Blank Check with Griffin & David - Higher Learning with Micah Peters

Episode Date: May 23, 2021

We’re going back to school with John Singleton, Omar Epps, and...Zangief?! Micah Peters (The Ringer) joins the Two Friends as they discuss “Higher Learning” - an ambitious movie that wrestles with the Big Issues of the American experience: race, gender, sexuality, and the career of Tyra Banks. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

question the podcast. Okay, so you're doing the tagline from the film. Question the knowledge. I made it question the podcast. So the poster for this movie, I am just trying to imagine seeing it in a multiplex. Like the standee for this movie in 1995. A brisk January.

Right, a bunch of... Have you, Micah, please talk, have you seen the poster? I assume you've seen the poster for Higher Learning, the theatrical poster. Honestly, no. You're going to have to describe it to me. Alright, I'm going to describe it. I love describing posters. Alright. Okay, great. Great, great. This is have to describe it to me. All right. I'm going to describe it. I love describing posters.

All right. Okay. Great. Great. Great. This is it. Micah, get ready. Yes.

This is, isn't it so much more fun this way? Is it so much better that I don't know what it looks like? All right. Absolutely. And I would argue this is a poster designed to be described more than it is to be looked at. I don't think it works as well visually as it does aurally. So we got, we got a red red background so it's all in a red

background we got question the knowledge that's the tagline the film is called higher learning color color of fire blood power exactly right right yeah all right so so the title the tagline that's on the right side of the poster on the left side we got this kind of like series of

abstract symbols that are stacked on top of each other. Like a sort of, like a sort of a Jenga pile of symbols. Is that what? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So at the bottom, we've got the symbol, the male symbol, a circle with an arrow coming out of it. And Lawrence Fishburne's face is inside that, which already I'm, I'm having seen the film. I'm not sure where that's coming from

but okay god damn all right next up we've got a um um i i'm sorry you just i'm sorry david just to stop you you described that symbol weirdly i i think just the cleaner way to um circle arrow coming out of it well no it's the it's the austin powers necklace i mean let's just say let's just save our listeners time and mental energy so you start at the bottom with a classic austin powers pendant right exactly okay so you've got an austin powers symbol and then um on top of that so sort of balance on top of that we have um it's actually two female symbols so circles with pluses coming out of them when christy swanson's face is in those now balanced on top of that we have a fist a raised fist wait not wait it's just wait wait hold on hold on yes with the female signs and christy swanson's face is in both of them it's not christy swanson and jennifer connelly it's

just christy so we're already just abandoning the internal logic of the grouping of the okay all right absolutely absolutely i mean i do want to bring us back a second i don't i still don't totally get why laurence fishman's in the male symbol like i don't think that's really his vibe in this movie but whatever um sure but yes we, we are kind of abandoning the internal logic. Maybe they tried it with Connelly's face and it looked weird. Maybe that's why. I don't know. I don't know what the situation is there.

I mean, she does have more square features. You know, maybe it doesn't fit. Whatever. Anyway, continue. I don't know. I mean, look, I'm not going to question them, but let me just say, I just think it's always good business practice to put Jennifer Connelly's face on a poster. Right?

Just from a graphic design standpoint. I mean, points. Yeah. Yeah. Compelling elements. Yeah, exactly. So, as I said, on top of the female symbols, we got a fist with Ice Cube's face in it. symbols we got a fist with ice cubes face in it next to that we've got i i hate to say it a swastika and and whose face is in the swastika of course michael rapaport on top of that we got two things

we have a peace sign yes um you know the little plane symbol with uh omar epps' face and then sort of balanced on top of it, a gun, just a gun. And those are the symbols of higher learning. Gun, peace sign, swastika, fist, two female symbols, one Austin Powers pendant. I love dorm room philosophy. That's the thing. That's the thing.

Can I just say, the part of this poster that jumps out to me the most is that with all the other characters they're doing sort of like that x-men first class thing where you're just sort of making out a sliver of the actor's face within the symbol right omar epps's face is so perfectly formatted within the peace sign. He looks like when there were talking letters and numbers on Sesame Street. Yes. Like his mouth is like right where like the peace sign bifurcates, you know, his eyes are right at the top. I think that's just like, you know, the, you know, the close to perfect construction of his face. It's just like. I think so.

You know, it's just well arranged you know because michael rapaport you're you're just going like okay that's the reflection of a nazi in a swastika when you look at omareps you're like that is a a anthropomorphized talking peace sign that is this is a character the character is a peace sign yeah this is like you want to root for him you want to it's just it would have been funny if they literally went for uh the symbols have to absolutely reflect the character so sure maybe the female symbol is christy swanson and uh jennifer connelly but you know maybe omar app's not the peace sign but he has like a little a little jogger you know like a sort of a stick figure running i don't know something like that

maybe he's the the walk symbol from a street light yeah but there's speed lines behind him so you see he's walking fast lawrence fishburne could be like in a mortarboard or something right like it's i don't know sure just some ideas he's in a book he's in the pages of a book that he's he's the smoke coming out of a pipe it also just rude i mean we've already said this but rude there are six am i correct about this there are six actors with single card billing in this movie and five of them made the poster connelly's the one who's left off yeah yeah that's true tyra banks didn't get single card billing hmm maybe she did maybe she did i don't know i don't think she does though because it's it's alphabetical and connelly is first i'm looking at yeah the credit block on the poster is connelly cube epps rapaport swanson fishburne and fishburne yeah no justice for j poster is Connelly, Cube, Epps, Rappaport, Swanson, Fishburne.

And Fishburne. Yeah, no justice for Jennifer Connelly. And we don't stand for that here on Blank Check, which is 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. This is a miniseries on the films of John Singleton. It's called Pods in the Cast. I'm Griffin. I'm David. Ooh, you're getting good there. See, I was trying to throw you off. I was ready. I could see you, when I didn't say it at

the part where I'm supposed to say it, I could see that you were you were stealing yourself. You were you were locked in. Yes, I appreciate it. You're getting sharp. You're getting sharp. Today, we're talking about higher learning, which I would argue is his his biggest like his first of two consecutive blank checks. Right. Poetic justice feels to me strategically. And I talked about this too much, repeated myself too much in the last episode but poetic justice feels to me like a second film where he's saying i am

not gonna swing for the fences i'm not gonna do the big ambitious follow-up i'm gonna keep my my my check warm for a little bit i'm gonna hold on to it i'm gonna pocket the blank check for a movie uh this is certainly a blank check though yeah sure i yeah yes yes i think it was i mean there's some scenes in terms of scale like where you know like where the crowds are scattering around where i'm like god this thing was all fucking production and it's his third columbia movie he's making you know you know what i mean like it's only with the next one that he moves to another studio like this is him continuing the relationship yeah yeah stephanie allen who is vice president of production at columbia at this time said he had carte blanche he could do whatever

he wanted to do i think that the like biggest indication of that is the fact that the university is named columbia university and in a sense of like you know our main character literally gets up and runs out of there you said it was his last movie on columbia feels very like you know all right fuck y'all i'm out i yeah you know you're absolutely yes absolutely right yes i and just also he just threw everything into this movie, I think is the nicest way to put it, right? Like, if you're talking about a blank check project. Yes. I've never seen this movie before. You have been sort of prepping me for your thoughts on this movie being sort of a very ambitious mess. And I, unsurprisingly, as is my want to do uh totally just kind of unabashedly love how ambitiously messy this movie is i just is very messy though yeah but it is but but it's just any movie that's got this much it's trying to say with this sort of like narrative

ambition i'm kind of just in the bag for i'm not surprised i'm slightly surprised i don't know but i'm intrigued keep going introduce our guests as well obviously do we introduce the the podcast we introduce the podcast uh you introduce yourself you're david i forgot to ask how our guest wants to be introduced. Well, you know, you can, I will just say that this is sound only co-host, staff writer at The Ringer, Micah Peters. Well, those are great things to say.

Yeah, Micah Peters is our guest today. Yes, those are things I should have asked in advance. You know, it'd be like that sometimes, Griff, you know. It is. It is. We're all losing our minds. Micah, thank you for doing the show. Of course.

Of course. What is sort of your relationship to Singleton's filmography at large and to this movie in particular in the micro? Oh, the thing is, is that I don't really have like a strong attachment to Singleton. I'm not really like a completist like that. Obviously, I was four when Higher Learning came out. But like, this is one of the Singleton films that I like remember distinctly watching. of the Singleton films that I like remember distinctly watching this being like,

you know, it was on stars at like nine 30 after, you know, your parents went to bed. So you sit down and catch like half of it. And then you come back like a week later and watch the whole thing. Or maybe you only start for the beginning and then a week later you watch the whole thing.

But it's the only one that I can like really like remember. And I rewatched it for the first time in a very long time uh earlier this week but yeah i wouldn't say that like i am a singleton scholar although i do remember reading about how he did like a TV spot, like, like I think it was like a PBS news hour or something. And they were just like, what are you going to do now that you've, you know, made something as tactile and subversive and like personal as boys in the hood.

And how are you going to top that? And he's just like, well, I'm 26 and I'm black and I'm in America. So I think I'm just going to write about angst. And like, that is basically what the movie is. There's not really any sort of centralized message to it.

It's just people being angry and attempting to like reckon with themselves and each other. I mean, yeah. Micah, you're landing on a more eloquent explanation of why I fall for this kind of movie. I generally like the overly ambitious, messy movies that are just driven by anger. When someone's just like, I got so much shit to say, and I don't know how to say it. Give me three hours.

And this very much feels like a three-hour movie that was cut down to two hours. And I think he said that there was a large chunk that the studio made him cut out just for runtime reasons. I think Connelly in particular got the worst of it. I feel like there had to be more Busta Rhymes too. Yeah.

Definitely more Busta Rhymes. He should have cut more Jason Wiles. No offense to Jason Wiles, but like a little offense to Jason Wiles. That's a wet blanket character. Jason Wiles, who is in Kicking and Screaming and somehow does not ruin it, is the worst. I'm so sorry if he's listening to this episode. I have no idea why he would be. I'm rarely that mean, but I do not like Jason Wiles.

Cut to Jason Wiles wearing a Ben nickname shirt, drinking out of a No Bits Proith's mug right just quietly dropping it a single tear running down his cheek it's just like there's one skit for family guy where like there's the the douchebag with the acoustic guitar so they go underneath the tree and like bounce like a bird on his knee and he's just like i keep every beer i've ever drank on the shelf and it's like he's singing off key and shit that is jason wiles in every fucking movie he's in he belongs in the college movie there's no question he's the most college-ass actor ever yeah the flowing hair the henleys and the hiking boots you know i'll say this too like he he's so ineffective in this movie that i was like is michael rapaport a psych out like is he gonna be the one who shoots everybody there has to be something like sitting

there mumbling to himself and you're like maybe he's all right though fuck jason why i was just like but somehow like michael rapaport's given this is all somehow Wiles is more unnerving to me. I'm more worried about this guy. Yes. Higher learning. What you're saying, Griffin, I just want to check. Did you introduce that this is Pods in the Cast, a miniseries about John Sickleton? I did say it was Pods in the Cast.

