts of the film. Like, it's the most consistently great. I will promise you we will get into the last third. We're not going to not talk about one third of this movie. Isn't there the whole thing where they shot it in sequence and he's like i'm literally a better director by the end of the movie like i was learning as i went essentially and like i i feel like you can watch essentially watch me become a more confident filmmaker as the movie goes yeah it's pretty fascinating in that regard i mean so rarely is a film shot in sequence and so rarely is someone's

first film shot in sequence where you are seeing that arc of someone gaining trust in their own storytelling skills, you know, as it goes on. I yeah, this is a good movie. I yeah, yeah, it's a good movie. I'm trying to remember. I think I probably also first saw on cable my first memory of this movie and this is slightly embarrassing but we were talking oscars is um that in the mid 90s i'm sure you may or may not remember there was i must have been like nine years old i'm watching the oscars christopher reeve comes out he'd recently been injured he's in his wheelchair and he's you know everyone gives him a big ovation and my parents just sort of explained to me like oh this is who this is and here's why this

is you know like they're trying to lay out the information and he's like he gives the classic cornball kind of like the aussie and the hollywood is so good and they make movies about you know socially relevant things and he's introducing a montage do either of you remember this vaguely i would have been too young yeah right fair enough i definitely didn't watch it live i've almost definitely watched it on youtube in the last five years they play a montage and i'm sure if i saw this montage as a grown-up i tried to find it but all those montages are like you know scrubbed from the internet like i'm sure if i watch it now i'd be like oh this is the usual sort of oscar cornball crap but when i was nine it blew me away and it has ricky getting shot in it and like ricky

you know like that's in it and i had never seen boys from the hood and i was like that looks like the craziest movie i was just like that movie looks like it shouldn't like exist it's so extreme i was like so my mind was so blown by it and i have never forgotten it and every time i watch boys in the hood i'm i mean obviously it's an iconic scene but that that was my first introduction did Christopher Reeve offer a spoiler warning I was gonna say spoiler spoiler alert it was shocking I think that's why I was so shocked I was like is that like at the end of the movie? I don't I don't know. I just remember it blowing my mind. That's a Clark Kent-esque goof up. That's not Superman behavior.

Clark Kent spoils a movie for you by accident. It is. It is also. I was texting with Richard Lawson today because he watches the ceremonies for Banning Fair every year. And I was like, do you remember this? And he's like, yes. And he's like, why did Christopher Reeve? It's like, I'm Christopher Reeve.

Obviously, I've been through this terrible thing. Luckily, the Oscars make movies like Philadelphia and Boys in the Hood. OK, I mean, that's sure. It's so funny when you say that, though, because it's like the two of you, Ayesha, David, you write and speak about movies for a living. And and I work in this stuff and make more of a living speaking about it now and all this stuff and now i feel like when they trawl out one of those like montages i'm like get the fuck over yourself montages are the best they're my favorite part i want to make this clear i love the montages i love the montages a back patty montage can be a bit much but i do love a montage what i tend to

roll my eyes at are the speeches before the montage the exact christopher reeve thing love like you don't understand this is important the montage itself i'm always down for when they do the back patty uh intro it always makes me like roll my eyes a little bit but when i was like fucking six i would go like yeah movies are the most important things in the world like the intros would make me tear up and i'd be like this is like four score and seven years ago people are gonna be remembering this speech for the rest of time movies make a difference this is the power of cinema i love i love the power of cinema guys look we love movies and i think i also probably did not see this movie in full for for years because i probably only was seeing it on tv yeah and it's like that i've also only seen like

the first 20 minutes of like hook once yeah you know i only watched that shit on cable it's a long movie such a long movie but it's so good i watch i watch it recently and i forgot there's like a half hour of him as a you know as a grown-up before he gets to neverland the best part of the movie no rufio forever well rufio is really good look we can't get into hook right now you have to come back for hook when we eventually do hook because clearly there's just a lot to litigate yes yeah can i introduce a new term i've thought about this in my head a couple times but i feel like i wanna i wanna make it officially part of our lexicon for for movies like this because i also had seen this on cable over the years but uh out of order piecemeal and then i like kind of constructed it in my head watching it tonight i realized i

think this is the first time i properly sat down and just watched this movie from beginning to end with complete intentionality i think that form of watching a movie we should call it the cloverfield monster because you only see bits and pieces you never see the whole thing at one time it's like the the parable of the elephant or whatever right in your head you're like i've seen the whole thing at one time it's like the the parable of the elephant or whatever right in your head you're like i've seen the whole thing i put i could put it together but so i i had cloverfield monstered this uh but but yeah it wasn't until i started watching this and especially that that opening 30 minutes that i was like oh i've never really given this movie the the full respect it deserves a fully focused viewing not just flipping between a couple channels or jumping in late.

Oh, wow. Actually, the last time I saw it before rewatching it for this podcast, I saw it last in 2016, I think, on the big screen. And John Singleton was there. He did a Q&A afterwards. It was fantastic. I was like, oh, glad I got to get that in before. Unfortunately, he passed. So, yeah, it is also bizarre that he only died two years ago.

Like he obviously died way too young. But something about how long 2020 was makes it feel like he died five years ago. Yeah. When I looked up the date and was like that was 18 months ago it kind of blew my mind yeah it was so weird when he died but it was also so i mean the arc of his career is so strange and that when he sort of stops making movies you know you know i know he was still working on stuff yeah obviously he's working in television he was sort of talking about like oh you know i'm working on a new movie etc but like it was like

oh well yeah sure john singleton he's been making movies forever and it's like no he was not that old yes 51 you know yeah of course not when he died but also just when he stopped making movies uh when he's not that old when abduction comes out he's the age that many people might start in the industry so you know what i mean and and and there's six years between abduction and four brothers you know i mean right it's profound how big a career he had considering how early we lost him and you know just sort of our you know the up and downs of his career like you know that by the end he was more just doing like genre films like uh after the earlier part.

Right. Yeah. I was watching this thing on the the 4K steelbook, which I guess was for some anniversary. It might have been released around the time when you saw the screening. Was it was it an anniversary thing? Was it like a 25th or something? Yeah, it would have been 2016. So that would have been the 25th anniversary yeah i think this was released around that time and they have a really good retrospective feature where everyone was interviewed where they get cuba and cube and nia long and morris chestnut and uh and john singleton they're all speaking really can't regina king uh i mean uh lawrence fish. Obviously, this was like such a launching pad for so many careers. Careers, absolutely.

Right. And they're all sort of talking like 25 years later, the perspective they have of how much they didn't realize what the movie was going to be at the time and how much they couldn't process the success because it was such a whirlwind, all that sort of stuff. But Singleton said in it, which I'm guessing was around 2015 or 2016, like when I was young and I had this prodigious success and everyone viewed me as like, you know, oh, you're an auteur, you're the young black Orson Welles, right? This is what you're going to do. You're going to make important issues movies that he kind of resented that because his dream of his career was to have like some sort of Howard Hoxie, very varied. I can do every genre. I can experiment in a bunch of different things.

And then you look at his career and it's like he makes like the four complete blank check movies, right? Like he makes Boys in the Hood, Poetic Justice, Higher Learning, Rosewood are the like, I have a real story to tell. He's fitting into the industry's perception of what a John Singleton movie is. And then it feels like he almost strategically is like, I need to do big blockbusters, you know? It's funny, like outside of Baby Boy is the outlier. And then in TV, he starts to get back to like more dramatic roots. But that I think he really

wanted to show people that he could do different types of things. And to a certain degree, he then got stuck in it, you know? I guess. I mean, he's also he's the start of that 90s generation of filmmakers who came up on Spielberg and, you know, Star Wars and blockbusters and like, you know, that that that I mean, the other guys are going to come a little later because he started so young. But like M like m night shamalan or i'm trying to think of like the sort of big 90s breakout directors well tarantino i mean fits into this yeah but yeah no tarantino i'm sure come on help me out here griffin who are who are hot 90s directors my brain is fried brad soberling director of casper i mean if we're talking like the canonical directors of the 90s. The Wachowskis, sure.

Wachowskis, yeah. Baz Luhrmann, Robert Rodriguez, you know, people like that where it's like. Levinson, yeah. Yeah. And they're like, you know, they came of age with the, you know, the opening weekend big blockbuster. Like, you know, but there's no generation before that that would have had that in the rearview mirror if that makes sense i i think there's another part to this too which is orson welles it was so legendary that he was this boy wonder that he hit so big so early but then kind of could never climb out of the shadow of that original success right

kane haunts him for the rest of his career. He can never match it again. Well, and Mank, he had Mank on his tail. Well, old Mank. Yes, but that's right. We'll cover that story when the adventures, the new adventures of old Mank comes out. That's Netflix 2025.

But Spielberg does offer this new model of like, here's a kid who snuck onto the lot, was directing Night Gallery when he was 20 and was the biggest director in the world by the age of 25, right? So those people you're talking about, M. Night and Singleton and Wachowskis and whatever, I think are really looking to the Spielberg thing of like, oh, you can kind of make yourself that quickly. You can be filled with vim and vinegar and just like march into the studios and tell them I'm ready to make a movie. And you might be able to. Fincher, yes.

You know, you also can't discount, you know, him singleton coming out of the L.A. film movement and the L.A. Rebellion. So he had yes, he had Spielberg, but then he also had all these black artists from the 70s and 80s who were making films that had a message in the same way that he did. Charles Burnett, you know, all these filmmakers, Gordon Parks. So he definitely kind of borrows from both of those. And then, of course, you can't really talk about John Singleton without talking about Spike Lee and how something like Do the Right Thing opens the door for him two years later to to do that. That's the thing that's so wild, right?

Like you sort of forget that just in the context of these few years that, like, when Do the Right Things comes out, like, major studios are like, well, we don't make political movies anymore, essentially. And, like, Do the Right Thing is them being like, oh, is there a sea change? Like, you know, it's

he says it, I feel like, in every interview I've ever read with him, where he's like, you know, Boys in the Hood gets made because Do the Right Thing had hit so big. Yeah. Like that that had sort of changed everything. When there's such fundamentally different movies. But it was that thing. I mean, it's like when you hear about, you know, like the post-Easy Rider revolution in Hollywood, where they were like, oh, my God, kids like these movies that are angry and political.

