Truly Dreadful Film

It is a performances centric movie

Admirable film.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The excitement, of anticipation, is the boredom of the present. The present is the inability to expect. The inability to expect is the inability to know - the inability to know is the ability to not know.The ability to not know is boring. The ability to not know is not the same as not knowing - the ability to not know is an insincere type of ignorance.The experience of boredom is an insincere type of ignorance. An insincere ignorance is a sincere knowledge. A sincere knowledge is not sincerity or knowledge - a sincere knowledge is the same as an insincere sincerity. The experience of boredom, or, the experience of no importance is the same as an insincere sincerity - a dangerous honesty.Unimportance is a dangerous honesty - importance is an honesty that's not dangerous.Importance is an honesty that's acceptable. An acceptable honesty is not acceptable.Importance is not acceptable - unimportance is the only force of nature that can be acceptable.The only way for reality to be acceptable, is if reality is unimportant. The worthiness of reality is dependent on the unworthiness of reality: the ability of worthiness is predicated on worthiness hating itselfThe ability to destroy hatred has to be preceded by hatred having already been accepted; the ability to not hate must be preceded by the ability to hate

Higher Learning is a film, like a couple of other 90's ones, I wish I had seen many years earlier. At first, you wonder where the story's going, but the more it progresses, you begin to see there's something special going on here, where Singleton had made something more than a movie here. What we have are a collection of characters, collegiate students, with their own drama's, and cuttingly real life problems, which of course might seem very cliché'd, but it's how the characters react off each other, especially when again, it's racial conflict, in a movie which again pits black against whites, some of it done discreetly. The two standout performances are that of sick loner student, Rappaport, studying engineering, who has some really bad wiring, and when a Nazi militant group befriend him, they send him down a real killer path. The other great performance is that of Fishburne, as a kind of smug, African literature teacher, who tells it like it is. His character was bl..dy interesting, not stereotypical. Of course, there are predictabilite's in the film, like one outcome, you'll see miles off, but the intent of the film is there, with a few beneficial messages, where you as the viewer, will do some learning yourselves. Not many films are like this, and Singleton has made a film, which has sadly, been heavily and unjustly criticized, yet though, it stands apart from his others. It's a shame, more viewers can't see the real beauty and special self to this powerful drama, with some powerful performances, no more than that of the scary Rappaport.