Look, I did a lot of things in the reverse order. I didn't ask Micah what credits he wanted listed. Maybe this is my big, ambitious, messy episode. Mr. Big Time Track Star. Yeah, exactly. The classic narrative of our podcast, you know, of the directors we follow sometimes, right? Where like each movie gets a little more ambitious

and a little less like elevator pitchy, right? Like this one, it's just like, yeah, he's like, it's going to be college and it's going to talk about everything. Like, I don't know what he's even trying to sell the studio on here, but it must have like, that is, that's the point at which he can kind of say what he wants. Right. Yeah.

Let me find this article I saw earlier with, with, uh, Stephanie Allen talkie, But I mean, she just said it was like he literally had carte blanche. Columbia was so into the idea of him being in-house there, you know, that driving conversation in the culture, you know, at a time where that was still barely valued in Hollywood, you know? Right. If you could produce it on a small enough budget and you could, you know, turn a tidy little profit, they were interested in the cachet of these movies feel important. These movies get think pieces written about them you know at a time where we weren't all choking on think pieces i i wonder how much

you think this movie cost like 20 million dollars i'm trying to like you know where are we here yeah because i mean higher learning costs like 10 i'm sorry poetic justice costs like 10 right right and boys in the hood costs significantly less than that and it's like you were saying earlier like there are like a lot of like i mean like it's a full college campus that we explore for like two hours right they i mean they just had to rent out all of this space and also it's such an expansive cast. Morris Chestnut is in, like, Morris Chestnut is the anchor on the track team. And I was just like, holy shit, I forgot. Morris Chestnut is also in this movie

and Tyra Banks is the love interest. And, like, there is, I mean, there's, yeah, there's all sorts of actors in this movie. He's just kind of calling everything in yeah and mars chestnut i could not tell if that was a cut plot or if that's just mars chestnut like doing a solid for the guy who gave him his first job because like you said there's a lot in this movie where you're like like when christy swanson is sleeping with jason wiles and jennifer connelly you're like oh okay well so like where's this going and then it doesn't go anywhere i was like

this this has to be some fucking thin red line-esque you know jason wiles is at the premiere and he's like hey where's the end of my plot like you know like i like i don't know i like there it does it's not so like it is there are a few characters whose storylines get like resolved sort of but like i wouldn't say that anything comes together at the end of the movie like there's no i mean i think no the the ending of this movie in fact makes things more complicated i would argue there would argue they could end this movie 10 minutes earlier and it would have more power in sort of its ambiguous mystery. And then it does 10 minutes of trying to offer resolution that somehow makes everything feel even less resolved.

Like, I was... Okay, so the strongest that malik ever is in the movie is like the last sequence where he's talking to christy swanson's character after like deja is shot and killed for no reason and her death is like tyra vex death is ugly and long and it's so unfair and it's like tough to look at and then it's like platoon yeah yeah it is exactly it is it is exactly literally says why she says like screams to the sky it is and like you know is gurgling but it's like it is it's gruesome it's like but then after all that and the first person that like he like opens up to you know like trying to reintroduce himself back into. Like, you know, the school communities is kind of like I lost my girl here.

First thing she says is, I feel like it's all my fault. And he like that would have broken the Malik from two hours earlier in the movie. Yes. Because he goes, you know, you can't blame yourself. And it's like, I think it's a really great note that he's like shaking the entire time he's doing it.

But like, he doesn't press her any further about why we haven't talked before or any of that. I was going to say, she says like, you know, it's actually kind of funny. I don't think we've talked once this entire year. And he's like, you know, it's actually kind of funny. I don't think we've talked once this entire year. And he's just like, yeah, it's funny. And it's like the sneer he like. But no, the thing is that like that is how that's like that is exactly how a person like that would. Because it's just like I feel like that's how Singleton would respond. It's just like, yo.

Sure. you know probably he wants to say something about how you know it either assume full responsibility for it or accept that's just a thing that happens because there's nothing anyone can do with i feel like it's my fault in square quotes right and then like or you know but instead he like understands like that you could feel guilt although it's not his to help process, like, which is, you know, the God is so cheesy to say it, but like, you know, the biggest signifier of like growth or mastery is kindness, especially like the kind that you isn't like really deserved because Lord knows that was an annoying thing to say.

No, but it's true. Yeah, I do think, I mean, the Mellie character is obviously the singleton surrogate. And he said as much. And in trying to figure out where this movie came out of, beyond just I have a lot of things I want to say, the incident with the Rappaport character getting in his face about the Black Panther shirt, Singleton said happened to him at USC. And he kind of extrapolated a whole movie from that.

You know, it feels like he took that incident and unpacked it into his Nashville at a college campus. I had, well, the thing is that like it wasn't it's it wasn't like it didn't get all the way to like a physical altercation but it get it got into a shouting match about a poster from like the 68 olympics that i had in my in my dorm room like it's like you leave home and you go to this strange alien place where the only people that know the rules, like, you can't trust the way that they explain them to you. And it's just kind of like a powder keg. Like, and it's things like that happen. And yeah, you can see where it would just like, where you can create an entire, where you can catastrophize from a situation like that

because it really could go like any kind of way. Yeah, and he was also just such a prodigious guy. I mean, he was so, you know, through talent and circumstance and luck and also just sort of like persistence and focus, he got to make films so much younger than most people do that he was pretty much getting to make films as he conceived of them. Whereas I think a lot of filmmakers, by the time they get to make their first film, they've

had like 10 ideas lying around that they've been trying to push uphill. It's like Boys in the Hood was like his pitch for his application to film school, you know? And then that essentially becomes his thesis film. And then Poetic Justice is this reworking of his follow-up idea. And then it's just like everything's sort of just like coming to him in real time. I mean, I found this other quote from him that is just kind of so telling, where he did an interview with an Australian network in 1995 promoting this movie. And he said, American college campuses are the only place

you can see America in its purest form. I'm so glad you said Australia. Yeah. Because it is a great opportunity for me to take this running leap to the outermost bounds of the known universe. Because I recently watched wake and fright uh on the recommendation of like a close close friend of mine and you see y'all seen that movie yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so this is the first time that like this is the first time

i'd ever watched it but like it is it was you know that movie came in 71 after years of like australia and uh living memory being this like bright sunny like place of cheery hospitality where literally anyone even the gas station attendant can serve you a beer but then like wake and fright makes like makes that like incredibly sinister and like the main character is like this showy hot shit teacher that is basically has his confidence sense of self and like sanity eroded like by this really hostile environment that everybody thought was chill so it is kind of like a similar story yeah i also just it's it's another thing i love uh margaret one of my favorite modern movies is another movie i think that kind of does this

which is just like make a film about america with teenagers representing America itself because of how unique our nation is in terms of just being so fucking young and so arrogant. You know, there's this uniquely American thing to just like how little history we have, how often it has repeated itself and how cataclysmic we view every event. itself and how cataclysmic we view every event. And just the perception of just like we're number one, we're the greatest. We know how to be a country better than anyone else, even though we've been here for a microsecond. And I just think this film captures that really well with just all of these teenagers who are getting like activated for the first time kind of having independent thought for the first time and having that confidence of like what i'm thinking right now is the first time anyone has ever come to this conclusion and it's incredibly important

it's it's page 50 confidence that's it's perfectly but but this movie also has that energy as a byproduct of being such a young filmmaker, you know? Yeah. Where he's just like, I'm ready to say everything. Right, which is good. That's his magic. The other thing this movie has going for it is that when you watch it now, anytime you're like, I don't know, this feels on the nose. You also have to sort of check yourself with like, it's not like things aren't on the nose now. Like, you know, you can't get right.

It's tough to it's tough to quibble with the plausibility of this movie, even though there's plenty to quibble with. Just because there's so much of it that just seems like embarrassingly relevant. But it's embarrassing that it's relevant. I guess that's my complaint to quote the zoomers that's that's the biggest cringe for me is how much of this feels like is this still what we're fucking dealing with you know it just like it's such a bummer to watch this movie 26 years later and see how many things are just like point for point arguments that are being made and people are pushing back on saying like, why is this suddenly a thing? I mean, David, I've been

watching all of Mary Tyler Moore show. I finished it recently and got you into the idea of rewatching it as well. And it is just like so depressing the episodes where feminism is at the forefront and you're just like, they're presenting things as like, you hear this new argument that women are making and it just feels like verbatim the exact same wording that you would see some troll use tomorrow. I mean, it's like the same issues

framed in the same way with the same pushback. Just like calling over their shoulder from the breakfast table. Honey, apparently. I'm not saying that michael rapaport is the character he plays in this movie certainly that is ridiculous but when michael rapaport is yelling about reverse racism like at me you know i'm just sort of like yeah jesus christ like i can't i can't get i guess this is just still that's like basically a sentence i might read like in the news i was more so having i was having that moment like you know the scene at the top of the stairs like near the climax after like he gets a lucky shot in and kicks

malik down the stairs and he's and like the way that it's framed is him standing between the glass stained window and the oil painting of George Washington. He's just like, I'm a man! I'm the man! I'm whatever! And it's just kind of like, wow. He's still doing the same

thing on Instagram Live. Yeah, and there's like, you have the scene where IceCube what's his name, FudgeWhite? Yeah, FudgeWhite. One of the all time great character names. After calling a character

Doughboy, he calls another IceCube character Fudge. If I'm IceCube, I'm like, John, what's up? Do you have a problem with me? Why are all my characters food? Right. He needs to complete his Ice Cube dessert trilogy.