And suddenly the bean counters were like, I don't know, hire angry young people. Let them make movies, you know, until it wore out. And it felt like after Do the Right Thing, they're just like, oh, well, I guess like the African-American audience has something to say, like fine filmmakers who have something to say. Yeah, it's it's it's like a blessing and a curse because it's great that that opened the door for him. But then they all get lumped in together under like, quote unquote, hood movies. I mean, not so much Spike Lee, but then what Boys in the Hood obviously births is like, then you have the Hughes brothers and Menace to Society. And like, I'm trying to think of the other sort of quintessential 90s.

Well, there's like Dead Presidents. Yeah. Right. Dead Presidents is really, is such a good movie. is fantastic i love juice juice is good i mean the thing is these movies are great but it is it's it's just how hollywood always moves right they always just like move as a sort of like oh let's copy them or let's do more of this right you know and then yeah as you say everyone just kind of gets swept into one bucket and then then it's like, well, do you have a message for us? And what if a filmmaker is like, no, I don't want that's not what I was looking to do.

You know, but I just want to make House Party. Come on. Right. Exactly. But I think you see, like, if you're Reginald Hudlin, you start with House Party. You're like, can I be taken a little more seriously? If you're John Singleton, you start with Boys in the Hood. You're like, can you let me make a Fast and Furious movie? You know, I think there's this like

rebellious attitude of like, let me make something that doesn't have any larger point behind it. This this sounds like Malcolm and Marie. Have you have you seen that movie yet? Oh, my God. We we don't need to get into it. But, you know. No, let's let's get into it for five seconds. Did you like Malcolm? And what did you think of that movie that I had to watch this week? Oh, I did not like that movie. No, it's not very good.

It's not very good. And the thing about it is, you know, and I I'm reviewing it for NPR and we also have an episode on it. But, you know, my my whole thing is a lot of what is happening in that movie by Sam Levinson, who is Barry Levinson's son. Sure. What's happening in that movie is them like they're saying true things like, yes, all of these black filmmakers, even today, still get pigeonholed. You know, Ava DuVernay has talked about how every time she's interviewed, no one wants to talk about the actual craft of her work and what goes into the technical aspects. Everyone's like just talking about the message and she wants to be taken seriously both for her message and for her art. So all that is true. But then when you have it being spouted in the most hackneyed, ham-fisted way, yelled,

cussing, all this. And in between, they're like, anyway, like, what the fuck is up with our sex life? They scream about that. I mean, but yes, it is essentially Sam Levinson is making a movie about how it's hard to be a Black director in, like, modern Hollywood. So weird. With Denzel Washington's kid. It's just weird. Yes.

Yes. It looks nice. Looks very nice. Yeah, they're both beautiful. And the house is beautiful. Very. They look great. The house is cool. I also I'll say philosophically, that's kind of the only sort of movie I feel like should be getting made in the midst of a pandemic. Well, yes. Right. Like that sounds like a safe production. I don't know if that's a huge recommendation for the viewing experience. You'll feel ethical while watching it. You won't feel bad.

Exactly. I mean, you could honestly put it on mute. Yeah. Maybe put some music over the back or just any music you like and like have a good time because they are these two very striking, very good looking on, you know, good actors walking around. And, you know, the photography is very crisp. Maybe maybe that's the approach with Malcolm and Marie. I've heard someone who actually did that.

They turned off the sound halfway through and were just like, you know, put on an LP. I don't know. They can just sort of play out in the background. Can I throw out a theory? Something I was thinking on during this. This whole generation of 90s African-American directors that we're talking about, right? Like Singleton and the Hughes brothers, you know, Spike Lee entering the second decade of his career. Ernest Dickerson starting to direct these things himself.

And you also have like Robert Townsend. I mean, I know he starts in the late 80s, but like guys like that, you know. He was still directing in the 90s, but yeah. Yeah, he was. He absolutely was. He just started a little earlier, but yeah. I think all of them, if we're talking about, you know, these guys getting pigeonholed, right, and feeling limited

in the perception of the societal weight and responsibility their movies need to hold, I think these guys all kind of get fucked by Don't Be a Menace, too. I think Don't Be a Menace just kind of flattens all of these films out into feeling like, oh, it's a genre with cliches now. And even though I think it's an affectionate parody, it makes people feel like, oh, are these movies mechanical? And then after that, almost all of these directors are like, I'm making something different. I'm doing from hell. I'm doing too fast, too furious.

You know, I'm doing the Italian job like all of them shift to like I'm not making inner city issue character based movies anymore. So you're saying the Waynes brothers screwed all these filmmakers or suggesting? I think there's an argument i feel like we talk about this a lot but sometimes like parodies can really fuck things over absolutely i mean speaking of the waynes brothers i think scary movie killed the slasher the slasher revival right like yeah when you point out the ground rules for a genre yeah it can sort of hurt the genre the problem is that then the dumbest audience member feels like they're smarter than the movie right they're like well i saw someone explain to me the thing that happens in all of these

movies right uh so now i feel like i'm ahead of the eight ball you can't you can't get me anymore but yeah like scary movie comes out in 2000 and saw comes out in 2004 you know and in between those two uh the big hit in between is is the j-horror boom there's that like there's that that's a good call that's a good call yeah yeah but then the problem is scary movie three just just fucking takes them to task. Scary Movie 3 eviscerates J-horror. I don't remember that. I don't want to talk about it. I don't either. Savage!

Scary Movie 3, of course, is based on two of the biggest horror movies of the early 2000s. Three. Its main parody targets are Signs, The Ring, and The Matrix Reloaded. You know, the three biggest scary movies. I think Eight Mile got taken down, too. Yes. That's the fourth one. Yes.

Right. Wow. Scary Movie Five, of course, just brutally eviscerates Brokeback Mountain, the scariest movie of the mid-2000s john singleton griffin born in la grew up in la right um i think his childhood he said is like he he at some point goes to live with his dad right that that is the thing that he's borrowing from his childhood for this movie that his mom yes. Yes. Sends him to live with his dad. Right. His mother is a pharmaceutical company sales executive. His father is a real estate agent, a mortgage broker, financial planner. Very similar to Fierce Dolls. Yeah.

that group that's emerging in the early 90s, but the only other thing, I mean, like I know he, like I'm saying, like I know he says he loves Star Wars, he loves Spielberg movies, he loves stuff like that, but I think... Comic books and video games, that he used all that stuff as an escape growing up, but that

when he went to college, he wasn't intending to be a filmmaker. He went originally, I think, for computer science and then took a for computer science and then took a film writing class and then fell deeply into it. Margaret Mering, who basically mentored

him into making movies, this is his thesis movie, practically. I mean, he's so dang young. Right. When he wanted to apply to get into the program, you had to write three sample projects that you would like to make one day. And this is one of those three movies. So much of that, you obviously stand by me as well. I'm going to see the dead body right in early movie.

He says, like, there's so much just coming of age stuff that I'm pouring into that movie like that, that he's just sort of thinking of this as his John Hughes movie. This was the thing on the application for the film program. You had to write down three ideas for films. And this one was called Summer of 84. And I think it was more spiraling out of just the seeing a dead body as children thing. It was the stand by me thing. And then as it expanded, it turned into more of a wide ranging life of these young men rather than just the childhood. He sells the script and he's like, I have to direct it.

And like, I don't know. I think there's just this sort of confluence of things happening post do the right thing where studio is like, okay, give it a shot. Like I, it's crazy to think, I know the movie was inexpensive.

Like it costs like $6 million to make, but still that, that Columbia was just like, yes, you can, you know, you can, you know,

have a cat, you know, go for it. He doesn't even have a huge star attached to it really i know ice cube is obviously a big figure but they barely apparently he's like singleton's like they barely know who he was um i want to get this woman's name so i can give her proper credit but on that sort of of retrospective special feature I was watching, there was an executive at Columbia who grew up in South L.A. who is African-American, who really feels like

much like, you know, all the female directors we have covered on this podcast, how the way they got their movie made was there was one female executive who read their script and fought it through the system. This woman feels like she was very much the champion for John Singleton, you know, that he was this sort of hot thing out of film school, that he had his teacher mentor presenting him around town. reading interviews and stories about him, especially looking back at pieces from when he passed, when people were writing about their experiences with him, that he was just by all accounts, this preternaturally confident guy that at the age of 22, he just walked in and was so self-assured, so confident, not cocky, you know, but really could put a studio executive at ease and feel like this person's mature enough to direct a movie um but let me find the name of this executive because she deserves a lot of credit i think

as well for for getting him through columbia shout out to the single female executives yeah like i i just interviewed chaka king um to talk about judas and the black messiah and he was like look this movie essentially only got made because there was one executive at Warner Brothers who wanted to make a movie like this. And every other studio I went to, there was not one person, you know, who was that interested. Like, it is sort of depressing how often it just boils down to like, yeah, there was just one exec. Right. Like, like, Nora Ephron only gets to direct movies because of uh linda obst you know it's like there's there's always that sort of like story when it's not a

straight white male uh going through the studio system uh i'm still trying to find this woman's name uh embarrassingly but she also pointed out like she was talking about how surprising it was to all of them that it got the two Oscar nominations. And they were just like, we just never conceived, even when the film had played at Cannes, even when it was a big hit, when it was critically adored, that it was ever going to break through there because it was like Spike didn't get nominated. These movies never get nominated. And then she said, I didn't get invited to the Oscars until a year ago. I mean, I wonder if Spike not getting nominated is part of I mean, we can always speculate about why these things how these things shake out. No, I think that's a good read. Yeah.

Yeah. Just because I remember I well, I wasn't I was a child when that happened, but I know that it was kind of an outrage that he didn't get nominated for director or screenplay. Or no, he was for screenplay. He was nominated for screenplay. Yeah, but not director. He was nominated for screenplay, not for director. And then the compounding thing of that that's the year that the Best Picture winner is driving Miss Daisy, which is sort of a dead on arrival movie in terms of cultural cachet. Like it's not like that movie didn't become a lot of jokes like that, like that movie winning best picture was very quickly something that everyone rolled their eyes at.

Like, so it was like Green Book. It really was. It's so crazy that Green Book won best picture. I think about it all the time. I don't know if I'm ever going to get over it picture i think about it all the time i don't know if i'm ever gonna get over it i think about it a lot there's like 2016 and then there's green book and they're both like i still can't believe this happened i mean i can but i can't that's exactly it the fact that green book is sandwiched in and like where like you've got um uh spotlight moonlight shape of water green book parasite yes spotlight is a fairly that's the most traditional of those

movies it's a good movie though it's shape of water is like the next most obvious winner in that bunch like and that's you know objective it's a still a strange genre monster movie and then green book is just the oscars being like come on give us one year to do some bullshit come on please uh stephanie allen a l l yes who's a major deal uh that's why i was beating myself up for not remembering her name she is a major deal absolutely yes yeah i'm mad i didn't remember that myself yes uh but that's what she was talking about. I mean, this was an early film for her being an executive. She transitioned to being a producer and still, you know, didn't get invited into the Academy Awards until 25 years later.

