Higher Learning (1995)
Directed by John Singleton
African-American student Malik is on a track scholarship; academics are not his strong suit, and he goes in thinking that his athletic abilities will earn him a free ride through college. Fudge, a "professional student" who has been at Columbus for six years so far, becomes friendly with Malik and challenges his views about race and politics in America.
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Like Spike Lee's " School Daze ," Singleton's "Higher Learning" is idealistic in a way that seems refreshingly dated: He believes the campus should allow students from different races and places to get to know one another, instead of compartmenting them into rigid self-righteousness.
It is easy to imagine that in a faculty office, David Mamet's " Oleanna " is taking place.
Despite their generic diversity and ambitious premises, neither the distaff road-movie rumination Poetic Justice nor the inflammatory campus drama Higher Learning nor the historical commemoration Rosewood nor the sexually cautious but adventurously acted Shaft remake nor even Baby Boy, styled as a sort of post-date to the Oedipal tensions and turbulent maturations in Boyz N the Hood, generated much heat.
Signed by a major agency while still a student at USC, Singleton saw his first film as a writer-director, "Boyz N the Hood," debut to exceptional notices and make him at age 23 the youngest person and the first African American to be nominated for the best director Oscar.
"Higher Learning" is Singleton's third film, after the great "Boyz N the Hood" (1991) and the more meandering, romantic " Poetic Justice " (1993).
"BOYZ N the Hood" give way to Boyz N Girlz on the Quad in John Singleton's energetic, uneven but engaging new campus drama, "Higher Learning."
Whatever its flaws, Higher Learning, the new drama written and directed by John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood), is undeniably a movie of the moment.
Singleton followed "Boyz" with the disappointing "Poetic Justice," and now, still in his 20s, comes his third feature, and its youthfulness shows in more than its college setting.
"Higher Learning" is Singleton's third film, after the great "Boyz N the Hood" (1991) and the more meandering, romantic " Poetic Justice " (1993).
Singleton's last film, Poetic Justice, was a gooey, pretentious mess, so it's a relief to see him drawing on the kinds of sturdily middlebrow storytelling verities that served him in Boyz N the Hood.