Right. But there's the scene where he asked him about like, what about if they played the national anthem? Would you stand? Oh, yeah. And Singleton did like an interview for the 25th anniversary of this movie right before he died, like months before he died when this film was being released on Blu-ray. And he was like, I rewatched it for the first time ever, and I could not believe I had written that line into the movie. Right. You know, he's like saying that in 2019 when the Kaepernick thing is at like the forefront of the conversation and this is 1995 before like the nfl even

introduced like the the military fly over a big show of like the national anthem shit which like started in the mid-2000s but but it's part of this whole fucking like america is an adolescent country for me thing where it's just like the shit resets every 10 years. You know, every 10 years, I feel like culture acts like we're having this conversation for the first time, be it any subject. And just everything in this movie feels 100% relevant today. I mean, here's the one thing about this movie that isn't relevant, that dates it, is that the internet doesn't exist. But my take on this film is that this movie is sort of made me realize how much the internet has just become a global college campus where everyone is

like, as Mike said, I have page 50 knowledge. Everyone needs to hear my thoughts. I believe I am the most correct. You know, it's just everyone screaming at each other. Yeah. The flattening of context right right right that's that's all the internet is which is you know college campuses are that in a microcosm and it's a vaguely safe space intellectually because everyone is equally hormonal and ramped up and then you leave and then you go into the real world try to figure out how to fucking behave yourself uh and the internet everyone's just showing their ass all the time for their entire life higher learning i mean we can't go through the plot of this movie

narrate like you know uh front to front to finish just because like it's all over the place but i feel like you just kind of have to tackle the characters as to talk about it right like you know character by character yeah i think we can go like plot line by plot line i also just i mean i read as many articles as i could and as many things from around the 25th anniversary and also from when he passed and i just found so little context about the development of this movie it's because it's the least discussed of his movies, I would say. Yeah. But all the stuff I found was just

castings that almost happened. Tupac was supposed to play Malik. He got arrested. DiCaprio was supposed to play Remy. Damn. And Michael Rappaport was going to play the Cole Hauser part, which would have been disastrous.

DiCaprio was supposed to play Rivi? Yeah. He was entirely too pretty to be played. Yes, absolutely. Too confident. Couldn't do it. I agree with that. But at the same time, it is hilarious that it's like, ah, we didn't get DiCaprio.

I guess let's get Michael Rappaport. Because Michael Rappaport, right? Yeah. If you're casting Inception and Nolan's like, OK, DiCaprio is busy, I guess call Michael Rappaport. Yes, I guess we'll just have to, you know, cast this correctly. It's just wild. Yeah, DiCaprio only wasn't in it because Quick and the Dead ran over schedule and they were both Sony movies. So it was, yeah, Rappaport had already been cast.

They bump Rappaport up to the bigger part and then put Cole Hauser in there. He wanted Sidney Poitier to play Professor Phipps. His backup choice was Samuel L. Jackson. The studio wanted Fishburne. Weirdly, he didn't want Fishburne. That's interesting because fishburn right you like make sense i mean i guess he's pretty young at this time to be playing he's playing older right like well the thing is what else was there around that because i mean there was

what else was he because like is him cause him doing the, like, yeah, playing the older professor character was just kind of like, you know, after being, you know, King of New York and. Well, but he's coming off his Oscar nomination though. Oh,

right. Okay. Okay. He gets the Oscar nomination in between the two Singleton movies, but also it's like with Singleton and Fishburne working together, there's like an interstellar time disruption where Fishburne characters keep on getting older and older and everyone else ages appropriately. So it's like he's playing like seven years older in Boys in the Hood. Now he's playing like 20 years older in this movie.

Yeah, he's got like the light gray hair and like the like the barely there patois and like his horn- horn-rimmed glasses and the bow tie mr big time track star huh yeah here here's my thing speaking of time dilation though omar epps and this is not a criticism of anything omar epps in this movie is playing a college student he's about the right age for it i think he's about 21 years old um five years later he's playing a high school student in love and basketball i know he plays a a you know he ages into an adult in that movie it's just funny that it's not that crazy in love and basketball no no i buy it it's pretty plausible and it's five years after this um here's the here's the single weirdest casting i I mean, there are like so many, like, I just think this was a very sought after project.

Every young actor was trying to get cast in this, especially since there was the feeling of like, Singleton might, this might be his big movie. Gwyneth Paltrow almost played the Chrissy Swanson part.

Juliette Lewis almost played the Jennifer Connelly part. I think those were his first two choices. Drew Barrymore also was up for the Chrissy Swanson part. Vivica Fox was up for the Tyra Banks part. But this is the wildest fucking thing. He wanted originally, and I guess it was written differently, Dustin Hoffman to play Professor Phipps what and hoffman sat down with him and was like i this is i have some story notes and the story notes were the whole movie should be about the mentor relationship between the teacher and the student you should get these

subplots out of here um but i found i found one thing which which is interesting. Jonathan Demme is the one who, when Boys in the Hood was in pre-production at Columbia, in pre-production, and I guess maybe he just had buzz around him, Demme wanted to make a movie about racial issues on a college campus. So he asked Singleton to come up with a script for him. And they were developing the movie together at Orion. And then that fell apart when Orion fell apart. So I think by the time Boys in the Hood's come out, Poetic Justice has come out, he's had this in the back pocket a little bit. He never wrote a full script, but I think he had started incubating it. Right, right. Okay, that makes sense. But yes, let's go through character by character, thread by thread now.

Okay, sure. So the movie's called Higher Learning because it's set at a learning institution, a higher learning institution. That's all I got. Should I do the thing from in the movie? Do it. Please. What is high? What is is higher what is to learn what is how you're learning it is eurocentric indoctrination it is learning in an environment that is mostly white

what is it what is how you're learning okay i think i'm done uh thank you um yeah so uh it's set at a fictional college um you've got well uh you know you've got omar epps as malik williams who's a uh athletic scholarship he's a he's a track star he's a he's a runner there's a whole thing early where he's is he on a partial or full scholarship like okay that whole plot early is kind of bizarre here's how i read that situation. And the thing is that like, it's just not a thing that can happen. Like, like it's just not a thing that like would happen to an incoming like prospect like that.

So Omar Epps is like, you know, Mr. Hot shit, freshman track star, you know, supposed to boost the teams four four by four time anyway like he shows up with with sunglasses on the first day of practice and not his is his track spikes and

he's not like dressed for shit and the coach like gives him a talking to sends him back to his dorm and then all of a sudden he's on a partial scholarship and this is kind of like i just don't see that being like nobody would be able to fuck with your money like that like just that's yeah that's that's what i couldn't track uh no pun intended is uh was he on a partial scholarship to begin with and he's trying to work his way up or was he on a full scholarship and then the coach knocked him down to partial because he showed up lazy the first day i mean either way it's like it doesn't come back and also he doesn't get a job so i guess it just i assume that he got back on to a full scholarship after he you know came back to practice and got his act right. But he's like a very curious, strong-minded young dude who I think kind of, not I think,

he resents the fact that he's there on any sort of athletic scholarship, that that's the perception that people have of him, and he wants to sort of grow intellectually. That's his main thrust, right? He's looking to get activated here, and he does not want to be pigeonholed as an athlete, to have that be his only worth in the eyes of the university. Right. Well, yeah, it's like he, kind of like he's the character that finds himself through via vociferous rejection of the labels that people force onto him, foist onto him, I guess. It's like he said he has a lot of lines like, I ain't no dumb athlete.

You know, why are you busting my balls? But obviously I wrote this paper. I worked really hard on it why can't you accept that right he basically immediately runs into professor phipps the lawrence fishburne character who first chews him out publicly for not paying his college bill which like you would just get fired for yeah i mean like that that's just that's just not happening right i just let me read off the list right of every student who has any sort of unpaid balance on their tuition out them in front of all their classmates and tell them no free rides here

yeah this is your first lesson in politics it's just it's just wild behavior it's not really right it's it's wild behavior i mean i get you know phipps is supposed to be the sort of like inherently conservative kind of edgy person like that's like you know but there's this edge to his arc with malik that is i'm going to invoke er two episodes in a row omar epps has a huge run on er right after this movie Epps has a huge run on ER right after this movie playing a doctor who Dr. Benton Eric LaSalle's character is really hard on

and the sort of unspoken thing is that Benton is like being hard on him because he's black and Benton has that kind of chip on his shoulder of like you need to you know prove yourself and like like you know

you gotta be better than everyone else and all that and i feel like that's sort of what's going on here too the the malik phipps relationship i feel like much like a lot of things in this movie is interesting gets kind of dropped and then when it's picked up at the end i did feel like i was missing a reel slightly because he's like oh now I really believe in you. And I'm like, what? It took Tyra Banks getting shot for you to believe in him. It took some fridging for that to happen.

Like, it's just it's yeah. Fishburne's performance is also kind of odd. I couldn't totally figure it out. couldn't totally figure it out i don't know how much of it is just that fishburne is one of those people who has such an iconic voice that to hear him affect any kind of accent sets off some bullshit alarms it's hard to accept him sounding different you know yeah sure um but i mean the relationship is like honestly the relationship is plainly paternal it's not like it's not the he doesn't take the role of like an educator he's not a friend he's not a confidant he's not any of those things and the thing is that you get the sense that like the least character

needs just to be told that he's not crazy and nobody can do that for him. And the one person that can dies at the end of the movie. Like, which is like why it's like, and it's just like, and the other person, the next closest person tells him like, I don't know why you're looking at me. You got to figure out what to do with your life. The scene that feels like it should be the linchpin to me weirdly is, and Singleton uses this trick a couple times where the camera moves back and forth in coverage between two characters, and then the second person in the conversation changes, right? a styles love scene that's like the three of them switching places but there's that scene

where it starts out with omar epps and phipps talking and then turns into swanson and phipps and it feels like that's the scene that should be getting at something in what is the subtle difference in how he relates to her yes because he's very much trying to argue to malik like i don't view you as special i am not holding you to a different standard i am not trying to teach you a lesson because you're black i am not trying to be a mentor figure for you i am unwavering this is my philosophy this is how i teach but it does feel that he is more openly dismissive of her, whereas he's perhaps a little more antagonistic with Malik in a way that gets something out of him. You know? Yeah, that scene with Christy Swanson is interesting because he seems to be saying that she just wrote him a Wikipedia article.