And she was like, it's kind of astonishing in that sense that they recognize this movie in its moment. But I think I think that was a big part of it. If I could just circle back to green book for a second i i remember when because it was julia roberts announced it right yes and she just goes green book right and i just i like i laughed i wasn't even outraged i was like the gall of these fuckers it is so bananas that they did this i mean it, it was a white lash. It was making up for Moonlight in the same way. No, it absolutely was. And in general

making up for the push to diversify and expand the membership. It was this it was absolutely a backlash from older voters and maybe younger because like the whole buzz that year because people just kept asking the reporters like, why is Green Book doing so well? Is that, oh, well, you know, I talked to voters and they're like, well, I like that movie.

And I'm like, yeah, sure. Maybe you enjoyed Green Book, but that's still kind of a walk to like best picture of the year. Mark it down. It is such a fucking slight movie. That is what makes it so absurd. Above all else, it's not even like an offensive movie of mock profundity. You know, it's a movie where a guy folds an entire pizza pie and eats it on a bed. Well, I also remember just being there was like this weird I don't know how long it was maybe 45 minute moment where a Farrelly brother had an Oscar and Spike Lee did it and I was like how is this that was the same year wow right of course yeah

uh Spike saying it's not my cup of tea the greatest that was that was a good Oscar season because it was also the Lady Gaga Bradley Cooperadley cooper us but it was a very black panther and black clansmen nominated for best picture right it felt like such a mirror bohemian rhapsody right and green book but it felt like such a mirroring of the driving miss daisy do the right thing yeah right where spike's just sitting there like just going like i'm not gonna say anything i'm not gonna say anything but really this again in a car light gentle comedy for old people really sorry anyway sorry for bringing up green book um i agree i just want to add on to your list aisha

it's it's getting elected the pandemic and green book are the three things i play in my mind over and over again i'm just like how did we let there's such a perfect storm of things leading up to that moment we should have stopped it it's okay uh we're we're all doing fine yes um boys in the hood boys in the hood um so he makes this movie i mean i the only thing from the production that i really know about is when i'm you know the the production that i really know about is when i'm you know the the fact that it was shot in sequence which is crazy and the fact that like cuba gunning junior mars chestnut he's like casting them as they walk in the door like they're not known entities at all right they were the first two actors who showed up uh ice cube he had worked

on the arsenio hall show is that that correct? And he met him there. Yeah, he was like an intern at the Arsenio Hall show. That's the thing. I mean, he was a PA on Pee Wee's Playhouse, and that's where he met Lawrence Fishburne and handed him the script. Like half of the cast is constructed, not half, but a portion of the cast. In a way, the biggest names were gotten through him having the confidence as a pa to pull aside a star and say will you take a look at this but angela bassett is like brand new to movies i guess she's done some tv she's done a lot of tv at this point but this is pretty

much her first substantive movie role and she's only done like two or three movies period before this and and very very small yeah this was two years before what's love got to do with it i think yeah 93 92 one or two years yeah yeah it's two years no you're right it's two years and it's funny to think that right that that's that's her and laurence ishburn again but um yeah because that that weirdly feels what's love got to do with it feels like 10 years after this yeah just in terms of how they're playing, I don't know. I guess they just seem older, I guess. I don't know.

It also feels to me like Angela Bassett was so dominant in the 90s, it's hard to process that she wasn't really in movies until 1991. You want to be like, wasn't she a star for eight years before this movie came out? Wasn't she the one lending her credibility to get it bankrolled and she's like no this was like the first time someone really took a shot on me and let me play a big part in a film this is also like basically the last larry fishburne movie the deep cover is the actual last one but that's it right because he's still like i mean obviously he started young and he's in apocalypse now and stuff but at the point this movie comes out he has been most prominent in peewee's playhouse for the couple of years leading up to this

where he's larry fishburne does a lot of you know coppola movies he's in school days yeah which he's he's great in he's so hot in this movie is that i'm sorry i made him my background i see he he's just so fucking good in this movie. He is like so captivating. It is astonishing he didn't get nominated. Yeah. I. Yeah.

He's the scene with him. And when he embraces Trey and Trey's just crying, I just every time I just tear up a little bit because it's such a great moment. That seems so good. And the scene where he takes Trey and Ricky to Compton. OK, can we talk about that scene? Yeah, because I was watching it, obviously, for the I don't know how many times at this point. And it struck me that while I love this movie, I do think sometimes it feels a little PSA after school special. It has that like that sort of Stanley Kramer movie. Yeah. You know, like like this is an issues movie and we're going to talk about this now. Right. And I obviously like I think there there are merits to that.

And I and I, you know, don't I still love this movie. But it was interesting to me because I noticed for the first time that they get to Compton and they're standing there and he's talking to them. And like as soon as they stand in front of that billboard, people just start milling over. Yes. Yes. Like, hey, what's going on over here? Someone talking? Yes.

And it was just like, oh, this feels like a play. I feel like I'm in a high school play. This is why I brought that scene up, though, is like that scene should be a disaster. Right. That scene is like the movie becoming so didactic in terms of what it's trying to say. Yeah. And really like grabbing the lapels of the audience members and saying, listening. And it only works because of Lawrencerence fishburne the fact that he pulls that scene off he is so just

quietly powerful that you do believe that people would just wander towards him the second he stands in front of a billboard yeah no i i i still think it works it's just i noticed it this time and i was like yes this is never crossed my mind i was was like, yeah, you go listen to Larry Fishburne talk like that's what you do. But here's the thing. He hadn't even started talking. They literally just stood there and came over. Come on. Are you sure?

If you saw that guy walking down the street, you'd be like, holy shit. Let me follow this guy. I want to see what's going to happen in his day. Yes. And again, Lawrence Fishburne was hot. And so is Morris Chestnut. Oh, Morris Chestnut's hot. Morris Chestnut is beautiful.

Morris Chestnut is just a beautiful person. Because, I mean, he's hot. But, like, because he's, like, whatever he is, 50-ish now. And, I mean, he looks older in that, like. Yeah, but he's aged like wine. Yeah. I don't know if you folks have this thing too but like morris chestnut is one of those people who looks like he was designed to be bald like he just has a perfectly shaped head he's like ideally bald he's a good looking bald man

right there's no question in the same way as like michael jordan where it's like yes this makes sense right yeah and and when you see footage in like last dance of young michael jordan with hair you're like the geometry of this is wrong there's something about morris chestnut having all that extra hair height as ricky i'm like dude you're good looking get rid of the hair you don't need it i like him in either form doesn't matter to me hey look i'll take i'll take a piece of morris chestnut anywhere i can get it yeah yeah i'm looking at sort of yeah and he i guess he has aged he's gotten i don't know it's just his eyes i guess you know you age in the eyes that's it but he really when he was in that show what the hell was it called it was called like uh oh that's on like cb not cbs but like i i know

what you're talking about it was on fox it was I was saying, like, surely it wasn't called Rosewood because that's a movie John Singleton made. It was called Rosewood. He played Dr. Rosewood. And I just remember the poster for that show was just like, look, it's Mars Chestnut. He's got, like, sunglasses on. Wait, you don't want to watch this? I was like, come on.

I'm like, what does he do? Like, I don't know. He's a doctor or something. You've got more questions? David, you're making me realize that should be the tagline for every tv show just you want to watch this come on you see this this is what the show is this is when it starts aaron you want to watch it give it give it a consideration or something i do love that especially with certain people like Rob Lowe having a new TV show every fucking season you're like this time he's he's got glasses yeah yeah Rob Lowe but mustache we've added a mustache are you interested this time no tie oh my goodness anyway Mars just not very very hot yeah um i mean that's the other thing it's just everyone in this movie goes on to pop because of this you know everyone i mean that what the eight principal actors apart from ice cube i guess right yeah apart from ice cube no i'm saying

ice cube has he's already popped i mean but not as mean, but not as a movie star, not as a movie star. It's his first movie role. And he it's true. He goes right on to make a bunch more movies. And Friday is four years from now. He gets to write a movie. Yes. He continued to be a movie star for decades.

I mean, I just think he he has had the most durable acting career of any rapper turned actor, right uh does will smith count as a rapper interesting yes okay yes does he count he counts okay yeah i mean summer summertime still slaps so yeah there's that summertime does slap i'm trying yeah that's the thing i'm just trying to remember the exact trajectory of like when does, you know, parents don't just understand. But it's coming up before. Yeah, it's a few years before The Fresh Prince. So, yeah. Yeah. Will Smith counts. I just think Cube's career is not often given the respect for how persistent it has been. It has been, you know, if you just look at the range of how much he's pretty much stayed a very reliable presence in movies for almost three decades in different sized roles in different genres.

Yeah. And he went into the kiddie family movie, you know, with Are You There Yet? Are We There Yet? Yeah. I like when Ice Cube is mad. He's very funny when he's mad. It's like he's so good at that. That's his 2010s.

It's the sneer, right? The sneer is what made him a star. I think that's what Singleton recognized was just, you put this sneer on a big screen, it's going to work. I don't know if the guy technically knows how to act yet, but the dude's got presence and that sneer is worth like a million dollars. He's honestly fantastic in this movie. I mean, but that's not crazy, million dollars he's honestly fantastic in this movie i mean but that's not crazy right he's just good in this movie it's kind of a movie star thing where it's or whatever he's just like seems very comfortable in front of the camera john singleton

had a great eye he recognized that that guy is just fucking compelling to watch i just do think it's interesting if you look at all the different because I think anytime he shows up in a movie people are still kind of like Ice Cube in a movie you know because like Ice Cube as a celebrity as an idea is so much bigger than any part he plays but then you're that's how he's right that's like 21 Jump Street like then it's true it can be like 25 years into his career as a film actor 21 Jump Street is like isn't it funny that Ice Cube is the boss? And you're like, yeah, I guess so. I mean, you're like, this guy's really proven himself.

