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All Movie Info
Starring:
Omar Epps, Kristy Swanson, Michael Rapaport, Jennifer Connelly, Ice Cube, Jason Wiles, Tyra Banks, Cole Hauser, Laurence Fishburne, Bradford English, Regina King, Busta Rhymes, Jay R. Ferguson, Andrew Bryniarski, Trevor St. John, Adam Goldberg, J. Trevor Edmond, Bridgette Wilson, Kari Wuhrer, Randall Batinkoff, Antonio Lewis Todd, Patricia Forte, George LePorte, Skip O'Brien, Alicia Stevenson, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Rick Avery, Jacqueline Lovell, Sebastian Feldman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim Griffin, Talbert Morton, John Walton Smith Jr., Malcolm Norrington, Tim Griffin, Sheila Ward, Warren Olney, Bill Evans, Ernie Singleton, Bruce Williams, Richard D. Alexander, Michael B. Silver, Graham Galloway, Paul Kropfl, James W. Smith, Walton Green, Mary Bakjian, Mista Grimm, Robby Parker, Pola Maloles, Ingrid Walters, Kiante Elam, Jamie Jo Medearis, Tony Donno, Cole McLarty, Maximilian A. Mastrangelo, Shawn Michael Perry, Rayder Woods, D-Knowledge, Joe Bugs, Dedrick D. Gobert, Ark Sano
Directed By:
John Singleton
Written By:
John Singleton
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Higher Learning (1994)
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Movie Review by Zara 
November 11th, 2007
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I can distinctly remember seeing this movie in the theater when it was released. People were all up on Singleton because he'd delivered so well with his freshman outing, BOYZ IN DA HOOD. He scored himself a best director Oscar nod, even if the film itself wasn't nominated.
I was living in Oxnard at the time and people are big on hippy-hoppity style movies there. (Har har.) I went with my boyfriend at the time, another friend of mine and a friend of his. We were all high on speed and completely out of our minds, 4 white kids in a theater populated with too many Hispanics right at the Carriage Square theater in the heart of Oxnard. People were known for smuggling in alcohol all the time there and the air in theater 2 was rife with cheap beer and marijuana smoke. Then someone threw up and there was the stench of vomit.
Which is pretty much how I remember the movie. A low grade, hate the whitey Spike Lee inspired film about how hard it is for a black guy to go to a good college. Poor John Singleton. He really had every advantage and yet still acted as if he was slighted in some way. Now, I'll admit that I liked BIDH and I even though 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS was entertaining. But I'd be hard pressed to say that he wasn't more than a glorified one hit wonder.
Overly dramatic, overly important... Oh, and I mean the movie as well.
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 | Tim
Nov 11, 2007 3:03 AM
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First off......Michael Rapaport is great.
The first and most obvious mistake in the film is the casting. Ice Cube and Omar Epps are just not the type of people to cast for this type. It still makes me laugh to think of Ice Cube as a hard, ghetto black man. Then on top of that they added Busta Rhymes which should not be in any film except maybe Leprechaun 8 "Back to the ghetto to steal back the gold from a bunch of forgotten about rappers that can't act"
Second is even with a good actor like Laurence Fishburne, they managed to blow it with his ridiculously fake accent and smoking the pipe. I mean yeah he was the positive influence in Boys In Da Hood but he wasnt no school scholar either.
Then the annoying Tyra Banks which is hard to stomach even though she is pretty.
Yes the black man being held down by the white man story is getting very old, even the scene with the campus police "no let me see your ID" was pretty lame.
Just for Rapaport's performances which has some pretty good one liners is worth a 2 star rating in my opinion. American History X was way better. |
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Nov 11, 2007 12:40 PM
However, it's still not enough to save this film.