I will say he's like, your piece needs an argument. She's like, your piece needs an argument she's like what about objectivity and i'm like did she literally just like write down the facts of some sort of moment in political history so his critique of her is pretty fair if that is what happened i will say yeah yeah yeah i mean like it's it's it is uh like his relationship with malik is more antagonistic and those are just like you meet people like along your journey uh to uh like you know like along your like along the sort of journey like in college you meet these types of characters that just like want to they want you to know that they understand what you're going through but that they also don't care because no one else does right right it's

and it's just like you don't have like you would say that those people are like uh important figures in your life maybe but you wouldn't say that they're special to you they just are they were there something for you to like reflect off of but it also feels like malik is like is challenging phipps to be special to him you know yeah whether whether it's as an antagonist or a mentor he wants it to mean something and phipps is kind of like i'm just some fucking teacher you're one student in my class i don't give a shit you know you have i have no personal connection to you yeah because i mean like really and the thing is like that is life but also like not at all what malik needs like he doesn't just need to hear run faster but that's what he gets and that's what he does at the end of the movie

yeah and and i mean these first uh three singleton movies like you know have a lot to do with fatherhood and the roles of of fathers in shaping young lives. And this is a movie where you don't see parents at all. The only real parent you have invoked in a meaningful way is Remy's dad when he talks about his upbringing. But I feel like that's the thing he's getting at here is Malik struggling to form some kind of, you know, paternal relationship with Phipps. In one way or another, he wants him to function that way, either as a character who challenges him to, you know, feel like he needs to overcome the low expectations or someone who guides him. But he wants him to have some meaning in his life. Well, I would I would kind of like challenge that there's

no parents in the movie there's because like it's like you said like uh like bleak is looking for a father and phipps he also kind of looks for a father and fudge like christy looks for um like to be reparented by jennifer connell's character, the same way that Remy ends up with Nazi. It's just like looking for some, like this is, you just get out into like you get after like the no parent sugar high wears office. Just like,

Oh, I actually need somebody to help me figure out what I'm supposed to do tomorrow. That's no, that's a good point. It's it's that it's, this one is more about surrogate parental figures you know yeah yeah whereas like boys in the hood is so much about how much

his life is defined by the fact that his father is there and guiding him and placing these ideas in his head in this sort of way and poetic justice is so much about lucky coming around to taking on his responsibility as a father. And then this movie is people just searching for someone to fill that role for them in some kind of way. Yeah. Yeah. Right. The arc of Malik as an athlete is kind of strange, too.

I think the arc of his discomfort with his role in the university is well done. The thing that's a little confusing to me is how good is he at running or not? Because they start off the movie by being like, you think you're hot shit, but you can't come in like this all cocky. You're going to need to actually work. And he's like, I'll work so fucking hard. And then he tries his hardest and he comes up short. And everyone's like, you're the weakling. I think it's this, but that's like,

I also think that that's honest about like, if you play a sport at college, it's like, you're the best from your hometown. But like, you know, like he says, the first day of practice is like, there's five other people that like on their day can whoop your ass out here by like a few strides like so you're going to have to be on it like every day and then you are and then you know the same shit that happens with sports that always happens it's

like you know the scales are tipped into or out of your favor by a capricious trickster god like uh yeah i mean that's probably my complete naivete when it comes to sports showing uh but that all makes sense to me but yeah i'd like but it is it's also like you know i you it's very difficult to understand exactly what kind of role sports plays in Malik's overall campus life. The way that he apportions his time doesn't make sense, but really,

I don't know. I think that it does well to tell you how he... It's a good vehicle to explain like how he deals with disappointment like early on right yeah it just at a certain point it feels like it shifts all its focus away from the athletics themselves and just that plot line becomes represented through the the relationship yeah it's just kind of like it really does that is how the how it works in the movie is that like he just kind of goes from being

on the track team to i have deja practice every day right right it's deja practice and it's like intellectual sparring about their their roles yeah i mean like it's it's kind of like she is the first well okay so up to that point he's like suffering all these microaggressions and taking everything super personally and getting all worked up and then she's like the first person in the movie, not to say that, like, you know, these microaggressions are never going to stop and you might as well just get used to it. And, you know, nobody cares like Phipps does. And then, you know, not getting like jabbed by everybody else in the movie. Like, she's just like, you know, it's not that deep and you need to get over yourself, which is like, like you know somebody has to say it in the movie it's just that you know and yeah it is

sort of like she is just kind of like you should only be as angry as it is useful and then after that you need to let it go can we do a little tyra bank sidebar sure because because just the process of watching this movie it made me start thinking about her in a deeper level she she is almost a good actor i would argue she's coming into this off of the fresh prince is her only acting role right like that's the only other acting she's done. She's obviously been modeling since she was, like, a teenager. But this is her first movie. And I feel like in the 90s, there was this perception of, like,

oh, she seems like one of the models who might actually be able to transition to being an actor. And it never really took but she she like it always felt like she was on the precipice of being good you know and i wonder just to some degree i feel like every model who has successfully become a movie star was never super famous as a model with someone like charlie's where you're like, they modeled and then they became an actor, but they didn't have a real reputation as a model to overcome. Whereas Tyra Banks might have just been too fucking famous

to ever be able to accept her playing a normal person in a movie, especially when she wasn't like transcendently talented. Yeah, I don't know. Do you have Tyra takes my god i mean she i like her but she became this like weird mogul yeah my tyra takes all have to do with america's next top model like i this is my thing because then right by the 2000s it's like america's next top model in the talk show but it feels like that was her shifting because the the acting didn't stick this does like feel like out of phase with like my cultural cachet for like tyra bank like it's

this definitely like more of like a serious vibey role than like anything else i've ever seen, but I'm also like not well versed in all Tyra movie stuff, you know, like it's just, but I mean, then again, I also can't think of a counterpoint to a really famous model that then had a really successful acting career. It was, it was just, that was the, the, the, the thought spiral I started going into is just like, I feel like everyone who successfully transitioned from being a model to being an actress, as much as that's thought of as a pipeline, is someone where a decade into their career, people have to be reminded that they modeled. As opposed to someone like Kate Upton, where you're just like, well, that's Kate Upton in a movie. Yeah, I mean, she is on the cover of uh the sports illustrated swimsuit issue next the next year after this movie she's the first black model to

do that i feel like that's the point at which she is a sort of inescapable superstar in that world right and it's kind of like okay well you're on that track and when you know she does a couple movies she pops up in love and basketball obviously. Obviously, she's in Coyote Ugly. Right. But I do feel like when she's in America's Next Top Model, when they're crafting that around her, it's like, yeah, well, because you are one of the iconic models of the 90s. So you make so much sense of this. And because you've been on camera and done movies yeah you know you know you know how to have a personality on screen like you'll be perfect for this which she is she's completely

in she's terrible for the the talk show was the disaster where she has this sort of thinking like of like right i can be the next great media personality and it's like no tyra you're not that like magnetic that that's too far but you know but there was something both on america's next top model and on the talk show that was chaotic about her she's very chaotic she's only gotten more chaotic yes i would say i i just think it's interesting where it's like it's higher learning, which sucks, and is four years later. The Frank Stewart movie. Then she does Love and Basketball. Yeah, horrible movie with another Bridget Wilson Sampras movie.

Then 2000 is Love and Basketball, Life-Size Coyote Ugly, where it's like Life-Size and Coyote Ugly are obviously the two that people actually remember her being in. Love and Basketball is a tiny role, but in a great movie. Then 2002 is Halloween Resurrection. And then the next year is America's Next Top Model. And like a year or two after that, she's on the show. And from that point on, she pretty much only does cameos as herself in things. She just becomes like, I'm a personality. Yeah. She's not bad in this movie. I don't know. For like a first performance, she is very close to being good in this thing she's like she's functional it's a it's it's in some ways it's a it's kind of a thankless role because she has to shoulder a lot but is not really given any agency it feels like she should

be the fourth major character in the sort of four square of Remy, you know, Swanson, Malik and maybe her. But yeah, but she's just kind of like an in-person critic. Like she's an in-person critic. She's the voice of reason. Like, right. That's all she gets. She's the voice of reason until she has to die. And then when she dies, she is she is the innocence lost like and that's

kind of like all right so yeah okay all right all right so moving on let's talk about christy swanson another 90s uh icon who does not translate past the 90s but uh christy swanson is uh kristin a very i mean how do you she's kind of just like a naive kind of doe you know like you know like what do you call it like sort of she's a row in the woods baby yeah she's a rachel it's it's she's she's from orange county and she's you Orange County, and she's, you know, affable and, like, is gaping at all the horseless carriages. And just kind of overly naive. Yes. She's a pretty big, yeah, she's a pretty big name at this point, right? Would you say?

I mean, she's been in a lot of stuff. She's one of, right, I mean, she's, a lot of stuff she's one of right i mean she's like buffy is three years before this i mean she's like working regularly in lead or you know lead adjacent roles she's in stuff like the chase and like the program and like these sort of like movies for young adults like teenagers and college students and stuff like that obviously she first popped up in the in the john hughes movies but right like yeah she's this is this is like the end of her peak like after this it's the phantom and eight heads in a duffel bag and then she's kind of a joke yeah when she's in big daddy it's weird

i was gonna say that then it becomes like oh she's like a weird punchline stunt casting um and also at that point by the point she's in big daddy buffy is now a hit on television and it feels like she's a weird trivia fact yeah i mean what's she doing now oh she's a republican oh apparently apparently she loves i had no idea christy. Yeah, David, this is my virtual background. Yeah, I saw that. Well, with Rappaport, right? Yeah. Christy Swanson and Rappaport went after each other on YouTube.

I mean, this is not a long walk from her character in this movie to where she's at in present day. No, no, no. She's a crazy s** crazy person and rapaport uh anti and uh they were they were fucking feuding rapaport for all his flaws is is essentially uh he's just like an embarrassing msnbc dad at heart really like that is his, his online energy, I guess. It's so complicated. I guess it is. I, I, I know he's like the blackest man in America, self-professed or whatever. He's just, I mean, it's, it's more common. Like he, he's just, uh, we don't, if I, if I speak, I am in big trouble.

If I, if I speak, I am in big trouble. I am in big trouble. If I speak, I am in big trouble. The Rappaport not is just so hard to pull at these days. He just should have less to say about black people, is all. He should have less to say

about everything. I do think he never got over the idea that in the early 90s a couple black people told him he was cool. That feels like it doomed Michael Rapaport, you know? And now we gotta fucking hear about it for the rest of time. It's just like,

we got, like, it's just, you know, in this movie, it was just like, you know, because he was in a John Singleton movie, and then he did The Tribe Called Quest Doc, and now we gotta hear about what he has to fucking say about hip-hop every two weeks. And it we got to hear about what he has to fucking say about hip hop every two weeks.

And it's just like, you know, if I had a time machine after I killed baby Hitler, I would, I would, I would literally punt the, the, the,

like the first cut. I mean, the final cut of the, the, the, the tribe doc into the sun and like ask somebody else to fucking like, you know, do it like, so that we never

had to because it's just like it's enough man it's enough it's it's the neil brennan thing where it's like have you guys not heard i i've been given the pass you know it just feels like he's constantly trying to restate his bonafides that he's allowed to enter conversations like he's a leader of black thought he's just such a first time long time ass motherfucker like that is such a good description yes but he is so fucking well cast here and so effective in this movie like i was going into this sort of guarded and cringing of like, I don't want to fucking watch the Michael Rapaport gets radicalized by neo-Nazis and becomes a school

shooter arc. But I think he plays this character better than most people do. And this obviously becomes more of an archetype right after this. I mean, you go like, this is four years before Columbine. You know know at this point the main thing that the shooting is riffing on in this movie is like the the texas shooting in the 70s he is like he's really good at this movie because it's he's able to go from seeming incredibly small to something like incredibly like gangly and unpredictable and maybe even a little scary. Like I'm thinking about like the earlier scenes where he's just kind of like,

you know, swaying around milling about on the, on the walls, like trying to talk to like one person, literally anybody at the party about nothing at all. Just to feel like, you know, Hey, like I'm in this room with the rest of these people too, to like how disgusted you are by him reading like the four word of,

of, of mind comp or whatever the fuck it is he's reading in his room to when he's to discuss, you feel when he gets up in the face and then the satisfaction you feel when he backs down but then like the weird like sort of um like pity slash maybe even like the fright that you feel when he's like destroying the entire dorm room. Because it's just like, there's a gun in there somewhere. Like as the performance is like really volatile. And that's like why it's so good, I guess.