He could play the boss in a comedy. You know, he can do two fucking family movies. You know, he could be the lead in a XXX sequel. He's sort of soft retired right now, I would say. I know. Well, now he's just on Twitter getting uh getting people upset so there's that that's the thing he's getting people upset on twitter he also of course founded the big three to which i go to the finals every year because you can get court side seats for like 40 dollars

um we're not thinking of ice tea ice tea has been pretty persistent as an actor as well well ice tea just got that one job and held on to it oh yeah he went to svu it doesn't count but i'm just saying he's not really he's not really yeah he's not challenging himself with new roles no he built a really nice nest for himself yes i just every single time I get a like five dollar residual check for the one scene of one episode of Law and Order I was on eight years ago. I just try to do the math on what Ice-T must be getting in the mail on a daily basis. So much. It just boggles the mind. Yeah.

boggles the mind yeah i i actually saw them one time in grand central very early in the morning shooting a scene between ice t and uh richard belzer that was that was a fun new york city sighting the bells have have i ever told this story on my very briefly i don't know because i don't know what you're about to say but i doubt it my my one scene on svu is me playing a shitty computer hacker dude and ice tea's coming to me griffin you're playing a hacker a computer guy yes yes which wait which episode is this because i've probably seen it it's called russian brides they're looking to get a trail of russian mail order brides and i play a guy who like hides computer trails for rich people oh what year was this 2012 i want to say okay i was i was still watching svu at that yeah yeah um why wouldn't you be it was when mariska went on maternity leave and they

added two new detectives before she came back yeah that was a not the greatest time for svu but right so it was it was like one of the first episodes of the new female detective character and ice t and the two of them are breaking into my thing and they're trying to get me to like hand over evidence so they can find the trail of the russian brides or whatever and uh icy's just like a fucking pro right he comes in they hand him the sides he cold reads them he goes like let's do this they They have three cameras rolling. They get all his coverage. He does it in like one take, right? Maybe two takes maximum, right? And they're just like, great, Ice, you're good. And he's like, great. And then they're like, let's turn around onto the kid. And they put all the cameras on me. And now, and I just have to

imagine because this was communicated. No one said anything to anyone. No one said anything to me. I just have to imagine this is how they do this. Any episode where he has to interrogate someone and someone has to be frightened by him. They turn all the cameras

around to me. He's clean. He's not in the shot at all. You cannot see his mouth. So he knows that he can say whatever he wants and they call action and every other word

out of his mouth is motherfucker. I'm not exaggerating. You have never told that story before. Yeah, it's motherfucker. Get that motherfucking lollipop out of your motherfucking mouth

unless I fucking smack it out. And it worked. Like, I was terrified. Not only because it's like he's saying that to me, but I'm also just like, is any of this usable? What is the,

what's going on? Like, I just look so flummoxed and i remember the writer coming up to me afterwards and i was like that was intense and he was like i see just called you a motherfucker it's almost as good as being called a motherfucker by samuel l jackson yeah he was like that's that that's like saying you played with the beach boys or something it's like the silver medal right yeah yeah of being called a mother on screen yeah that is so funny do you think he just figured that out like in like season five he was just like oh yeah that'll get a great reaction i did ask him about it but it was

just such well-oiled machinery that it just felt like they were like this scene's a six and everyone in the crew was like six got it okay like it felt like that was his mode where he's just like it's like a catcher sending a sign to a picture they're just like blue left because no one was like ice wow that was crazy they were just like okay cut and they knew to frame it so that you couldn't see his mouth like they knew you have to get the other guy's coverage with ice totally out of frame because he's gonna say motherfucker I see is not in this movie

and it makes him a movie star yeah they and they will go on to be in trespass together the next year but boys in the hood let's talk about some of you know yeah there's that I actually love the opening I did too okay so I'm not alone in this definitely

i love it yeah it's you you need it i feel like you absolutely need it well yeah right because if we were starting on them as essentially these kind of like you know confident teenagers you might not right there's that just sort of it's it's crucial and and just that the confidence of some of these compositions in the start, where the kid's walking down the street, the teacher is talking in voiceover saying, he's a really intelligent kid,

but he's got a temper. I don't know where it's coming from. And the kid's just walking past someone get beat up. Yes. It's like, Aisha, like you're saying,

everything in this movie is definitely very stark and kind of grabbing the audience's chin and pointing them at it. But it's very very effective i i also think in terms of like you know movies teach you how to watch them especially because this is a world that was not being shown in multiplexes at this point in time the fact that you open with 30 minutes of them as children, there's a real framing of like, I'm going to tell an epic story here. Right.

Like you've seen the poster. It's three teenagers. Right. It's young men. But here we are and we're spending half an hour with them as little boys. I'm going to make you consider their entire lives. You know, this isn't just a slice. This isn't just the last week of school or something.

I really want you to think of them holistically as people in their entire life up until that point. And just the fact that that prologue goes on for that long, you know, that you really have to live in their reality and also that you start seeing the circumstances of the world through their eyes when children are so much more guileless, you know, when they're moldable, when you're there's the immediate tension of how much are they going to get shaped by the things around them? You know, him him getting up in front of the class and just sort of immediately like talking rather than like freezing up and like you know saying like well my dad says like the first humans were found in africa like just all that there's like a sort of like sweetness mixed with chip on shoulder like it's not you know like the bad version of this movie i don't know

the teacher would just give a speech to the kid's face yeah about how he's a fuck up or how he's never going to amount to anything like that's that's the bad version of this opening can i say i think such an effective storytelling tool that is not used often enough is defining a character by how people talk about them before they come on screen you know so much about furious styles from the speech that trey gives as a boy and saying my dad told me this yeah you know from the moment you meet the guy you're just like i understand who he is now i just want to see what he looks like and who's playing him yeah and there's the the great scene uh right before he goes to furious where angela bassett's character is on the phone and she's like, we're moving and he's going to go live

with his dad. And the teacher's like, his dad? And she's like, yes, he has a father. And it's like, well, I mean, part of it, part of the, I feel like some of the critiques of movies like this and the movies it's spawned in its wake, you know,

is that there can be a tendency to pathologize to really kind of like hammer hammer home like okay this is a sort of um this is a pathology this is part of black culture for there not to be fathers and whatnot but i think this movie really walks a fine line and does a good job of not tilting too much into that. Like, yes, this is true that really Furious is the only father figure in this movie. But at the same time, that gentrification speech really kind of helps create this community and this understanding that this is not of their doing per se. This is the way society, white society, white mainstream society has made it. They have abandoned our,

our, our neighborhoods. This is why part of the reason why we were like this. And so I think the, he does such a good job of walking that very fine line in doing this. Having these scenes, like the scene with the black cop who is you know so cruel and nasty to them which singleton says that's right out of his life yeah where right you always run the risk in movies like this of like this one scene is supposed to encapsulate an entire societal problem or decades of you know racist ideology you know what i mean like it's

it's a movie it's very tough to boil things down or to get you know or to give things an appropriate weight like you know to just be like yeah this is a stand-in for everything and there are obviously scenes you know uh where where characters become more uh you know, polemic, right? But I think one of the chief successes of this movie is it feels like he constantly refocuses back on these characters are specific people. They are not archetypal. I'm telling the stories of these guys. You know, they don't represent everything,

even though their world is a microcosm of an issue that I'm very concerned about, a series of issues, you know? Well, I do think the cop is the one sort of key flaw for me because I kind of agree. They're just so I don't know. I feel like to me, the issues isn't so much that this cop exists in the film. To me, the issues isn't so much that this cop exists in the film. It's the way in which he exists solely to like kind of spout the most like horrific things in ways that. Whereas the white cop stands there just sort of being like, OK. Right. And it doesn't feel real to me. Like, why would this character be telling this to like, this is why I became a cop? Like, that just seems like something

you wouldn't tell another person it is a wild thing to just say you know singleton says it's out of his life and that's the thing that often is true where they're like well that happened to me i'm like i believe you like but it's so crazy that it's tough to put it in a movie sure yeah but maybe it did actually happen. I just feel like I'm certain that that person exists and probably still exists in some form. But I just felt like him telling like doing this like sort of sort of short monologue where he's like, I became a cop so that I can take all you black people off the street and blah, blah, blah. It was just like, I don't know if that could have been said to the white cop. Like, I feel like it would be more realistic for him to be saying this to like someone

else, not right. Not to people who just called in a burglary as well. It's not like they're like anyway. Those two scenes are the shakiest the entire movie for me. And I think it's a combination of they feel incredibly overwritten, whether or not it is verbatim from his life you still sometimes need to as you said write things down from reality because things feel more ridiculous you know especially when you put him into a fictionalized environment i also think that performance is not particularly good i think he is not helping he's

over pranking things a lot he's got some some uncle Ruckus going on there. It's a little too much for me. I think he's in a different movie. His name is Jesse Lawrence Ferguson. The Furious Styles character, though, I feel like does feel more believable, partly just because you can tell how much Singleton, like that's such a fleshed out, loved character,

like how much Singleton's pouring his own, you know, dad into it. And just the, the specifics of his speeches. And also, I guess dad's giving speeches. It's just like the oldest movie.

Like I, I, right. I, I, I'm pretty ready for, you know, dad to talk to someone and be like, look, all right, here's here's my perspective on wearing a condom or joining the army or, you know. right, has like lived multiple lifetimes, has like overcome drug addictions, was like

in the jungle with Coppola and doing lasso tricks with Pee Wee Herman and just fucking everything. And like, here's the part essentially he's been waiting for his entire career, right? Like this is finally someone has given him a bag large enough to hold everything he has to put into a character. And there's something about the fact that he has so much restraint in what he's doing this would be such an easy character to overplay you know and he's he's so quiet he's so focused you know and there's just such a um uh i don't know an integrity to him and to everything he's saying. It's so thought.

I mean, he said in this thing that when he read the script, he like sobbed and that it was just like the first time he read something where he was just like, I absolutely understand what this needs to be. And people joke about the fact that there's like, what, a five year age difference between him and Cuba in this. Yeah, we've got some Mamma Mia stuff going on here but that honestly I feel like that happens all the time especially with black with black actors this this happens fairly frequently where it's like there's not that big of an age difference

between the actual actors in part because well white people have a hard time telling black how old they are it's like i don't know they don't know that angela bassett is now 62 like they would probably see this movie and be like i don't know what is she 45 this actually happens on blackish too on blackish he's playing Anthony Anderson's father. And I think there's maybe 10 years age difference between them. Could be even less. I'm going to look it up. Fishburne, 61.

