School Daze (1988)

User Rating:

5.3/10   

Director:

Spike Lee

Writer:

Spike Lee (written by)

Release Date:

12 February 1988 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Musical

Plot:

A not so popular young man wants to pledge to a popular fraternity at his historically black college.

Plot Keywords:

College | Historically Black College | Feud | Interracial | Directed By Co Star

Cast

Laurence Fishburne	...	Dap
Giancarlo Esposito	...	Julian
Tisha Campbell-Martin	...	Jane Toussaint (as Tisha Campbell)
Kyme	...	Rachel Meadows
Joe Seneca	...	President McPherson
Ellen Holly	...	Odrie McPherson
Art Evans	...	Cedar Cloud
Ossie Davis	...	Coach Odom
Bill Nunn	...	Grady
James Bond III	...	Monroe
Branford Marsalis	...	Jordam
Kadeem Hardison	...	Edge
Eric Payne	...	Booker T. (as Eric A. Payne)
Spike Lee	...	Half-Pint
Anthony Thompkins	...	Doo-Doo Breath

Runtime:

121 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

UK:15 (re-rating) (2006) | UK:18 (original rating) | Iceland:L | Australia:M | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Company:

40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks

Trivia:

The fight scene at the end of the fraternity step show was not scripted.

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: When the Gamma Rays are singing I Don't Want to Be Alone Tonight, towards the end of the song, the audio and picture don't add up. The audio is slightly ahead.

Quotes:

Jig-A-Boo's: Well, you're a wanna-be, wanna be better than me!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Living Single: School Daze (#2.6)" (1994)

Soundtrack:

I'm Buildin' Me A Home

It's not a good movie because you didn't go to a Black school?

So what if you went to Harvard and not Hampton, this film is still well-shot, well-acted and damn funny. If you can't understand the light vs. dark, town vs. gown, Greeks vs. GDI conflicts, maybe you don't... under... stand... English... well. I never saw the movie in its entirety until I was about 20 (and pledging at an HBCU, but that's another story) but it just got better as I got older. This movie is like many of Spike's: it's for a group of people (Black ones) that rarely get to tell their own stories. If other people get it, super. On a sidenote, what's so "universal" about Dirty Dancing? I've never had to drop out of a contest because of my botched abortion that Lenny from Law & Order had to come help me out with. I've also never been a small, Jewish man in New York City, but people seem to find Woody Allen's movies "universal" enough. Why don't these issues come up with movies made by whi... (ahem) other filmmakers?