I also just feel like after this, as Loner, who may or may not become a school shooter, becomes a bigger archetype in films in America. become a school shooter, becomes a bigger archetype in films in America. And a bit of a cliche, like almost like a weird sort of comedy cliche in a kind of a sad way. Right. I feel like there's a tendency for actors to play them like they're the Joker. You know, it's just like way too mannered. They're putting way too much in the bag. And I think the thing that they don't get that Rappaport weirdly gets totally right is, is what you said, Micah, how small he is, you know, that this guy's issue. Yeah. It's a, it's an implosion when he, when he, when he becomes a shooter. Yeah.

Right. This guy's issue is that he's invisible. He so badly wants to get any reaction out of anybody, you know, to be able to actually engage with people because and it yeah like what he's the the things that like because he comes to this big college campus from wherever the fuck it was in the woods where his dad taught him how to shoot and what are the things that you would say defines him as a person or like his hobbies or his interests are doomsday prepping and mega death and like right the the like the the venn diagram for those two things at a normal college campus you're not gonna catch like a whole lot of people and it's just like you know not that there aren't people that like mega death and like probably carry around hunting knives on

campus but like it's gonna take you a while to find those people and he just has no social intelligence whatsoever right i mean there's that early scene where he goes to the party and it's that really embarrassing thing that you like we've all witnessed before where like someone just earnestly walks up and goes like hey how's it going and people just respond and go like social awareness on e bro it is like right right what hey how's it going like his energy is just so off-putting that he's like yeah yeah basic pleasantries are like what the fuck did you say to me? Exactly. He just, yeah, he can't find a way to get his foot in the door even to make small talk.

Yeah. I want to know if you guys had this experience with him. Michael Rappaport, maybe I'm just so used to him now. And also it's the fact that he has the straight hair in this movie. And I think of him obviously with like the curly hair. But he's just like, he's jowly and he's bigger. don't even i just you know that's just age but like he's so kind of angular and his nose is very pronounced that when i was watching this movie i was like is this who's this guy who looks like michael rapaport is a thought i had for a second yeah i was so struck by how alien he looks in this movie

in a good way. He's kind of unsettling before he cuts his hair. Honestly, when he shaves his hair, you're like, okay, I get it. He's, I'm sure he's a skinhead now. But like, you know, I was just, that was like, whatever. But it's just kind of, he's kind of,

he's very striking in this movie. And he also is a guy who very often plays very slight variations on himself right yeah usually he's right some aggro new york guy right people are hiring him to do the michael rapaport thing except for when he was an alligator poacher from like from from florida and and justified he was good in that yes it was yes he like it was that that shit was fun yeah the best show the most unheralded show of the golden age of television is justified one of the great shows of all time not nearly discussed enough mostly remember i feel like for just like timothy oliphant is hot margot martindale wins an

emmy you know but i mean like people don't talk about justified justified rules yeah but nobody nobody fucking talks about the like uh deputy tim gutterson uh who, like, his fucking arc is incredible. Like, the fact that he may or may not be, you know, working out some repressed homosexuality, and he drinks about it all the time, and, like, it's, that show's good. I love that show. I just think Rappaport is giving a pretty canny performance where he avoids all the pitfalls that actors usually fall into with these parts. Chief Among Them, I think, is just overloading the shit with mannerisms, you know, and ticks and business and whatever. And it's like, no, he understands that this guy needs to be like paper.

like no he understands that this guy needs to be like paper he yeah it's he doesn't try to do too much with it which like which it's crazy to say that michael rapaport is doing subtle did well because restraint like that's crazy showing supreme judgment in a very volatile political movie it's like you can't believe you're giving him that compliment. But yeah, he does it really, really fucking well. And I also think the performance is devoid of any kind of self-pitying. But in the process, it makes the character more tragic,

not in a way where you feel bad for him necessarily, but where you're just like, this is such a predictable cycle. Right, right right i mean the moment when kohlhauser comes up behind him that scene is so well directed where they hold off it's also just the exact uh cycle we see play out uh before us now uh with with how these groups recruit people you know i mean it's just like that that Kohlhauser scene is so well done of just here's this guy sitting outdoors reading a book on steps at night. And they just like, bingo, here we go.

This guy's so ready to be turned into a Nazi. This guy is just filled with rage and sadness. What are you reading? The Odyssey? A lot of a lot of battles in that book. Right. And it's just like oh my god right and they stay on the back of kohlhauser's head for so long it makes him feel like such a an ominous

malicious presence where you just know something's fundamentally wrong here and also who is this guy why is he so interested there there could be no good coming of this you know and now this shit just happens in chat rooms instead of on campuses yes yeah right you you look for the shit posters yeah this is the shit with this movie though like where like when cole hauser shows up out of the shadows and he's like hello i'm like oh well come on man but then i'm also like yeah well i also know that's sort of like a thing that goes on you know like i can't object to the board that's all they are now it's one of the things it is like one of the like the one of those grace notes that makes the film like feel as prescient like however many years later um like those notes like it does like the fact that it's just cole hauser

and then the group of people like just kind of like apparate out of the dark they're like yeah you know like let's go get a drink together and you know you know that that's something's off there there's also one of the one of the scenes i keep thinking about is like when and maybe I'm getting a little ahead of our thing here but like when Christy when Christa's like when she's stepping up to the podium to like you know

give a speech about her about surviving her assault like the way that it's shot is like the podium looks like a cliff and on the other side of it like because it's all these people like these women holding these these these picket signs and screaming like you know dead men don't rape this then the other thing and it's just kind of like okay nobody here is actually there specifically for kristen except for jennifer connelly's

character everybody else is here exercising something so like it's like a really important note that the the podium looks like a cliff because you're just stepping up to whatever this is and on the other side of it is just the unknown you don't know if like it's actually acceptance or understanding or any of these other things like which is a thing i've thought a lot of but like you know because it's like she was saying earlier in the movie when jennifer connelly's characters is trying to like get her to report it she's like well nothing is gonna happen anyway this people are just gonna make me feel bad about it right it feels preemptively futile to even try to do anything about it to even try to reach out to anyone else and even like the the scene after she is assaulted uh the the thing that

triggers the sort of sense of retaliation isn't her assault it's it's the you black bitch on the phone oh my god i've like yeah yeah but like regina king we gotta that scene is and the thing is that like it's such a great moment of relief after after that after the assault scene is that she goes and she's crying and like regina she's just like i finished my paper early i'm about to like you know i'm all early so and so and like billy calls and she's just like put her on the phone you black bitch she's like and then she checks the time yeah it's just like oh we could go whoop this guy's ass right now like Like, um, and yeah, but I mean, like, obviously nothing that follows has anything to do with Kristen. But yeah, I like that weird irony.

Yes, the interesting nuance of the scene for me is that she goes there with them, right? Which you don't feel like was her choice. You have to imagine Regina King king dragged her she is still an absolute shock she's pretty much still shaking right she's wrapped up in a blanket they bring her with this whole like squad right they're like 10 15 people they they just really just like you know i mean honestly they've been waiting to whoop on like a Billy because and like because because Billy's have been running around like showing their ass like for however long Ice Cube has been in school. And he's just like, we got a reason now. Yeah, right.

Right. And, you know, when they're holding him to the ground, you know, like threatening to punch his face in, they say, like, apologize to her, you know, apologize to that beautiful black woman. And he says, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And just looking at it kind of shell shocked. And then they don't invoke her. You know, they don't say apologize to her because they don't know, you know, she doesn't say anything. Right. Right. But it just so quickly becomes something else and then you know she sees bridget wilson sampras and her other friend there uh who kind of like are just confused why she caused all this drama and then go back inside the house you know she's sort of being completely ignored in all

of this when she's truly the center of it just to invoke leonardo dicaprio one more time jr ferguson who plays billy best known as stan from mad men these days i would say but david i don't think that's really his best known credit we know what his real best known credit is tell me the founding member of the pussy posse right okay yes for a second i thought you were going to bring up that he's on the connors that's the only other curveball i was because i know you love the conners yes but i mean i love stan i love to you know jr for but yes yes a a a forgotten member of of leonardo cabrillo's pussy posse is jr ferguson pussy posse emeritus yes uh ice cube punches him in this movie I just can't believe that's a thing that we have to seriously refer to

It's a thing, it's a part of Hollywood history that we have to just be like the pussy posse Maybe the fourth time we've had no choice but to bring it up on this podcast It gives me no joy to mention that of course he was a founding member of the pussyussy Posse.

I gotta say, Ice Cube rules in this movie. It's partly that he's playing a character who just kind of swings in and out and isn't as affected by the sort of like melodramatic plotting of the movie. He's kind of the Wooderson, right? I mean, he gets to just be the guy who's just like on his own fucking wavelength running his own thing yeah and he's funny and he's smart and he's kind of you know intimidating and he's interesting and i feel like he's just like i get i get what i need to do in this movie very well this is the year he's in friday as well and it's just like Ice Cube is a movie star I know this is not news he gets

such a movie star introduction to I mean you go through that party and you make your way out to the back and you only see him from behind and it's just watching him roll while everyone else is in rapt attention and you keep on cutting to just reaction shots over

his voice different angles the fifth afro pick and it's just like yo man uh can you turn the can you like i got class in the morning he was just like it's over when it's over that's his first line that's that's yes that's the first moment he turns around you see his face but they're just they tease it out for so long because singleton's like you know this is ice cube and you know that ice cube is a movie star now we're gonna treat him with that respect and you know ice cube wrote friday on singleton's advice singleton was like look if you can write a record you can write a movie you should just do it like yeah like they are still very much like um twinned here and i'm trying to think do they have i don't does ice Cube do another Singleton movie? I think this is it,

right? Yeah, that's too bad. This is it. And he, Singleton had said that, like, Tupac was the guy he wanted to be his, the De Niro to his Scorsese that he wanted to keep working with. And, yeah, he wrote Malik for Tupac

and then he also wrote Baby Boy for Tupac. And Tyrese just becomes his fucking muse for the last half of his career. Yep. Tyrese is in like the three of his movies in a row. Yeah. Yeah.