Ash, and if you know, Fishburne is 50. I'm going to say born in 61. Right. And Anthony Anderson was born in 1970. He's nine years older than him. Look. Right. And Anthony Anderson was born in 1970. He's nine years older than him. It's just that it's that Hollywood thing where they add five years to the older person, the older character and subtract five from the younger character. But then with black actors, I think they just they just do that a little more in either direction. Well, there's also just not that not as many, at least back then, there were not as many black actors that were being chosen. So it's like, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And like so many of these movies just have the most stacked casts. And it's great, but it's also you're like, shit, people just wanted roles that were interesting. Like it was just so hard to be a black actor in the 90s to have any role that might have some depth to it. When we did Love and Basketball last summer, we had that same thought. We were just like, it is bug nuts how just every actor who appears in one scene of this movie went on to become famous later, you know?

And it is just that thing of like, if you write a movie that has 30 good parts in it for black actors, you will have no shortage of people who have been waiting for the opportunity, you know? To actually play a real human being i also just think fishburne has such gravitas that you do sell that he is like infinitely more worldly than the rest of the cast absolutely uh you know everyone else has been acting for a

couple years and he's been acting since he was a child so you're just like he's so much more comfortable on screen than everyone else in a way that you can't fake uh and that gives him that sense of maturity i also think it's just kind of smart that it's like they cast more age appropriate for him at the beginning of the movie with young trey which in a way is more important than if you cast an older actor who would be too old in the opening scenes and age appropriate later, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I guess Trey is supposed to be 17 when we jump, right?

He's like, that's how old he is, right? And Cuba looks a little older than that. They all look a little older. Right. Morris Chestnut is special. Morris is like, I'm going to college. And I'm like, Morris, it looks like you just left college and entered pro football. Like you. It looks like you just left grad school. Like, come on.

I mean, Cuba also is like that that Mulaney joke where he has such a baby face. So he never really ages. He just looks like an increasingly tired child. You know, like you can't say he looks old in this movie, but you're also like, but you're just like you're an exhausted looking 17 year old. Yeah, definitely. So we jump forward. I don't know. Is there anything else in the early scenes that we want to talk about? I mean, just we're talking about Lawrence Fisher, but that's that stone skipping scene is so fucking good. And also just the beginning, there's sort of that, like, even the plasma separating. I mean, there's so much

just from the sort of like the worldliness that these kids shouldn't have at this age, you know, the casualness with which they talk about stuff. Also, this movie just has one of the most arresting openings ever, just in terms of like how immediately you're getting the cacophony of dialogue over the columbia logo before the title even shows up i love that and then the gunshots yeah yeah yeah it's just like immediately throwing you into the world um love that old columbia logo too great logo i was i was gonna say the old gray lady but that's not correct no that's the new york time can we call her the old beige lady what's her robes are cream cream cream lady yeah the old cream kind of a right yeah i don't

know taupe miss columbia the old taupe lady uh we jump forward we're at a barbecue. Doughboy, played by Ice Cube, has just gotten out of jail. He has new friends. I do like how little Chris, we just never, it's never, right? No one ever says why he's in a wheelchair. We just kind of, it's just implied like he's already been wounded, you know, by a gunshot wound like and that's the story singleton tells is that that guy was like that actor was just like hey you wrote a uh like a movie with a guy in a wheelchair like who that's me like you got to put me in the movie he just like literally accosted john singleton was like you have to put me in the red screen is his name wow there's this scene with nia long and regina king i mean this movie is not

heavy on female characters uh getting a ton to do i would say no that's like basically the only movie where two women are talking to each other like trying to think of others yeah yeah and when angela bassett talks to the teacher which happens off screen and voiceover yes um oh well i guess there's the mom uh the mom and his girlfriend oh and then ricky's girlfriend yeah ricky's mom and girlfriend but like again it's like it's about ricky yeah let's say right it fails the bechdel test because every time two women are talking they're talking about a man yes yeah it's a lot of moms and girlfriends that's that's more of the point i was trying i do like regina king's like two scenes in this movie like i mean regina king is like throwing heat and this is her first movie regina king just she never misses yeah she had

done like over 100 episodes of 227 that was her only credit and then she said the show ended no one would hire her she couldn't get an audition. Like, as far as she was concerned, she thought her career was over. And this was the thing that single handedly gave her a future. And so she shows up. She's ready. Like Regina King fucking never misses. Yeah. Right.

But we I don't know what we did. That sort of middle kind of true foe part of the movie where it's just like they're young men growing up and like cuba guinea jr is figuring out sex and like you know like a tray lying about being a virgin or not being a virgin right making up an insane story where like you know a mom is chasing him what do you call it the the hatchet hatchetatchet. There you go. Hatchet, yes. I know people always talk about drunk history, but the fucking Michael Peña bit in the Ant-Man movies is so lifted from this, you know? Right. I mean, drunk history is maybe the bridge between the two, but especially with the kind of like unreliable narrator aspect of it. kind of like unreliable narrator aspect of it yeah i mean i also the the true folk comparison is interesting because i just i do love how much the midsection is just kind of like relatively

conflict free just a glimpse in these lives you know to a certain extent i think this movie reminds me a lot too of um uh best years of our lives um which is one of my favorite movies ever, but in the way that that movie is about the shared trauma that these three guys have and then them reentering society and you sort of follow them separately and then they cross back over each other and the supporting characters come in and out

and all that sort of stuff. This midsection is sort of just that, but it's more sort of the all-consuming threat of trauma around them at all times. But so much of it is just kind of this like quotidian day-by-day stuff. They're chilling out. They're going to parties.

They're, right? I mean, you know, Trey's trying to get laid. It's just nice seeing people live in a movie, you know? The fashion. That's always something that stuck out to me. I mean, it's like I love 90s fashion. And there's so many different kinds of styles being represented. Like, that's something that just like is major.

I feel like we should point out. Absolutely. I mean, the Jerry curls. Like, yeah. I'll say like outside of the jerry curls, pretty much the way everyone looks in this movie would be cool today. Right. The jerry curls are the one thing that haven't maybe carried over to 2021. That's the one like, oh, it's the early 90s.

Right. I mean, I guess like the i don't know i feel like ice cube is the one his character is the one who's like kind of dated because it's like backy he wears just a lot of like t-shirts and backy things and he also has the worst jerry curl it's it's hard to yeah yeah um yes he is right he is sort of hilariously the dorkiest looking even though he's kind of supposed to be like the toughest most street savvy of the of all the characters whereas the rest of them are they look good i mean do you guys did i talk about how i think mara's chest not as hot yeah especially just because it's like he's so built to you know the mesh shirts i love a

mesh shirt that's such a choice i just love imagining a world where i would feel okay wearing a mesh shirt where i'm like you know what i'm gonna throw on the mesh shirt today i think everyone's gonna enjoy that but i also just like i feel we were talking about this in some recent episode how like wildly the standards have changed for what like a fit man is on screen and how now often i find them grotesque you know like when i see someone who's gotten jacked for a marvel movie i'm just like i would never want to look like that i don't find that aspirational at all and then you look at morris chestnut you're like oh no that is how a person's supposed to look that is actually men take note the ideal physical form you know

yeah i'm not getting there i don't know if i can chestnut yeah i'm more i'm more like i'm more like morris peanut you know okay okay i'm small and i don't have a lot of muscle definition right um but yeah the movie does kind of slow down here it's not bad i i agree i love it it's it's yeah it's it's great yeah but like you know you have like the college recruiter coming to talk about the sats you have the the gentrification the furious furious's lecture about gentrification you just have a lot of little like interludes like this obviously the the sex fantasy scene uh down to the thing you're talking about in terms of drunk history griffin is like when

he's like and then she said do you know how to drive you know like and she's saying the word that that and him doing voiceover for his own performance you know where it's like but this is the john hughes thing as well like and you know uh all that just sort of the like that he's mixing in this kind of like lighter teen dramedy stuff. And then you can do slice of life stuff that it doesn't have to be all burdened with conflict. Although at the same time, he's laying the groundwork for the conflict that comes at the end. Because, you know, when they have Ferris. Yeah. Yeah.

When when they go to that hangout on the Boulevard or the street with everyone, that's where they encounter the guy who they bump into. And then the guns go off and it's terrifying. It is terrifying. But I guess it's like, like menace to society. That movie is so raw and depressing, like tough to watch and depressing.

It's incredibly depressing and it's sort of starting by kind of punching you in the face like whereas this like yes it's it's it's it's in the air that you know i mean there's the scene obviously we're furious that's earlier but we're furious like you know it shoots through the door to confront the burglar and all that like you know it's not like they they're all just like living in you know happy teen lives that are going to get disrupted later like but it's just it's not as kind of agitprophe like i i kind of admire that it it's it's sort of swerves into this um teen melodrama territory it's it's also just a very like classical, confidently made movie. Like you talk about a lot of young filmmakers who get to make a studio feature early, right? What made

them break through the pack at such a young age is that they have like a very flashy, kinetic style that they direct with a lot of energy. I mean, usually when you see a movie directed by someone who is under 25, you're like, oh yeah, that's a movie directed by a 22 year old right it's just like it's all like come on let me at him let me at him and this is like there's right i want to do every move i've ever thought of in film school every camera move right yeah right right right the camera's gonna go through a guy's out eyeball and out his ear and whatever. And like this, this is a weirdly relaxed movie in terms of you don't get the sense that he feels like he has something to prove. You know, even though he obviously did, it doesn't feel like it is a movie that is working

too hard to impress you. It is a movie that feels like it is very confident in what it has to say and that it will land. It is a movie that feels like it is very confident in what it has to say and that it will land. I mean, they talked about in this feature, too, but like everyone was just kind of very protective of him. I think because he was so young, especially like Fishburne and Bassett, who are older, but Stephanie Allen as well. And everyone was just kind of like, we need to make sure this guy isn't fucked with you know i think the whole cast kind of insulated him from studio meddling and whatever to just say like give him the space he needs to succeed on his own terms here it's the only way it's gonna work he has some story about like they

shot the first scene he was like great print it and then they moved to the second scene and he says that again and like his ad takes him aside and it's like you can do as many takes as you like you know like and he was just like right i'm not in film school anymore i can like it's not every foot of film counts yeah uh so he's learning as he goes which makes this movie all the more astonishing because it does not really feel like that it you know feels like a movie that's from a veteran Hollywood person in a good way. It's so depressing to me in a certain way where like you, you know, so many of the directors we've covered on this show, especially people whose careers start in the 80s or the 90s, you know, and get to make their first movie young. Like when Cameron Crowe is doing Say Anything, there's the story, I think the first scene they shot is when Cusack is putting on the videotape

at the old folks' home and is giving them, like, the speech beforehand. And they did, like, one take, and Cameron Crowe said, like, print onto the next set. And, like, the AD had to pull him aside and be like, you need to shoot coverage. You need to put, like, the camera in two places so there are editing options. And he didn't even think of that. And I just feel like there's something kind of beautiful to whether and gently be sort of like guided versus now where

it's like your first movie cost 200 million dollars it's on rails if you're wrong the first ad will overpower you and yell over you you know the executive will come in and demand that you have to do these 20 things what's next i guess it's ricky dying i can't yeah it's not a long movie it feels very epic it's an hour and 50 minutes when i was putting it on i was like what is this movie like two hours 20 minutes long because i just think of it as this like big muscular like life story movie but it's i guess it's just we just meet Ferris and the bloods like, you know, shooting the gun in the air. Like, that's really it. Right. Like, there's just been that one confrontation. And that's that's kind of that. Right.