This is a review of "Rosewood" and "Higher Learning", two films by John Singleton. The weaker of the two, "Rosewood" takes place during the 1923 race riots of Rosewood, Florida. Structured as a western, the film watches as an archetypal "Man With No Name" (Ving Rhames, literally playing a character called Mann) enters Rosewood, only to find the town's predominantly African American population living on edge with a white minority who rule with guns, badges and a bucket full of resentment.A single incident sets the town alight: a young woman blames a black stranger for the vicious beating she received from her white husband. "He was so big!" she screams. "He was so black!" The news spreads. Local white folk begin assembling. Pretty soon a carnival atmosphere develops, whites arming themselves, getting liquored up and commencing the slaughtering of blacks. Charred corpses hang from trees, houses burn and bullets fly.Though it pretends to be "serious" and "historical", "Rosewood" is mostly a silly cartoon. Singleton creates an African American Eden, one which would have flourished had it not been for the white man. Whites are themselves portrayed as lecherous, stupid and one dimensional. One character, played by Jon Voight, is our token "nuanced white". He's a rich landowner, sleazy, but eventually learns to "do the right thing". Elsewhere Singleton consciously reverses common African American stereotypes: all the white families are oversexed, violent, carnal or single parents. The black families, in contrast, are torn straight out of Norman Rockwell paintings, celebrating birthdays, always surrounded by a warm glow or sitting at big, family meals. Later, Mann becomes a Biblical figure, a Moses who leads surviving black folk on an exodus out of Rosewood and across a river.Like most films "about racism", "Rosewood" has nothing to do with racism. The saviours of our victims are two landowners, the ruling class is invisible and it is specifically working class whites who are demonized. Racism, in other words, is caused by the stupid, poor, irrational lower class. But racism always has economic roots. In the US, racial policy became a means of combating worker unity by fostering conflicts and divisions between groups along racial, national, sexual or religious lines. The revitalisation of the KKK in the 1920s was itself a direct response to economic factors. Such things go back as far as the 18th century (quasi-military alliances between large corporations and governments repressed efforts to form labour unions and conduct strikes), when the ruling class pitted blacks, Indians and whites against one another to stave off insurrection. Indians, for example, were often hired as "slave catchers", whilst "strikebreakers" - workers used to replace white strikers – always came from outside the area and/or "lower" ethnic groups. This, of course, exacerbated racial tensions and disrupted communities. Where Rosewood is set, almost two generations after the abolition of slavery and the end of the American Civil War, many French Canadians, East Europeans and Africans were first introduced as strike breakers. The deliberate creation of racial and ethnic conflict was not a matter of individual employer prejudice but of capitalist class strategy. Ulimately, "Rosewood's" message is typical of all of Singleton's films: evil whites preyed on black, set them back, but now's the time for African Americans to help themselves, pull themselves up by the bootstraps, be good and earn a buck. Blacks, in other words, must now be good whites. Play the game that causes the problem and shunt the problem onto someone else.Singleton's "Higher Learning" tells the same story, but is set in a fictional Columbus University. It contains a number of intertwined subplots and characters, the most interesting of which involves Malik Williams (Omar Epps), a black athlete who resents being forced to represent his school on the track field. The film's philosophy is articulated by Laurence Fishburne, who plays a West Indian Professor. African Americans, Fisburne essentially says, should suck it up, work hard, stop blaming people and put up with the problem. Other subplots involve shy and naive girls turning lesbian after being raped by men and a lonely confused man (Michael Rapaport, deliberately parroting DeNiro's Travis Bickle) joining a neo Nazi group. The film ends in a big, climactic orgy of blood, as most of these films do. As with Singleton's best film, "Boyz n the Hood", actor Ice Cube (and rapper Busta Rhymes) stands out. He out classes everyone. The rest of the cast overact.While the film is right to show how racism as a system has been institutionalised within the very fabric of American social, economical, educational, and governmental institutions, and has always sought to dehumanise, devalue, and even destroy minorities and women, its ending, in which the word "unlearn" is boldly written on-screen, is completely unearned. The idea is that a "higher education" beyond "education" is the solution, that one should "unlearn" what they've been programmed to accept, but little in the film supports this theme and the statement largely comes out of left-field.7/10 - Worth one viewing.

Ah, life in college as depicted by "Boyz N the Hood" director John Singleton. It could've improved. Singleton gives a depiction of life at Columbus University- a place where students can try to make their dreams come true- amid the racism, violence, sexual mores, and other problems that seem to surround it. We're introduced to many characters, all of whom are different types of people, with different points of view, including Kristen (played by Kristy Swanson), a newcomers freshman, who falls in love only to realize it turns into rape. Along the way, she meets a lesbian feminist (played by Jennifer Connelly), who holds many meetings concerning anti-sexism. We're also introduced to Malik (played by Omar Epps) a runner on a partial scholarship who realizes the more he runs, the more he'll live college life on a full scholarship. He meets professor Maurice Phipps (played by Laurence Fishburne), who teaches him a little bit about life, and also meets Deja (played by Tyra Banks, in her film debut), another fellow runner whom Malik strikes a romance with. Ice Cube plays his friend Fudge, who does'nt like the racism surrounding the university and will take offense very easily the minute he hears the N-word or any other racist comment. And Michael Rapaport plays Remy, a Nazi who feels he will get criticized because of the color of his skin, and when the anger boils inside of him, he attempts to kill anyone different from him, leading to a big climax that just over-stereotypes. Later on, it leads to a shoot-out at a concert raising awareness for peace, leaving 1 wounded, and 2 dead.This movie would have done better, if not for the stereotypes surrounding this movie (yes, there are many n-words used by the Nazi characters; those who will feel offended too easily should take caution before seeing this movie), and the very cliché start of the movie. Otherwise, this is an D- in my grade book. P.S. At least Singleton did'nt attempt to take a "National Lampoon" view on this situation! P.P.S. unlearn