But Tyrese totally becomes his guy. But yeah, Cube is unreal in this movie. He's so fucking good. Yeah, he is. He's great. I mean, Micah, maybe you completely disagree. Maybe you think Cube is unreal in this movie. He's so fucking good. Yeah, he is. He's great. I mean, Micah, maybe you completely disagree. Maybe you think Cube is so cheesy in this movie. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I think that it's really... I also like the fact that Singleton just kind of pokes fun at his character. Although he gets to be this cool cool interesting intimidating whatever type of character he's still a sixth year senior you know nobody knows why like if he ever goes to class you know nobody knows how he pays for anything that's what's great is that like he's like he's like he's like the center of radical thought on this campus but also he's kind of bluto blutovsky you know like i was like what's the what does he do anything what's his deal it's you just get the sense that like he's read all

of these books but hasn't interrogated anything that he's read from them sometimes like or or is like still in the process of like you know i don't know you get the sense that like ice cubes characters in this movie if he read a different book at a different time he'd be a different person i also think that this is sort of a guy who if he were more a careerist, would go like, oh, I should become a professor because clearly I thrive in campus life. But instead, he should be like on some sort of T.A. track thing. And instead, he's. But like, he's too angry still. Right, right.

And he he's too sort of skeptical of the institutions. He's too sort of skeptical of the institutions. And so instead, he's just like a super student, a perma student who also just casually sort of like slides off lessons to people who walk by him. And Buster Rhymes is there just kind of chilling with him at all times. I was going to say, Buster Rhymes hired just to be able to throw in some big supporting screams when he needs to Buster Rhymes in the background would be like I'm gone nigga I'm gone like I I know he'd been like popping up doing like guest appearances popping up like he's about to be a thing right like you know the first album is like the next year I think. Yeah, this is early for him. Right?

Before then, it's, what's it called? Leaders of the New School or whatever. Yeah, his early group. Very much enjoyed Buster Rhymes' energy. Just a lot of energy in general in this movie, which I appreciate. One of the guys in the skinhead gang is andrew um what's his name bernarski who like plays leatherface you know just like i just like i just feel like singleton

was just like just give me the largest white man you can find like this crew just has one guy who's two guys he let yeah one guy that looks like he ate the next like largest guy and he just has like massive rings on every finger and he's just kind of like yeah white power and it's like he's just constantly pink like it's really he's a very unsettling like what's his character's name nako his name is naco his name his name is naco he should just be like in the bleachers at a yankee game getting really pumped up you know about bernie williams but instead he got law he's in his fucking garage you oh fuck you don't like the like he has you remember uh fuck what was that? Oh, like

Bruno. You remember the part of Bruno where they go to the MMA match and there's the one guy that they keep panning back to who's losing his fucking mind on the front row. And then Sasha Vrugan and the guys start making out in the center ring and he just

starts screaming, No! He's just like bawling. yeah he just like short bawling yeah and it's just like that is naka's energy in this movie is that the first bruno shout out on the podcast i feel like that's a first for the blank check i feel like i may be brought up because i've always been of the opinion that bruno is than Borat, but now I think Borat 2 is better than either. Fair enough. But I re-watched the whole Baron Cohen canon before Borat 2

and I still contend that Bruno is better than Borat. I rarely take out that opinion because it is not liked. I just want to say, I went to Andrew Brynarski's Wikipedia to look up his character name before you guys said it and i well yes so i see here that his name is nako but i was looking at classic wikipedia

filmography grid and i accidentally looked one up on the spreadsheet oh that's right i thought his character's name was zangief, and then I realized, no, he just played Zangief. Wait, he played Zangief in the Street Fighter movie? He's Zangief in Street Fighter. But I was just like, man, that's a little... The god-awful Street Fighter movie? Yes, yes, but he's... Yes, yes, he's literally Zangief,

and I read this and I went, well, that's a little on the nose that Singleton just named this character Zangief. Zangief. But it's like, no, first he played Zangief, then he played Nakko. He also, I didn't realize this, he plays

Christopher Walken's son in Batman Returns. He's Christopher Walken's large adult son doing a Christopher Walken impression in that movie. Oh, sure, Chip Shrek. Wow, this guy's got a career. Also, the only other thing on his wikipedia page is he got in a huge fight with texas chainsaw fans when he he got apparently he had beef with

the original leather face with gunner hansen who who they would get like in fight at cons or something wow you seeing this he like cheered his death on Facebook. I have to read this. I have to read this verbatim. Gunner, Gunner Hansen, the original Leatherface died. Bernarski on Facebook responded to the death by commenting boo hoo. A fan said to him,

just get ready, Micah. A fan said, nice of you to insult the legend that is Gunnar Hansen. And Bronarski's response was, could give zero fucks, suck his dead nuts. He doubled down. Honestly, no thoughts, head empty. Well, okay, yeah. So this was

then he was getting a lot of backlash to the backlash and then this was him trying to settle the beef he said on Facebook I was a big supporter of his and was cool with him he was cool with me dot dot dot then he started going around to promote chainsaw 3D and he started

talking shit at cons and what not dot dot dot I'm not somebody who takes shit from anybody and I tell it like it is. I originally posted a Facebook comment that said boohoo. Yes, no tag, just by itself. Read into it what you will. I never wished for his death or suffering from pancreatic cancer, which I didn't even know he had. Let's make that a bigger issue upon his sudden death. Cancer sucks worse than haters. Y'all have a nice day. Cancer sucks worse than haters.

I mean, you're distracting from the real enemy here. Don't get mad at me. Get mad at cancer. Cancer sucks worse than haters. Andrew Podarsky. He's not wrong honestly honestly you know i'd like uh i'd like a i'd like a coffee mug is there an etsy shop yeah cancer sucks worse than haters y'all have a nice day i also think there's a real vulgar poetry to eulogizing someone by saying could give zero fucks could give

his dead nuts suck his dead nuts his dead nuts i i don't know man it's really sad that like he that uh died from like pancreatic cancer or whatever but like you know i don't know why y'all are like trying to block my shine you know i'm just r.i.p to your r.i.p to your leather face but i'm different bro okay i've been waiting years for this moment don't let me distract you from the real enemy. Cancer. I can't get over that he's engeef. That's the only thing I can't. I'm sorry. I'm still kind of hung up on that. Cancer sucks worse than haters.

He's right. I'm sorry, but he's right. You can't. It's an argument ender. Who's going to take the opposite side in that battle? can't it's an argument ender who's gonna take the opposite side in that battle uh well he's he plays a he plays a a dumb nazi in this movie that that's his role in this movie a very pumped up nazi so that's another one of the major characters we've discussed now we've now taken nako off the board we've discussed all of the major characters really i jennifer connelly is

the one that we haven't really delved into but the movie kind of just doesn't have time for her like i i don't know how else to put it like this is a weird point in her career where she's trying to get into being a grown-up actor you know what i mean like i feel like she's only she's still best known as like the girl from labyrinth she's feel like she's only, she's still best known as, like, the girl from Labyrinth. She's in The Rocketeer, but she's still kind of like a young teen actor type. Like, she's in teen movies,

kids movies. And, like, it's this, it's Mulholland Falls, the next year. Inventing the Abbots, Dark City, Waking the Dead, Wrecking for a Dream.

Like, that's her run of, she starts playing hyper-sexualized characters because she wants to age out of being a child star, right? I guess so. I mean, she'd already been in, like, the hot spot and stuff. But yes, absolutely. And it's also, it's just like... I just remember that year when she's in Waking for the Dead,

Requiem for a Dream, and Pollock was the year where it's like, Oh my God, like, Jennifer Connelly, what a serious talent this person is and like she had not gotten that cred throughout the 90s in the 90s it was more like oh Jennifer Connelly like a famously beautiful woman

who was also in Labyrinth when she was younger and she's good in this she's very striking she has nothing to do she's always good I just always, like Jennifer Connelly, she is one of the most,

just sort of confoundingly attractive people to ever be in movies. But I also just think she's always good. She's always got a lot of integrity and presence.

I, you know, I mean, Singleton said that like it was three hours and they cut it down and the bulk of what got cut out was her and that I really think she was maybe supposed to be like the fourth or fifth major character of this film. And he doesn't really delve into it in any of the interviews I read, which were all like 25th anniversary retrospective interviews he was doing when this came out on Blu-ray right before he died. But the subtext seemed to be that perhaps the thing the studio was most uncomfortable with in this entire movie full of hot button debates was homosexuality. That that was just the one bridge too far for them. Not remotely surprising, I would say. That totally tracks with the mid-90s where

they're like, okay, come on, come on, come on. Right. Which on top of the fact that it's frustrating to see her be given short shrift because she's very compelling in this movie, it also just kind of unbalances the film at large because the first half is so heavy on Swanson. And then it feels like she kind of disappears in the second half of the movie, probably because most of her footage was with Connelly.

You have to imagine yes and the movie sort of turns into a school shooter movie like it just kind of has to be dominated by that because that's going to be so dramatic like yeah so we can it can no longer be like us sort of like being like anyway so uh remy just uh basically stuck a gun in adam goldberg and uh omar epps's face and and ran out of the school so what's going on with christy like you know like you can't it's just kind of like let's let's hit the b plot now yeah yeah it's just kind of like me well let's let's figure out what's happening with christy's sexual awakening you know right i i do think that love scene is pretty skillful and interesting it's very interesting to the point where you're like oh is half of this a fantasy and half a reality like like that's initially what i was wondering like is she with jason wiles but thinking about jennifer connelly and it's like yes no she's

just kind of doing both and it's it's well presented the problem I have with it more is like it's happening at a point in the movie where I'm like I'm not sure where I am with her character with Christy Kristen sorry Christy Swanson and I and and then it doesn't go anywhere but I like the scene individually it just it's a narrative dead end it's a good set piece i mean there's also there's other interesting stuff there like you set up regina king's sort of homophobia her very casual homophobia with her you know she's like very much viewing their whole relationship askance and says like oh thank god when she goes on the date i was

being like oh i was beginning to worry about you yeah right right uh david has now changed his virtual background to a picture of zangief that's him that's him yeah this is uh zangief uh telling m bison off camera uh boohoo suck my dead nuts i'm gonna kill you and then suck your dead nuts yes and you're gonna have to be happy cause at least you didn't die at the hands of the real enemy cancer

that's what he's saying honestly I mean it's probably the biggest flaw of the Street Fighter video game franchise right that they never made cancer a playable character. That should be the final battle sequence or whatever.