Well, that and then the cop when he pulls him when he pulls him over. And then, like, other than that, the big thing is just like, am I going to lose my virginity? Am I going to pass the SATs? thing is just like am i gonna lose my virginity am i gonna pass the sats like chestnut's just like so comfortable on screen you know there's such a like gentleness to him where it's not like he's a character who has these big emotional scenes but you're just rooting for this guy so thoroughly you know he's just like such an innately sympathetic performer and when he you see him watching the army commercial on tv you just get like this like lump in your throat you're just like oh fuck i just know i know what he's thinking while he sees this you know before you

even get to the scene where cuba tries to talk him out of it you're just like i understand why this is appealing to this guy i I understand why this guy feels trapped. You know, you're worried about that outcome for him for long enough that you're you lose track of the bigger threat around the corner. You know? Yeah. And it's just just the way Doughboy react. Like, just that's what I love about Ice Cube's performance. It's just when when you just sort of see it cross his face like oh oh oh i know what's about to happen you know

and it's not like trey running and screaming like he just has this sort of like resigned horror as he's like okay we gotta go trey has like the operatic reaction and when when doughboy pulls up in the car and he sees the body lying there, he shakes his head. That's what I love. They don't cut to a close up or whatever. He doesn't cry. He doesn't scream. When he gets closer, he gets more emotional.

But his first reaction is like, oh, I had a feeling this would happen, you know, which I think speaks to the energy of the movie, which is this air of resignation. These guys have of just like it could happen and when he gets his revenge it's not satisfying for the audience really certainly not for him and like his you know driver is essentially like what are you doing you're getting out of the car like that's not like that's that's that's too much yeah you're putting a hat on a hat here you know know, like he can't even believe that Doughboy is like whatever, like trying to, you know, linger at the crime scene. Well, also, there's that quiet tension when Trey starts asking for them to let him out of the car and Doughboy is just not even responding. And it's because like Trey saying, let me out of the car is is rubbing in Doughboy's face. I shouldn't be doing this in the place.

We should all abandon ship right now. This is a bad idea to let him out of the car is to acknowledge that there's a thing that should be prevented. Well, on top of that, you have the fact that prior to this, they've set it up that like Doughboy is the problem child and Ricky is the is the golden boy and oh man the scene where they bring his body back every time I start crying because just the scream that the punctured screams of the mother and his girlfriend and then when she's like the way in which I forget the actress's name, but she plays that scene so fantastically. The actress playing the mother, Ricky's mother. Fuck, what is her name? It's Tyra Farrell.

Yes. Yes. OK, yes. So Tyra Farrell, she plays that role because she's got conflicting emotions. She's going in and out between i'm grieving and then she and she starts smacking him and she's like you did this you did this and i'm just like oh my goodness i can't take how just like visceral this feeling is you can just see all the emotions going back and forth between her and when we see him later on be like, OK,

now I got to go take revenge. It's like you feel as though it's it's partially. Yes, it's kind of in his not his nature, but this is like what he would do anyway, because he he is the one out of the three of them who flirts with the the the gang lifestyle. But it's also well, he clearly harbors some guilt or like some resentment and feelings about the relationship he had with his brother. And and that's driving him just as much as, you know, the fact that he carries a gun and, you know, is ready to pop off at any moment or at least give the impression that he's going to pop off at any moment. It's also just like murder. Murdering Ricky is so meaningless. You know, it's it's like the feeling in this movie that like this community puts their

chips on this guy. Right. That when the college scouts show up, they're like, well, of course, Ricky. Yes. Ricky is on a different track than the rest of us. And they all go stand outside. They sit outside so that they can talk in the in the room when the college recruiter comes they're like oh okay yeah we gotta go outside we'll hang out here yeah there's just like that that respect there for for ricky right and so for

everyone else they're just like this is just so cruel and senseless what a tragedy and and dough boy as he says the one guy who sort of flirts with like being on this game board, you know, and he's conflicted about like, well, the rules of war are I'm supposed to retaliate. up to the Bloods outside the burger place, the way you enter that scene is just with those three or four guys talking bullshit, you know, that it's the same kind of conversations we heard in the middle act of the movie. You know, they're talking about getting a haircut and they're talking about girls and stuff. And that's before Doughboy shows up up before the car is even in frame. It's this very important sort of narrative framing of this movie could have

just as easily been about these four guys, you know, and, and as much of the movie would have been light and fun. These guys are not like, uh, you know, a career criminals.

They're, they're victims of the exact same circumstances but the bad version of this movie is uh trey is like doughboy like we can't continue this cycle of violence like don't even bother but if i much right trey's just like i let me out of this like i know this is not a good idea but it's not like he's like trying to talk them out of what you're saying. The whole sort of like, you know, well, now we have to respond like the whole thing that's going on. Because Trey himself is a kid, right? Like it would make sense for Furious to make that speech. But for for Trey, like, yes, he's a good boy, but he's also but he's still, you know, he's he's a kid. He's

not going to moralize in that way in the same way or at all in the way that Furious would. And it's also so much about being a teenager. And when you're you're so self-conscious about how you want to be perceived, what kind of person you want to be, you know, you are playing roles in some kind of way, trying to form yourself into the adult you think you'll hopefully get to turn into. You know, you're play acting the part before you own it. You know, that's like it's it's so much the root of like the tragedy of this movie is just like, well, the stakes are so high for these guys, but they it shouldn't be. They're 17. These are wanton decisions by hormonal children.

You know? Like, in so many ways. Right. That's why them as kids and them as horny teenagers in the middle of the movie, that's brilliant, I think. Yeah. And just the matter-of-factness of the movie. I don't know. I think this movie almost gets a bad rap

for being too much the you know stanley cramery you know movie that taught hollywood about life in south central la because that's how hollywood reacted to it and obviously you know it's not like the movie isn't trying to deliver a pointed message but like i do think singleton is also just like here's my slice of life movie and hollywood is like well he said it all right we have no more work to do look at that wow and we even gave him an oscar nomination you know it's the other movie i was weirdly thinking of a lot while watching this because i feel like there's a similar phenomenon at play in terms of its reputation uh uh in terms of endearment when we watched it for this podcast and i was so astonished to

remember like oh right only the last 20 minutes are this devastating weepy cancer drama up until that point the movie is just the life of this woman and it is sort of similar to the second act of this movie where it's like seeing her go from different marriages, different relationships, different eras of her life. The tragedy of that movie is you get so invested in her as a real person that when this tragic thing happens, it feels so unfair because it doesn't feel like the whole movie has been pushing her towards that inevitable outcome. And it's the same thing with like Ricky in this movie. You know, you you get flattened out to Ricky running, to Doughboy fading away, to a couple of the furious speeches.

I mean, you can take like four, the four most iconic moments of this movie, and it feels a lot more polemic than it is, you know, when so much of it is kind of slice of life.

And that's the only stuff, that stuff is the only reason why the bigger scenes work. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Good movie. Good movie. The ending is very good. I like I like, you know, just it's sort of like.

I mean, it's even more brutal, but just the it's like American graffiti where it's just like titles are just like, yes. So, you know, it's just FYI, you know, Doughboy boy isn't gonna make it out through the month yeah just two weeks later we should we should say iconic i mean scenes the ending with ice cube drinking a 40 pouring it out it's so good you don't know they don't show don't care about what happens. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's so well written. Like, that's the best version of what we're talking about. You know, where it really feels like something he would say, like versus like. Yes, it's from the mouth of the character. It doesn't feel like the writer trying to make some argument. It's really grounded in it. And there's something so sad about the sort of soberness with which he sees the whole situation in that moment. Yeah. And it's also it's a sort of I don't know if it's subtle, but you can miss it if you're not thinking about it in this way. And it's also just sort of an indictment on the media and again, on the way in which racism leads to these consequences. Like, yes, he was shot by another Black person.

And, you know, at the beginning of the movie, there's that title card where he's like, I can't remember the exact, but it says, a certain amount of Black men will not live very long. And then often they are shot by other Black people, which like, when we talk about Black and Black crime, that can be a little dicey. But to have it at the end be like, well, no one cares that this is happening.

It's like it kind of balances it out. And I think just really it ties in the sort of the Vietnam because Fierce is a Vietnam vet. sort of the Vietnam because Fierce is a Vietnam vet. And that's in to tie in. He says at the end, Ice Cube is like, well, I saw all this stuff happening, terrible stuff happening abroad, but nothing about what's happening here. And I just think it's a nice little kind of like bow at the end of it. It's also like if at times the movie veers a little bit into like Singleton pointing his finger at the audience and saying like, this is important, you need to listen.

It's because of this final speech. This is sort of like the thesis statement of the movie, which is, these lives are not considered. There are people like Ricky getting shot every day, and they're just listed as statistics to perpetuate fear-mongering in the media. And we don't consider their lives. They're not discussed. They're not reported on. You know, they're just cited as rising crime rates. And you have those titles at the beginning that are sort of, you know, warning you.

