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School Daze

8/26/2016

14 Comments

 

C+
​2.47

Spike Lee chronicles the micro and macro conflicts within a fictional historically black college.

Directed by Spike Lee
Starring Laurence Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, and Tisha Campbell-Martin
​Initial review by JR Peters

Picture
I picked this movie out because I’m the only person in the group that had previously seen this movie and some of the issues discussed in this movie still need to be discussed today.  Also I’ve decided I’m only going to be doing “Black” movies from now on.
 
The first thing we need to talk about is the opening credits of the movie.  One thing I believe that no one ever really talks about is the opening credits of movies and Spike has the best with ‘Do the Right Thing’ and he has one of the worst with ‘Chi-Raq’.  These opening credits fall right behind ‘Do the Right Thing’.  The credits show African-Americans through the years, from slave times all the way through to modern times all while the old Negro spiritual ‘Buildin’ Me A Home’ is playing.  The pictures focus mostly the struggles black people went through to be treated equally and the education that they received and the way they united to achieve them. All of this composes the opening credits to a movie that starts out with a demonstration against a school to divest in Apartheid laden South Africa, and later shows the divides within the black community on an all-black campus even after these struggles.

Right from the beginning we are slapped in the face by some of the issues that the movie will be talking about.  The first scene has Dap (Larry Fishburne) leading a demonstration by the school for not divesting in South Africa and during his demonstration the camera pans to the crowd and everyone is dark skinned and wearing their hair natural, but then the Gammites show up and with then the light skinned girls with dyed and chemically processed hair.  Julian (Giancarlo Esposito) tells Dap that they don’t agree with this “African mumbo jumbo” and just within the first 4 minutes after the opening ceremony you have the basis for the whole film…for Africa vs. for themselves, light skinned vs. dark skinned, revolutionary vs. just wanting to be at school.

Dap’s cousin Half-Pint (Spike Lee) is prospective Gammite, bridging the 2 main characters in the movie.  This could have been a central point of the movie, but instead they just used him to move along some plot points and provide comic relief every once and a while and even half-heartedly at that.  He goes out and tries to find a girl to have sex with and has some of the worst pickup lines I’ve ever heard.  Also of all the acting Spike has done this has to be his worst; every time I hear him say “I’ll be a good gamma man you’ll see, you’ll see”…I cringe.
​
One of the best things about this movie is the song number ‘Straight and Nappy’.  It wraps feelings black people have for different black people up into a great song with a dance number that pulls no punches.  Exchanging insults from such as high yellow heifer and tar baby they finally settle on jiggaboo and wannabe (wanna be white/better than me) before breaking out into song about their disgust for each other.  This is a subject that has come up before this movie was out (brown paper bag test) and continues to come up (light skin vs. dark skin party).

The pregame pep talk from the football coach is absolutely great.  It skips the big moment like others go for and sticks with having more of a sermon feel.  Also having the football game without showing any actual football being played and just the reactions of the players on the sideline, the coaches, the people in the stand, and watching the score run up was a great idea.

The absolute best thing that happens is when they take the trip to get some food in the city.  They meet and have a verbal altercation with some townies, led by Sam Jackson,  who complain about all of the college students think they are better than everyone else and they let them know that they are the exact same as them.  They aren’t white and are still niggas.  On the way back to school they have a talk about how they were right, but also wrong.

One of the final things that happens in the movie is when Julian offers up his girlfriend to half-pint to get him to lose his virginity so he can be initiated.  A small callout to womanizing that could have and should had a more prominent role in the movie.  Dap, upon finding out, rightfully freaks out on his cousin and has the realization that he needs to call everyone to wake up.

This movie has tons of things that it does right and it has some things that just don’t work out perfectly.  Some of the acting was subpar, but most of it was good.  Spike’s attempt to satirize fraternity initiation and pledging did go off exactly as I’m sure he planned.  It always seemed a little lackluster and I could tell that some of the scenes were supposed to be funny, but just ended up being pretty dumb such as the pass the pussy thing.  I enjoyed all of the extra scenes that didn’t move the conflict along, but were there just to show what life was like at a black college including the party with the infamous song ‘Da Butt’ and the step show.  Some of the scenes were longer than they needed to be and just lingered on including the musical number for ‘Straight and Nappy’.  Also I’m a bit upset that they never resolve the conflict between Dap and the administration about divesting.

It’s a solid B from me.
 
Bonus: Julian (Giancarlo Esposito) shows up in Albuquerque as Gus Fring and is still a dick.

Double Bonus: The next movie that spike made after this is 'Do the Right Thing'. The last words spoken in this movie are the first words spoken in that one. That means one day you should watch them back-to-back. ​
14 Comments
Admin
8/26/2016 04:03:24 pm

Reserved for replies to initial review

Reply
John Robert Peters, Jr.
8/26/2016 04:18:03 pm

Let me have it...I already know you aren't going to like it.