It's the ultimate Street Fighter. Sure. Yes. I mean, no one fights more dirty than Cancer. That's true. There's a history of Cancer in my family. Anyway, I want to make it clear, I am not making that joke flippantly um yeah me

too uh who haven't we discussed we talked we've we pretty much talked about we did everything the big we just haven't talked about the the shooting sequence i guess the last 30 minutes yeah yeah i mean there's stuff in that that's so effective and feels just kind of like completely contemporary. Like it's mostly the stuff where the cops immediately just grab Omar Epps and start talking to Remy. Like he's their friend, like all that stuff.

You're just like, yeah, unfortunately this is, you know, completely on the money. Like this doesn't feel over the top at all. This doesn't like there's other stuff like tyra banks uh you know getting shot like she's willing to phone platoon where i'm sort of i get

i get the the the energy that this movie is dialed up to but i whatever it sort of made me wince like you know not not in a good way i did not feel it in the same way uh yeah yeah i agree with that it's also like i was convinced oh this is how the movie's gonna end sure um you know with with the sort of uh malik and uh and Ship looking at each other. And then I was very disappointed that there was 10 minutes following it of characters explaining everything they're thinking. Definitely. I don't know. Michael, what do you think of the whole fucking thing?

Well, I think that, you know, but like I agree with Griff about the fact that you know that this is where the movie is going, you know, from the moment more or less that Rumi takes his hat off in the library. And he's like, you know, he shaved his head or whatever. Like, it's more or less like the movie has just is building momentum up to this point. more or less like the movie has just is building momentum up to this point i would even argue from the moment he opens up his shirt in the first shot you see him it's he's just being presented as such an epic loner it feels kind of inevitable yeah yeah and i mean like i mean like the the the the stairwell scene that i was talking about earlier, it just has the same feeling of Night of the Living Dead, where you know that shit is going to go sideways. Regardless of whether or not he gets his licks in in the stairwell, the cops are eventually going to show up, and then what's going to happen.

going to show up and then what's going to happen the the other scene i think is really good is uh you know you have uh the t-shirt confrontation right which leads to malik following him back and saying like say it you know you're not being honest with me say it which leads to him yeah it's like i i like that scene a lot because it's not like it's obviously like it's not about the t-shirt and it's not about any of the like they're both really like very incredibly anxious and like it's like both actors are also like have like the same sort of like tense breathing. I may be as scared as you are sort of thing going on. But like Malik is obviously in control of the situation because, you know, Remy is just such a wet noodle. Like, but the. It's really just like they're just angry and like, you know, you want it to be true that this person is saying this shit when you're not around.

And it probably is. I mean, look at him. But like, you know. It's also like that's not what it's about right now. It's about the fact that he just got, you know, I forget exactly what it was that happened to him immediately before, you know. Is it the same or Cole Hauser sort of questioning his, like, bona fides, where he starts talking about his history with guns? There are two scenes like that.

Yeah. But, like, the T-shirt scene, like, is really good because, like, although there's all of, like, the racially charged stuff and, like, the racist's all of, like, the racially charged stuff and, like, the racist stuff and all the whatever, like, it really illustrates that it's more about

what these individuals are bringing into the interaction, like, as well. Like, and it's everything else that happened during the day also. Right, and then you have, you know,, like him running out, them chasing after him. The campus cops stopping Malik, of course, you know, Adam Goldberg having to yell at them to let him go that they don't even realize they've just let, you know, an armed kid slip by them. And then that scene afterwards where they take out the Nazi flag and he does those really striking shots with everyone looking at the Nazi flag and they're sort of going like, oh, look what we have here. Like kind of like half jokingly and then they tell Fudge to break it up. Like that stuff is really good. That whole stretch to me is really good.

That whole stretch to me is really good. The ask it like the them rolling around in the in the in the patrol cars and being like, can we see your ID? Also a good note. Yeah. Yeah. But in a way, then when it builds up to this like uber operatic sniper on the roof while the the Swanson event is happening and tyra running in slow motion and everything that feels so much less uh i don't know immediate and vital to me it feels so much more kind of uh manufactured in its drama i know the i know what you mean like is it feels like after like the personal things like the indignity of like not having enough swipes on your card or having like campus officers harass you or teacher speaks you

in a certain way and all the stuff that feels like you know granulated and personal like this is basically like the world leveling threat this is the energy spire of racism movies is a shooting like yes yes um like the same way that like you would you might say that like a superhero movie is also is almost like a character drama like in the first 45 minutes but then they gotta blow some shit up right then there has to be a hole in the sky that they need to close or whatever yeah right as someone described on twitter

recently is this superhero movie one of the we have to close the portal ones or one of the we have to bring the orb to the gate movies yes yes yes yeah 100% but yes yes it does also feel like once again you know the main cultural touch point for a school shooting a campus shooting at this point is a sniper on the roof in daylight you know hitting people on the on the quad and everything

it's weird to watch this now because you feel like well what would probably happen is rapaport if he gets away with the gun then just proceeds to go from room to room and shoot people you know it's sort of surprising that he just kind of gets away chills out they follow them they find them they beat them up then there's that scene of them sort of taking their licks and getting wound up and then they really challenge him to go do the full the full sniper thing it feels like i mean this movie is pre right like automatic weapon uh columbine all you know like but that right it's more inspired by like the university of texas shooting with the tower shooting right the classic that that that is like the butt of jokes for for years like dark you know

gallows humor right like you know be careful he'll you know he'll get a rifle and climb the tower right that's what's so depressing is it's like that was the one big one for 20 years you know and now it's just like there's a new reference point every six months. I really, and it's really like I felt like because I hadn't watched it in so long and I was, they have like the news chyron at the end of the news hit at the end of it where they're, you know, tallying up the day, like, you know, the fall of the day or whatever. And she goes like three dead and one injured or whatever. the fall of the day or whatever and she goes like three dead and one injured or whatever and like it was the most ashamed i felt in a while that i was just like well three dead and one injured that's not that bad yeah it was sure right yeah that's that's a very depressing thought it it is odd you brace yourself when he gets up there like, oh my God, he's about to kill 15 people. You know, it is odd how much of a relief it feels like to watch it today and only have three people get gunned down, which is horrifying beyond bleak.

But that's I mean, I don't know. That's all the potency of this movie for me, combined with the fact that it is someone who is just not filtering themselves you know it's it's a movie that comes out of like like this is like his mother or whatever right like this is like the primal scream blank check move where it's like i'm just gonna be so fucking angry and just say everything i have to say. And I feel like as much as this film is messy in the way those films often are, its points are just so tragically potent still. And I just think the performances are good and the characters by and large are well observed. And I just think, you know, a ensemble within a college campus is the right sort of setting

to be able to tell this sort of story. I think it is a smarter structure for this kind of like, I want to unload all of my frustrations with the world than most filmmakers find when they're in a similar position. I like all the ambition. I like all that. This movie does not totally work for me. And I think it also totally doesn't totally work for me either. I wish it was funnier in a weird way. Not at the end, but like, kind of, I wish there was

a little more life in the first chunk of it. Well, that's the thing that Boys in the Hood does so well. Yeah, exactly. It's the masterstroke

of Boys in the Hood is that the middle act of it is pretty much a fun hangout movie by and large. You know, with a sense of dread creeping around the edges,

but it makes you really get lulled into a sense of security with those guys, whereas this movie, it's like, you know the a sense of dread creeping around the edges but it makes you really get lulled into a sense of security with those guys whereas this movie it's like you know the clock is ticking michael rapaport's gonna blow up at some point yeah rapaport is a tough character to have in any movie like that that character anyway i mean singleton seems to be positive on this movie though right like i feel i read one of those interviews that you're talking about the 20th anniversary interviews yeah and i feel like he likes on balance this movie because he's like

yeah you couldn't make that now like i'm glad i got that out even though it sort of got everything in it yeah i think he was very proud of it in that sense and it's just frustrating that it does feel like a movie that is begging for a kind of reclamation that would probably come with him putting together perhaps a cut closer to his original vision. But it's like they remastered this for Blu-ray the fucking year he died. You know, he did press for it. He didn't seem to imply that he had a cut that he could easily, you know, spruce up or that anyone was asking him to reconstruct it.

And now he's gone. It just feels unlikely that someone else would take the effort to do it. There's kind of a sweet LA Times piece about this movie and from last year, I think, and just kind of how upsettingly relevant it is to rediscover. But it was about Singleton's oldest daughter is named Justice. He named her after poetic justice. And she discovered this movie at a screening while in the film program at USC after he died you watch this movie for the first time one of his films that you hadn't seen and to feel like oh this is like my dad not only speaking to me but making something that speaks as much to all the conditions i'm living in right now you know and all people my age it's it's a wild thing to think about right yeah that put a lump in my throat no that's that's that's wonderful and sad that's very

interesting uh should we play the box office game micah do you have any more higher learning thoughts we didn't get to you didn't get to you know drop any any other bombs you want to drop do i have any other bombs that i would like to drop about higher learning? No, I don't think I do. No, I actually, and the thing is that like I was pausing because I was actually thinking, I don't think I have anything else. We talked it out.

I mean, it's like, yeah, it's an interesting movie. I don't know. Like this has been an interesting miniseries so far in that i i do like a lot of the swings he takes post phenomenon instant phenomenon status like it's a tough it's a tough way to start your career in a weird way even though obviously let's him make it's tough to be saddled with that expectation of importance you know it wasn't just like oh this guy is like a whiz behind the camera it wasn't just oh this guy makes hits it was like this guy's fucking saying shit and i think if

you're in your 20s and suddenly that's thrown on you every time you make a movie it's like he makes poetic justice and critics are like what's this this feels weirdly slight from the boys in the hood guy and then this one comes out and critics are like i don't know too much he should have less to say you know it was like already they were kind of like he was in an impossible position it makes sense in a way that he took such a hard swing to like just let me make like popcorn movies you know let me make like action movies and thrillers let me just try to be a really top shelf craftsman doing like good popcorn. I think it just probably started to feel a little oppressive to him. Here's the quote that you were paraphrasing, which I found where you said, if you look at higher learning,

which I was 25 years old making it, I'm like chock full of everything that would concern young people. Everything I could put in that movie. It was a great movie, a fun movie to do, but you could never get that movie made now. Never. The guy shoots everybody. Know what I mean? Yeah, he sure does. So this,

all right, Griff, this movie came out January 13th, 1995. I assume that's Martin Luther King Day weekend because his earlier movies are both summer movies, right? Boys in the Hood was too, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Both July. Yeah. It's kind of surprising that they would release this in January. You feel like they would think of this as like an Oscar play, but I guess maybe from test screenings and whatever, they knew it wasn't getting that buzz. It's just bizarre to release it like two weeks into january for a pretty highbrow movie at least on its in theory you know but that's where it is so yeah this is an interesting top five okay so it's opening number two at the box office 13 million dollars

17 in the four day uh and it makes like 40 domestic, 38 domestic. Yeah. But the number one movie is one of those movies. People just don't remember exists, but it was a big hit. It's a big period epic with some two big stars, an Oscar winner and a young hottie. Now I'm assuming this is a holdover from the end of 94 from the holiday season or is this it is it is it's in its fourth week but I think this is the first week it's going wide so it's jumped to number one because it's added legends of the fall it's legends of the fall ed zwick the hotties

wow this is anthony this is how my brain works this is my only occurrence i mean like the thing is that like despite my knowing despite my knowing that movie and having seen it a bunch of times i would have never been able to place it off of like that scant of a description and the thing is probably just because like i i wasn't watching movies like that and in 95 it's It's a two-pronged thing. One is that, I mean, I'm similarly young. I wasn't aware of this movie when it came out, but I obsessively study box office charts for fun, or at least did for the better part of my teen years and early 20s.