Like, here's a movie. You're going to see four young men and two of them will be dead by the end of this movie right i mean that's what it's really telling you like you're gonna watch this you don't think of it that literally i think at the beginning of the movie you view it more as place setting but that's really the story he's telling it could be any one of these four kids it could be two of these four kids you know um yeah and the final speech is like you know ice tea excuse me ice cube you know in character delivering something if it was ice tea it would just be motherfucker every other word which i don't think would be as impactful but you have you have doughboys saying to the audience essentially why this film needs to exist in the first place because otherwise these stories aren't being told and then they would get told many many times after this yes yeah hollywood's like make that movie

again i mean that's that's the story of hollywood is when something like this comes out that's sort of surprising and makes waves for that very reason and demonstrates that there's an audience for this kind of movie hollywood's reaction is great, we should make this movie 20 times. That should be the only kind of movie we make in this whole genre. But we should talk about it. And Griffin, we've done the box office for this. Do you know why?

1991? July 12th, 1991. What is it? Wait, all right. Really quick, because we didn't mention this but they're friends names dookie monster you like dookie

monster dookie monster are great nicknames for like your friends you know what I mean I don't know I just like I really wanted to shout that out no it's a great nickname but I while I was watching it this time around i i was actually trying to figure out what are their names because i feel like they just

come and go really quickly and they say chris's name a couple times but um and then monster wears i think he wears a hat at one point that says monster on it which i guess tells us which one he is but i they're a custom hat i mean mean, that's cool. That's a cool look. Dookie is the one, yeah, with the pacifier. I just, he just confidently has the pacifier. Oh no, Dookie died. Oh really? No, in real life.

Yeah, he died like literally three years later. He was only 22. He was shot like during a fight. It's brutal. There's another, you know, the guy who plays the trigger man for the murder, Lloyd Avery, he like died in prison after like committing a murder. Like there's, you know, there's some sort of sad stories in the like, you know, if you go deep into the cast list for this movie.

Yeah. Dookie just does the first three Singleton movies. He does Boys in the Hood, Poetic poetic justice higher learning and then dies wow because singleton like again describes casting that guy where it's just like he came in he had the the pacifier i was just like this is fucking hilarious like this guy rules and like and that is credited just like the whole in the 90s like i remember i had a friend who had a pacifier that she would like wear around her neck it was just like a thing in the 90s i guess well it's like rave culture too kind of thing yeah that was that was definitely rave yeah then it becomes an apparatus then it becomes means to an end right it's a distribution system well you can use it sure yeah one other

thing i noticed so watching it again this time i I was looking at the younger version of Ricky. I was like, why does he look like Eddie from Family Matters? But it can't be Eddie because this is 1991. And Eddie would have been already like a teen, like much older than that. And then I realized it's his brother. Like, that's the guy Eddie. Yeah. Donovan McCrary is the brother of Darius McCrary, who played Eddie on Family Matters. They look so much alike.

It was crazy. They do. And he's in a couple episodes of Family Matters after this movie. Yeah. I saw that, too. I was like, oh, that's so, so weird. Right. And that's pretty much all he does.

I mean, that's his entire career. Nia Long, I mean, we didn't really shot. I i mean she doesn't have a ton to do in this movie she's another one where this is her first movie basically she'd been in like one horror movie in a tiny role before this i i wanna i was gonna uh circle back to her uh because i also i one of the big scenes i think we didn't discuss i I think the scene where they sleep together is really, really good, especially because that midsection has been built around a lot of virginity panic for Trey. That scene is so like tender. Even his own dad is like, have you gotten any? Right. That's like sniffing him.

Yeah. But the fact that it comes after out of Trey crying, right? And then saying, I never thought I'd cry in front of a female. And even just the way it's shot versus a lot of sex scenes

of the 90s, you know? And even like the fake fantasy sex scene we've seen already in the movie. I just think it's a really good scene. But also your entry point into that is that moment where Nia Long is doing her homework in front of the computer and

then she hears the gunshots and just sort of like flinches and then goes back to work you know yeah and it's such beautiful uh like tragic world building we should also just mention the the sound design is such a huge part of this movie i mean like, you know, let the score swell, when they drop out the score entirely, when you're just getting the echoes of be they sirens or helicopters or shots in the background, it just gives it like such a sense of environment, a constant sort of reminder of the dangers around them at all times. And then there's that saxophone, the the 80s 90s saxophone that was in every serious movie throw it in there absolutely like we need a jazz musician i mean that's probably

another thing spike lee is inadvertently turning into a trend by like you know bringing in his jazz musician dad to score his movies and then like just like having me it's stanley clark did the score for this movie and he's like a big jazz fusion guy it's definitely right yeah it's that thing i mean there's like a natural evolution to how these things develop and then the wayne brothers get in there and people are like oh it's a genre you can't do these things anymore damn the waynes brothers yeah i remember liking that movie a lot but it's also funny that I probably saw don't be a menace before I saw boys in the hood yeah that's that's not the best way to the wrong order yeah it's the wrong order but that is how that is I mean I mean then they had already done

I'm gonna get you sucker which is like a parody of blaxploitation like and they're just like in the 90s they're like okay let's you know well what's the trend now you know in in uh i mean i'm gonna get you suckers keenan ivory wins but still obviously the dynasty uh i always think about uh mike lawrence the comedian has a bit about how he saw space balls years before he saw star wars so when he finally saw star wars he was like this is just unfunny space balls. Where, where are all the jokes? This movie sucks.

I've seen this before. The guy was made out of pizza. It was better. So this movie came out July 12th, 1991 Griffin. It's the same weekend as point break. That is why we have done this box office before. I doubt you remember it, but it is the same weekend as point break that is why we have done this box office before i doubt you remember it but it is the same weekend as point break was that now was this the first wide weekend because it opened limited in la before it went nationwide right it well i'm seeing this i'm

seeing this as like a semi-wide weekend it's like 800 theaters though like it's a pretty serious i think there was like a smaller release but i was trying to get the dates on it i mean the big thing with this movie too is that it was sort of like oh i guess i'm seeing july 2nd that might just be the premiere though i don't know well i don't know what are you saying sorry no that columbia sort of viewed this movie as a flyer back when studios didn't have specialty divisions and they were like we can make a small movie with an unknown cast and who knows um but then the fact that it got into con it played on certain regard um but made such a big splash there and uh it was received so well there it kind of gave columbia

the confidence of like oh this might be a major movie if people are liking it in europe you know like they thought it was going to be a hyper specific film. And then it turned out to be a lot more universal than they believe. So by the time it opened in the States a couple of months later, it had this sort of buzz around it, not only for like generationally, like, you know, kids of this age, but also just like the hoi polloi were like, well, this movie just burned up the closet. It's opening over a point break, which I would think, you know, you'd think of as point break as ostensibly the more

commercial movie. That's the big action movie. It has a big star in Swayze. It's got two big stars. And an up-and-coming star in Keanu. Well, Keanu's sort of like a new star. No, I meant Gary Busey. The Swayze and Busey. Swayze and Busey, yeah. But what's number one at the box office, Griffin? It's an action movie.

It's the biggest movie of the year. We've talked about it on this podcast. It's Terminator 2 Judgment Day, right? That's right, which came out the week before. So we've, this, you know how we somehow, like, cluster our podcast, like, sort of identifies certain times in popular culture? Because we keep doing movies from from the summer of 91 was a hot summer there was some shit happening there it's also just crazy to think that like here are three major directors who all have if not their single most defining film one one of their most

towering triumphs all like at the same time in theaters that you could see like Catherine Bigelow James Cameron and John Singleton all punching at like their highest definitely definitely and number two Griffin it's an it's a Disney re-release can you remember that's number two 1991 Disney re-release it's not the Jungle Book is it no oh No. Oh, is it 101 Dalmatians? Yes, it is. 101 Dalmatians making $10 million over Boys in the Hood and Point Break. Aisha, we've both been doing the trivia spotting things for film spotting. We have.

David did it once and dominated and then left uh retired early nickels and may style i i just don't know if i can return after yeah completely blowing the doors off yeah did i yeah well last week i i not last week last month i came in dead last so i you probably had the better strategy david um but uh one of the ones uh that we were both on aisha um josh and adam were asking everyone to go around all the team captains. So like, what's the first movie you remember seeing in theaters? Almost everyone's answer was a Disney film re-released. Yes.

You know, it is just one of those things where it's like. Your parents were like, OK. Born before 1995, that was such a formative part of your childhood, was probably the first movie you saw in theater, was a movie that your parents saw in theaters that was being re-released for the first time in six years. And everyone went around, almost everyone had that answer of like, for me, it was the eighth release of Cinderella. It was the 1990 release of Jungle Book, you know? I think I was the only one who said a new movie. Which was? I think it was Beauty and the Beast. And we I remember. Well, I don't really remember seeing it, but I've been told that we saw it in like Thanksgiving weekend of 1991.

So, yeah. Right. Yeah. You were there. You were small. I'm assuming you were a young person. I was very small. were there you were small i'm assuming you were a young person very small because the first movie i saw in theaters i am told is a was a re-release of john houston's annie you know like a special

screening of that and i have no memory of that but apparently uh that's the first thing i saw in a theater i saw jungle book and i remember it and you say I'm a liar. But I do say I think that's another part of it. Is that like by 1991, 92, 93, Disney's releasing new movies that are like like there was that gulf there, like kind of post Jungle Book Robin Hood, right? Where the 80s, the late 70s were dark for Disney. So it was just like, oh, you were probably seeing an earlier, better Disney movie in theaters blowing up the box office rather than your first movie being the Black Cauldron. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they haven't even re-released Black Cauldron on in theaters. I would be surprised if they have. I am all but certain they never re-released it in theaters because I remember being such a Disney nerd as a kid. And when they took it out of the vault and put it on VHS in like the mid 90s, I was like, what the fuck is this thing? It's so dark. No one's ever talked about this. But I was just like, this isn't on the posters. They never play clips of this. It's not on the sing-along videos. For good reason. I sorry all the black cauldron fans but but it's

just it's the erasure of it it's just kind of incredible how disney was just like we do we don't talk about that that's that's the troubled member of the family it's like that and song of the south you're like but i but here's the thing that's insane they hide black cauldron more than song of the south true because you got something done yeah it's not the fucking theme songs they put it on the sing-along videos black cauldron they're just like look it was look it just got caught up with the wrong crowds well did they have music i don't i haven't seen it in years but so that's part of the issue right like you can't isolate the music out of it you know yeah but i just genuinely when i came out on VHS, I was like, is this new?

Yeah, I feel like Black Cauldron is like the sort of the stone of the 80s. It's like we don't really talk about this movie. Okay, wait, so Terminator 2 is number one. Boys in the Hood's number two. Point Break is number three. No, no, no, no.