Reply
Jon
8/26/2016 04:36:17 pm

Slate's Black Film Canon, which School Daze isn't on, btw, would be a great place to start.

Reply
John Robert Peters, Jr.
8/26/2016 05:04:21 pm

I was thinking about pulling from there or making sure it was on there because it's more likely that people have seen it if it's on there.

https://goo.gl/P0V1Bf

Jon
8/26/2016 04:39:09 pm

Rank the following directors-as-actors:

Scorsese
Spike
Tarantino
Mel Brooks
Ben Affleck
Eastwood
Shyamalan

Reply
Lane
8/26/2016 05:07:12 pm

What was Scorsese in? I guess I could google that...

1.) Affleck
2.) Eastwood
3.) Brooks
4.) Spike
5.) Tarantino

Shyamalan shouldn't be considered, but Mel Gibson should.

Jon
8/26/2016 05:25:06 pm

I'm sure Scorsese's been in other of his movies, but the main performance from him is in Taxi Driver, where he takes Travis Bickle to the apartment where his wife is cheating on him. It's a great scene that puts him at the top of the list.

Scorsese
Eastwood
Brooks
Affleck
Spike
Shyamalan
Tarantino

John Robert Peters, Jr.
8/26/2016 05:46:08 pm

Eastwood
Scorsese
Brooks
Affleck
Spike
Shyamalan
Tarantino.

Tarantino is so bad I sometimes skip the part he is in when I'm reaching the movies.

Lane
8/29/2016 07:56:44 pm

Geez...well, this shows that I saw Taxi Driver back in college when I didn't even know who Scorcese was...gonna need to rewatch that...otherwise, my list stands

Bryan
8/26/2016 04:14:09 pm

Let me fire up the ole OneNote file...

2 lb lemon
750 mL 100 Proof vodka
Tide to Go Pen
Meijer brand toothbrush head

Whoops! Wrong list...

Bullock is a jerk
EB Got beat down

Still searching...

The music scenes made me leave the room. They were entirely too long and boring.
The make out music scene made me uncomfortable.
The paddling of those pledges was weak. Weak I tell ya! Moar Donnie, less Big Bertha.
The football coach speech was fine, but the cheering from the players wasn't 65 people loud.
This is the youngest I've seen Samuel L Jackson and of course he's yelling.
The A-Phi-A dance was amusing.
If I had to hold that torch to join Gamma, I'd be out. Rotator cuff tendonitis will get ya.

All in all, School Daze didn't make a ton of sense to me much like Chi-Raq it was all over the place. I guess that is Spike Lee's thing. Movies that are supposed to be serious, but I come away from them wondering if they are spoofs. The light skinned versus dark skinned and local vs college guy discussions were intriguing, but they weren't emphasized enough. The battle between the Mission president and the students would have been great to emphasize as well. Instead we got music scenes which don't pop and really odd love stories. I'm pretty down on this one. C-

Reply
Lane
8/26/2016 05:05:04 pm

This isn’t a very good movie. Which is a shame since the themes it attempts to mine are really interesting.

The main problem is just the cutesy-ness of the film. The minute something interesting happens, the moment is totally ruined by some terrible musical number or some inane, unfortunate attempt at comedy. It’s a weird thing that everybody thinks Spike Lee is a really great director when it’s hard to find a movie of his that is actually really good (I think I like “Jungle Fever,” but I saw it a long time ago).

Maybe, then, Spike’s character in “School Daze” is really a representation of him as a filmmaker—he has serious aspirations that are always tamped down by the necessities of the fraternity-esque entertainment industry. Of course, with “Chi-Raq” he got free reign from Netflix and it still wasn’t great, so maybe he’s just not that great.

Here’s how this would have been a great movie: if it would have been made as a black “Animal House.” Outrage is an emotion that rarely makes great movies, in my opinion.

Grade: C-

Reply
Sean
8/26/2016 05:35:53 pm

This was not my first viewing of School Daze but it had been long enough ago I didn't have much recollection of it. After seeing it I remembered more than I thought.

As a white guy watching this movie it made me think of white privilege. Despite growing up in a very diverse neighborhood and public school system (didn't go private until HS, the public HS I wouldve gone to is currently 50% black, 10% Hispanic, 32% white) I hadn't realized through personal experience the fight about degrees of blackness. Movies and Gabby Douglass criticism have told me the struggle with natural hair and I've heard black girls talk about going natural but didn't know there was a culture within a culture where that aesthetic was used to demean one another. Then when you add Sam Jacksons crew at KFC and you have 3 distinct groups who hate each other because they have differing definitions of what being black is that likely can easily lead to a difficult discovery/acceptance of self.

Specifically on the success of the movie I think Spike did a nice job layering serious social conversations with enough exaggerated satire (musical numbers, frat pledging) that allowed you to think without being overly melodramatic. The Coach's pregame speech as a sermon moving into, do you want to lose homecoming 4 years in a row, do you want me to lose my job was absolutely brilliant. Immediately following that with the game and only showing the pageantry of the band and the fans and reactions as they got beat without showing any football was perfect.