So now this stuff has burned into my brain. The other X factor now is now at this point david and i are like an old married couple and i can sometimes guess what movie it is based on how david describes it not even because of what it alludes to in the movie itself but i just think like what would david think of this movie i feel that that's beautiful he would call legend of the fall too hot he's being hot it's not a good movie right but that's i just immediately you said two it's two hotties and i went it's pitt norman i know exactly what david's thinking um so yeah uh i don't know i feel like it's mostly known for

like the score these days right mostly known for the score in his hair right his hair and it was like ormon's big debut and everyone thought she was gonna be the next big thing and that didn't really happen aiden quinn was gonna be a thing too though you know he was he was coming up all right number two is higher learning number three also new this week also from a black director. Unusual, probably, to have in the 90s two movies in the top five from black directors. It's a horror movie. I don't want to say much more. It's a horror comedy. It's a horror comedy.

It's not... Sort of. Hmm. Hmm. Lightly satirical perhaps yeah it's hard to describe this movie without describing it which would immediately give it away it's a black director though that gives it away it's a black director is it a slasher movie no no it's a horror movie with a black director in 1995 that is somewhat comedic. And is it a one-off?

Does it have sequels? It has a sequel. It's based on a TV show and it has a sequel. It's based on a TV show and it has a sequel. Yes. And it's a horror comedy. Yes. sequel yes that's a horror comedy yes but don't worry too much about comedy because it's sort of like that's sort of complicated this is so hard to describe i'm just trying to think even through like uh uh black directors working in the studio system in the early 90s and it's like

okay so friday's the same year it's not f gary gray it's not spikely it's obviously not singleton it's not an ernest dickinson dickerson movie is it it is an ernest dickerson movie fuck i was looking at ernest dickerson's filmography today oh is it the Tales from the Crypt movie? Yes. What's the subtitle? Ah, fuck. It's called Demon Knight? It's Demon Knight. That is the movie. Demon Knight.

With Billy Zane, Jada Pinkett, CCH Pounder, William Sadler, Dick Miller, Thomas Hayden Church. It's all happening. Yeah. Demon Knight. Opening big for Tales from the Crypt movie. Ten million dollars. Nobody's mad. That's number three. They thought

this was going to work and then Bordello of Blood killed it so hard. We forgot to mention this when we did our Tales from the Crypt episode for Zemeckis, but you know what the third Tales from the Crypt movie was supposed to be, right? That was lined up and ready to go. I don't. Did we not mention this? What was it? We didn't mention this. The Frighteners. Oh, yes. Yes. Right, right. We didn't mention that. I did know that. Peter Jackson's The Frighteners was supposed to be the third Tales from the Crypt

movie. And then Zemeckis was like, I think you got a good thing here. You should make it stand on its own and not tie it to the Tales from the Crypt thing. And he made that decision right before Bordello of Blood, which was very smart. Right, right, right, right. Like then Bordello of Blood came out and would have killed its chance to get made. Anyway, anyway, anyway. Demon Knight. Demon Knight. Number four at the box office was number one the previous weekend. It has added 3% to its total. It is a word of mouth smash hit comedy. It was a December release. It's in its fifth week. What is it, Griffin? Is it a Jim Carrey? It is.

Is it Dumb and Dumber? is it Dumb and Dumber it's Dumb and Dumber the third of his 394 releases because it's Ace Ventura at the top of 94 The Mask in the Summer Dumb and Dumber at Christmas that was his 1994 right it's bananas bananas bananas crazy crazy opening there uh from jim number five is an oscar holdover it's expanding this week it's getting a best actor nomination for sure for its star uh who is a legend it's a sort of comedy drama i auditioned for this movie in that weird way where like someone came to my school you know to ps87 children yeah yeah and like talked to some kids one by one in like an empty classroom you know what i mean and then later my dad was like yeah you were auditioning for that movie that you know that or whatever they were looking for a kid for that movie yeah they did that unsurprisingly at my the fucking gross precocious

new york private middle school for royal tannen bombs and i absolutely blew it because i knew it too well and wanted it too badly like they were like we're just looking they were like no get this get this kid out of here y'all had cast of people just just swinging by your school like it's new york man yeah yeah i mean look i went i did not go to private school but yes but still i may feel like there it's just new york they're just like let's just swing through new york city and like we'll just we'll find some precocious ass kid right yeah right i just feel like they were looking for precocious kids and they were looking at all these different schools and they came and I like recognize from the flyer like, oh, this is the new Wes Anderson movie because I'm a 12 year old Wes Anderson fuck.

And I was like, oh, I love Rushmore. And they were like, yeah, automatically disqualified. Well, I saved Latin. What did you do? I was quoting shit. I had my own fucking punctuality pen and they were like out of here you're not in this movie anyway it was like it was like Bart Simpson trying to get cast as fallout boy I was walking in with the pinstripe suit and the tiny dog okay I'm sorry the movie it the the actor gets

the nomination uh I think it also gets a screenplay nomination it It's not Mr. Holland's Opus, is it? No, it's not. It's not as well-known a movie as that. It's not a bad movie, but it's kind of forgotten. It's one of those nominations for this actor, and he must have like 10 or something. He was nominated many times where you're like, oh yeah, right, oh yeah, that one.

Yeah, sure, sure. He would have won for this but he'd already won yeah he's dead he's dead he had already won at this point it's in the 90s he was legendary it was one of many 10 nominations this guy got in his career plus he won an honorary award and a humanitarian award but did he ever is it paul newman it's paul newman it's not nobody's fool is it it is nobody's fool why wouldn't it be nobody's fool i thought of that earlier and for some reason i i think of that movie as being earlier i don't i don't think of that being 94 yeah i actually like that movie a lot uh yeah that movie's pretty good right bruce willis yeah

is in it like kind of making an effort because he's in a paul newman movie like yeah i like that movie a lot. Yeah, that movie's pretty good, right? Bruce Willis? Yeah. Is in it? Like, kind of making an effort because he's in a Paul Newman movie? Like, yeah, I like that movie. But now I'm just imagining a little Sims being sprinkled in. Yeah, I don't even know who they brought in for that movie

who I could have vaulted to stardom if I charmed the kid. Maybe you were reading for the Bruce Willis part and they just decided to flip it a very different way. I need to age anyway yeah i'm just even looking for anyone who would have been young at the time of the alexander goodwin born 1987 this has to be that sounds right i was born in 88 yeah i'm 86 yeah yeah yeah he's in this he's in mimic he's in this. He's in Mimic. He's in... I'm not Rappaport. Anyway, you could have been Alexander Goodwin.

There but for the grace of God go you. Thank God I was not. But that's... I just remember it later that my dad was like, oh no, that was for like that movie, Nobody's Fool. That time that the whole third grade from PS87 was rounded up or whatever. Yeah, that was you. Yeah.

You must have felt like somebody's fool when you heard that that's the movie you had almost been cast in. Absolutely. And thank you for saying that. And it was brave that you said that. I want to say that the other movies in the top 10 this week were Houseguest i saw in theaters and thought was a masterpiece disclosure uh one of the wildest movies ever made uh little women the the crew you know claire dane's uh little women uh kristen dunst yada yada uh the jungle book the live action jungle book which i also saw in theaters and scared the shit out of me the stephen summers movie terrifying uh good movie

uh in my memory just absolutely wild to think like you know in the last decade they're like here we're doing like a big happy family state-of-the-art special effects showcase jungle book movie and in the 90s they were just like we're just gonna put jason scott lee on camera with a bunch of wild animals and hope that nobody's gonna like fight a tiger was like almost roar you know it's just like yeah i i pulled up the trailer for that movie a couple times because i've been like did that really exist or am i misremembering it and you watch the trailer and you're just like it is astonishing that no one was scalped during the production of this film it's just him doing long scenes with like a bear and a jaguar that's that's great yeah wild um far from home the

adventures of yellow dog that's uh new this week at number 10 remember far from home the adventures of yellow dog with jesse bradford forget a title like that far from home the adventures of yellow dog uh just like saying it micah thank you so much for being on the show of course of course of course thank you for having me thank you so so much. Swing it in. Higher learning for enrolling. People should listen to Sound Only. They should read your work on The Ringer. Credits I will

never, ever forget to associate with you again in my life. I appreciate it, Griff. That's what we call growth, you know? Some higher learning. This episode is dropping in like May, but you

and Justin did just talk about Malcolm and Marie. That was the episode I was just listening to. Justin Charity, friend of the show, past and future guest. We did yell at each other for a while about Malcolm and Marie.

But look, David, by the end of May, we're still going to be trying to unpack Malcolm and Marie. I mean, this is one of those... It's a sticky text. We're not going to let go of this one. Absolutely. Can we please?

A sticky text text Malcolm and Marie oh man thank you all for listening please remember to rate, review, and subscribe I've realized recently I've been trying to improve my diction on the outro because I feel like I've started slurring all my words together

sure you rush or whatever that's one of the ticks I've realized is I no longer say the D in and subscribe. I go rate, review, and subscribe. Like it's my... a lady's name, and subscribe. Please remember to rate, review, and

subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media. Thank you to our editing team, Alex Barron and A.J. McKeon. Thank you to Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Thank you to Lane Montgomery and The Great American Novel for our theme song. Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit, and go to our Shopify page for some real nerdy shirts. You can go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features

where commentaries on franchises, including some franchise that we're covering right now that we don't know yet because we're recording episodes three months in advance them's the breaks tune in next week for Rose Wood and as always I could give zero fucks

suck his dead nuts I could give zero fucks. Suck his dead nuts. Thank you. Cancer sucks worse than haters.