School Daze

I was unaware this was Bollywood.

WAKE UP!

Certainly entertaining (especially for the song-n-dance sequence about hair), but the main focus of this socially conscious film is superbly obscured. Lee is at least going all out with his style and with his thematic relevance here, but it ultimately gets too confused underneath the weight of this bulky distracted film. For example, there's plenty of talk about apartheid that gets substituted for unfunny wacky slapstick, or time-wasting gig pieces.

A couple great moments in this but for the most part it's all over the place. Can't say I expected to see Samuel L. Jackson in this.

Spike Lee's sophomore feature is, appropriately enough, a look at campus politics, with the conflict between a firebrand activist (Laurence Fishburne) and a slimy fraternity leader (Giancarlo Esposito) at the heart of it. Lee, using a studio budget for the first time, directs vibrantly, even if he indulges himself (like with the overlong musical numbers). His script isn't one of his best, but the cast is generally strong enough to compensate. Superior cinematography by Ernest Dickerson.

Loved Fishburne in this. The musical numbers were great, but the rest of the movie was hit or miss.

The social and political issues that Lee attempts to comment on with "School Daze" are more interesting than the incoherent, meandering, and inscrutable execution of his actual picture.

66.000

64.500

Very hit and miss. The pacing is all over the place, while starting out strong and building to a confrontation between Fishburne and Esposito (with some good musical numbers which actually relate to the political themes of the film) the film fizzles out at the halfway point. The next act is mostly filler, re-establishing themes that I'd like to see developed further. The ending is good but it doesn't feel earned; I'm being asked to 'Wake Up' but the film had lost it's message an hour ago.

Animal House: A Spike Lee Joint. Please, wake up.

This movie is really bizarre. The plot is all over the place, but the acting is good enough to feel completely immersed in the absurdity of an American university -- with all the fraternities, "stepping", "pledging", and doing just about everything except study. I liked the exploration of divergent views on African American issues, but unfortunately this was largely abandoned halfway through. Also, I was disappointed Fishburne and Esposito didn't have at least one song. Overall not bad though.

Pretty neat

The Spike Lee musical. Funky and entertaining, and brutally honest about some things that us honkeys aren't supposed to know