Performance wise- Larry Fishburne was born to play Furious Styles and Dap Dunbar and he knocks it out of the park again. I didn't hate Spike's performance as much, he's a caricature of a weakling who joins a frat because he thinks that will make him a man and buys into the bullshit. He's Matt Taber.

Cutting short because I'm leaving work now- I think Spike did a fantastic job of world building and creating conflict but he didn't have an ending. Gathering everyone together and asking the audience to wake up is a cop out. It's a needed message but not a story arc.

I'm going A-. Elevation because it made me think. Maybe that's because of the emotions of this week but it was definitely worth watching and I'd definitely stop on it for some time if I saw it on tv.

Reply
Jon
8/29/2016 02:16:45 am

This is our second Spike Lee movie this season at the Mediocre Movie Club, and it's going to sound a lot like my review of Chi-raq. Despite being separated by almost 3 decades, School Daze and Chi-raq share a penchant for shotgun writing, where too much is taken on and not enough is examined. Both movies also interchange great scenes with overly long, if not outright bad scenes. Both aggressively break the fourth wall and both have entire musical productions. Lee followed School Daze with Do the Right Thing, an unabashed masterpiece, so I expect Lee's next movie, a long-gestating documentary about Brazil, to be as excellent as the best film of the 80's.

Where Chi-raq had stakes high enough to make me overlook where it went, at times, disastrously wrong, School Daze simmers at a lower level. Nothing's ever going to be resolved here, and nothing is. The myriad conflicts on campus have been well delineated by earlier reviews, and deservedly criticized for being didactic in the case of the townie-vs-students, overlooked when it comes to Dap-vs-administration, or window dressing in the case of light-skin-vs-dark-skin. Lee's script can't help but be overstuffed, before rushing to the exits with Dap's direct address to the camera. On the one hand, this is good Marxist history, where those in power play divide-and-conquer amongst disadvantaged groups, fighting each other when they should be fighting their oppressors. On the other hand, this is a movie, and a conclusion where the hero yells at everyone and the audience is not a conclusion at all. Lee discards everything he's been doing just so Fishburne can display those world-class pipes, leaving School Daze a film in search of an ending.

Even the unfocused Chi-raq had more focus than School Daze. If there was a stronger unifying thread, the film would be more than a vaguely adjacent series of great to boring scenes, which it mostly is. The theme is delineated in the early discussion between the president and the chairman: are historically black schools necessary? This struck me as the main point, but Lee doesn't address that question again. It's the first to fall by the wayside, and not the last.

This is a frustrating sticking point, because there's admirable scenes here. Ossie Davis's football pep talk, with the flair of the pulpit, is bracing, and Lee saving some amount of money by not showing the football game itself is economical genius. The fraternity stuff works for me for a lot of reasons, most not worth getting into here. What is worth getting into is how easy it is for Half-Pint to forgo any sense of individuality to become part of a group that disrespects him and abuses him, and then after being welcomed in, he immediately does the same to Jane Toussaint. Julian extorting his girlfriend like he does is a disgusting, but still believable, moment, and after she so lovingly licked the part in his hair, too. It's a poisonous system, brothers, something we were right to significantly alter, or be forced to alter if I'm being less charitable. There's also strong comedic value to a lot of School Daze, with much of it played well over the top and the rapport amongst the various groups quick and natural.

The musical aspect is another story. Once the hair song devolves into Busby Berkeley type numbers, with outfits and choreography, I'm done. That's a period and genre which does nothing for me, and serious homages to it land with equal thuds. The party scenes go on for such a long time, and mostly focus on extras and unnamed characters. What works better is the step scene, where the likely pro dancer fraternity goes first and is legitimately good, followed by the Gamma's raw athleticism, and then Dap's ostensible hero calling everyone 'fags.' Different time, the late 80's, when the protagonist could do that and not raise an eyebrow.

Sidebar: Something to assume about School Daze is that Denzel must have been unavailable to play Dap, because all Lee's other preferred actors are here. Samuel L. Jackson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn, and Ossie Davis, are, among others, staples in Lee's repertory company, while Laurence Fishburne never works with Lee again. That's not to say that Fishburne isn't good as Dap, because of course he is, but Denzel's more charismatic.

Anything else would be repeating others. Lee is indeed not a great actor, though I do think he rises to the level of inoffensive in Do the Right Thing. The things I appreciated and scoffed at are essentially equal, so School Daze gets a C+. I look forward to JR's next pick, hopefully something from the blaxploitation era, another of my blind spots.

Reply
Dan M.
8/29/2016 09:27:05 pm

May I recommend Fear of a Black Hat or Superfly for your next Black film selection. Superfly is the best of the blaxploitation films and ...Hat would go nicely with the just reviewed Straight Outta Compton.

Reply



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