Terminator 2, number one. 101 Dalmatians is number two. Oh, sorry. Boys in the Hood, number three, opening to $ator 2 number one 101 dalmatians number two sorry boys in the hood number three opening to 10 million dollars it's gonna make uh 56 domestic and no money internationally basically which is going i'm sure to be a that's gonna be a story of his 90s movies because yeah there's just no effort to sell like movies with black leads to the rest of the world especially in the 90s like you know it's fucking insane there was just i mean a self perpetuating narrative that just they do not travel and even like the biggest black stars in america will smith was often credited as like the first one who actually crossed over that Denzel movies and

Eddie Murphy movies you know that they wouldn't do as well in other countries but it also felt like the studios wouldn't even try and to some degree it was only Black Panther when now distributors are starting to go like oh maybe we could have just released these movies everywhere all along yeah well I mean with Will Smith he the thing about him was like he was he's he still has not worked with a black director ever uh is that like never in his entire career not for film that's crazy no uh so but like denzel was hopping and he was working with really tony scott and and spike like he i mean most i i actually can't think of any black actor besides Will Smith who has never worked with a black director. Like it's impossible to be a black director or black actor.

At least before the King Richard movie. The one that he's shooting now is Rinaldo Marcus Green. So that will be first. That's his first. That is wild to think about. And Night Shyamalan I think is the only non-white director he's worked with. Oh, and there's Ang Lee. We can't forget about Gemini Man.

But yes, that is. But no, how dare. It does speak to that. And also like, you know, Will Smith has had relatively few black romantic interests in films. I mean, to some degree, it feels like Will Smith was running his career like a politician. Oh, absolutely.

You know, like Tom Cruise style going like, how do I make myself seem bankable to overseas distributors? Oh, absolutely. It's very calculated. Yeah, yeah, right.

Because, wait, who directed Bad Boys for Life? Are they, they're from like, they're like Moroccan, Belgian Moroccan directors, right? The... Would they...

Adil and Bilal. Yes. Anyway. He just now... The exceptions are all in the last eight years. Yeah. No, the last five years. Like, yeah.

Just... He just... Anyway. That is crazy. Number five of the box office, Griffin. It's a comedy sequel. It's a comedy sequel. It's a comedy sequel. How recently was the first movie?

That's a good question. Because I feel like they're comedy sequels where they're like, let's get this thing out nine months later. And they're comedy sequels where they're like, we waited eight years. We made a mistake. I feel like I know this one. Maybe. Please. Always guess. It's three years later. Is it? like we waited eight years we made a mistake i feel like i know this one maybe please always guess it's three years later is it from the first look who's talking two or three it is not look

who's talking to which is that is the ultimate example of they were like let's make the sequel now like the day it came out they were like rush this thing out or honey honey honey I shrunk the blew up the baby kid blew up the baby kid yes honey I blew up the baby kid is that the correct answer no no it's not honey I blew up the baby kid I think I know what it is what is it

maybe I'm wrong here but I feel like those two guesses set me up thinking along the right lines is it three men and a little lady it's not three men and a Little Lady? It's not Three Men and a Little Lady, a film I have seen. No, you guys are guessing in the film. I just want to just make this clear.

Look Who's Talking came out October 1989. Look Who's Talking 2 came out December 1990. 14 months. If you had two babies in that time span, it would be surprising. They made two. That's just so fast. But isn't Wayne's World like that? Wayne's World is December 93 for two and the first one. Wayne's World is February 1992 for the first one.

Wait, now that you say that, is it Bill and Ted? It's not Bill and Ted ted although that comes out uh i want to look it up at the next week bogus journey comes out so you're you're in the right ballpark historic um just and wayne's world three is december so wayne's world yeah it's like less than two years yeah no come on um it's uh all right it's a spoofy movie. More clues. Oh, is it Hot Shots Part Deux? No. Fuck! This is now fun.

What? We're guessing. Here's the other thing. What a golden age for Hollywood just making bullshit comedies that we like on cable. 1991. 1991. It's been three years. Okay.

I'm going to tell you, it's also not problem child 2 which is number nine at the box office oh god that's another one where i feel like that problem child 2 came out one week after problem child 1 it came out 11 months after problem thank you that's how fast that is so fast it's like that pink panther movie they made after peter sellers died where they just took all the leftover pieces and had a guy be like we can't find him anywhere they shot like 30 minutes of new footage where they're like this guy's missing problem tell two is just bloopers uh come on come on okay come on 91 three years later so it's a an 87 original 88 original sorry i'm bad at math uh i only understand math when it's a box office numbers uh okay 88 sequel it's spoofy there will be a third and final film three years later

oh oh oh oh oh i'm gonna be really upset with myself if this is correct and i didn't guess it immediately is it naked gun two and a half the smell of fear that's right it's one of the best comedies ever made funny move the best one right in my in my opinion yes the best of the three that's the one is was oj in that one or was it the other one oh oj's in all three oh he's in all three yeah and the third the third one came out after the murder he's in all three but it does have my favorite of the oj gangs which is when when the usc marching band marches over him when he keeps like he gets like hit by a bus and then a steamroller yeah anyway um it's the one

it's the one with the queen it's the one with queen elizabeth no it's not that's the first one isn't it that's the first one right yes no you're right that's the first one that has the marching band yeah that's right wait it's the one with the oscars or no oscars is third one the second one is richard griffiths yes the mistaken identity and right so the first one's ricardo montalban is goulay two or three goulay is two yeah see every couple of years I watch all three just because I want to be able to remember which one is which. And then by the end of the year, it's faded. And I combine them all into one movie.

But I do know that two is the funniest. It's Naked Gun two and a half. The other movies are the top ten. You've got Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. You've got Regarding Henry with Harry Ford himself. You've got City Slickers, Ben. Id himself uh you got city slickers ben i feel like that's a ben movie oh hell yeah problem child 2 and the rocketeer underrated disney classic the rocketeer which we will do on this podcast one day uh i this is just the thing i've

become increasingly obsessed with i feel like we've i've made you do in recent episodes but just looking at a top 10 of like 90s which is just like peak movie star where every single one of those movies is like oh that's a blank movie pretty much right like not problem child and 101 dalmatians is a disney movie but it's like you know what it's a schwarzenegger movie it's a swayze movie right les Right. Leslie Nielsen. Yes. Costner, Harrison Ford, Billy Crystal and then Billy Campbell, of course. Well, that's the other weird thing it represents is when Disney was like, I don't know, we can't make any franchises work. Should we do a 30 superhero who has a jetpack? as a jetpack yeah we'll just we'll never stop being the most fascinating misunderstanding of a trend when batman was successful and everyone was like i think it's the 30s thing that everyone likes right everyone likes the throwback and it's just five of them radio drama it's just

fucking shadow and rocketeer and phantom and they're like no i think one of these 30s movies is gonna work aisha thank you so much for coming on the show thank you boys what did we decide on pods pods in the cast pods in the cast pods in the cast

pods in the cast yeah yeah um what a what a what a huge start to a career

and what a what a great uh guest to start off our our mini series with it's gonna be a good mini I think it's gonna be a good mini yeah

it's always just so nice, too, after covering a gargantuan career like fucking Zemeckis, to have a couple that we can like. Some smaller things. Yeah, that don't take an entire life cycle of some animals to get

through. People should listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour if they don't already, which is stupid to even plug it on this show because you're constantly the number one podcast on the TV and movie charts that we obsessively look at. Yeah, we are.

It's a great team. I recently joined after having been a fan for years and it's been great. Listen, if you're not listening you should listen we're five days a week now a franchise yeah we are kind of yeah we're a franchise franchise yeah you're a franchise um and thank you all for listening please remember to rate review and subscribe thank you to joe bone and pat reynolds for our artwork thank you to Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Thank you to Marie

Barty for our social media. Thank you to our editing team, Alex Barron and AJ McKeon. Thank you to Lee Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song. Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit. Go to our Shopify page for some real nerdy shirts and other pieces of merchandise, but the thing doesn't work as well if I say a different word other than shirts, because the joke is that shirts and shit sound kind of similar. Yeah, of course.

Thank you. Tune in. You can go to patreon.com slash blank check. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, for blank check special feature i don't know what we're doing at this point because we banked up episodes very far in advance so at this point it's a mystery uh maybe we're doing whatever one march madness probably that's that's what it's gonna be yeah right so uh go to patreon where i assume we're doing commentaries on the

rugrats trilogy problem child probably or yeah We were both rushing to such similar jokes, Ben. I mean, and the difference between those two jokes tells you everything about the difference between the two of us as human beings. We got a Rugrat and a problem child. That's who my co-hosts are. Rugrats all day. Rugrats all day.

Thank you. Baby's gotta do what a baby's gotta do. Man, David, you've been watching Mary Tyler Moore's show recently. I've been telling you to get into it. It's a good show. Yeah. I mean, to be clear, I have seen Mary Tyler Moore before. Much like with Cheers, I had recommended to you that it is a good solve for anxiety during these troubled times. So you have been re-watching Mary Tyler Moore incomplete.

Have you ever watched it, Aisha? Oh, yeah. Yeah, actually, I just watched a Mary Tyler Moore episode a week ago. Just turned it on. Yeah, it's a great it's a great show. I've never watched it from like beginning to end, but it was on Nick at Night all the time, you know, so. Highly recommend giving it a solid run through on Hulu.

I just finished the seventh season but david there is an episode i think in the second or third season in which uh the voice actor for stew pickles appears and i i couldn't understand why i my my neck was tingling you were like huh who is this that's crazy yeah oh my god stew pickles hot right recognizably the same voice uh anyway uh that's the final plug of the episode. Please watch the Mary Tyler Moore show on Hulu. Everyone involved in the show has died since I started watching it. And I find it very depressing and eerie, but it's a great thing to watch.

Ed Asner is still kicking. He just got his vaccine shot a couple of days ago. Fingers crossed. Ed can never die. I will lose it if Ed slips off this mortal cliff. He is 91 years old. I wouldn't push all your chips in on Ed Asner.

I'm pushing all my chips in on Ed Asner. We're rooting for you, bro. Yeah, for sure. I love him. Tune in next week for Poetic Justice. And as always, I want to just say it one more time on the record. Ed Asner will never die.

Stop. Don't do that. Okay. All right. Please. When is this episode coming out? So it's like Billy Crystal is this guy from the city. But he's in like a desert setting and he doesn't fit in, you know?

And there's this grouchy guy who they don't get along, you know? They don't get along at all. I mean, God, what a premise.