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You can hear Logan Murdock on the Ringer MBA show. You can hear Vayne Lathan on higher learning and the Ringerverse. And you can hear Sean Finnessy on the big picture today. You'll hear them with me.
We're going to tackle one of the best movies in the last 30 years. Boys know it. That's next. Boys in the hood.
30th anniversary. Crazy. Can't believe it. Right.
And yet another event that makes me just feel well. Vayne, why is this movie mean so much to you? Uh, it means a lot because it was eye-opening for me. I actually saw this movie in California.
You know, even I grew up in Louisiana, we saw this. We moved out here for a couple of years, right? I think it was like 89 to like literally the riots happened. My dad was like, we're out.
Um, but I remember going to the theater to see the movie and having it wash over people just how accurate of depiction of life in South Los Angeles was at that time. You know, and just the cultural phenomenon that it was to where we talk about like monoculture and how things have changed now and they don't become things the same way they used to. This was everywhere. This was like, you had to see it.
You had to be there. Think about it. As a family, we're talking about mother, father, two kids. We went to the movies to see this.
It's not exactly a fuzzy family film. But like my dad wanted us to check it out. He wanted us to know it was almost like John Singleton wrote the book on South Central Los Angeles dysfunction with this or wrote part of the big chapter. It moved existing when you when you were a lad looking.
This is like the second movie we've done where I wasn't why I came out. I appreciate you guys bringing me on despite that. Well, it's basically an excuse to get you to like we're actually doing this in person right now. Yeah, this is cool.
I mean, similar to a band with a different experience, right? Like my dad always just talked about how he used to watch it. And you know, we're from Oakland from the Bay and you know, Oakland in the Bay, Oakland and Los Angeles have a bit of a kinship, right? They have like a we have a bit of like, you know, everybody got a cousin in LA.
So there was there was definitely similar things that I could see from that movie. But the biggest thing from that was just it was one of the first movies I saw on cable that I always wanted to rewatch. It was one of those things where it was like, man, this is a movie about Black people, directed by Black people and something that I can kind of relate to, right? I really and I'm sure we'll get into this throughout the show.
But like, I really related to Trey, right? Like I wasn't I'm not no hood dude, but I knew all those people, right? I'm sure Van knows a dough boy or knows these different types of characters. And I saw a lot of myself in that.
And it was one of the first movies where I kind of saw a lot of myself in. There's a revolution happening at this point because do the right things to yours earlier. Townston makes Hollywood shuffle when was that 88? Yeah.
And we have this run New Jack City in King of New York, which we did Jungle Fever Boys in the Hood and Juice on a couple of years. And Hollywood had shied away. And then all of a sudden, guess what happens? These movies are making money.
Do you look at this as we talk about era, Sean? This is a distinct era. Doesn't it feel like it? Well, it is the culmination of a lot of studio executives noticing what's happening in independent movies and reacting to that and saying, we actually should give a young Black filmmaker money to make a movie and release it in 2000 theaters, which is not something that was happening before this.
This is not only is it a hugely emotional and culturally important movie. It's a big hit. It was a very well-known instantaneous movie. It made stars of all of the stars in the movie and it made stars in the filmmaker.
And it's a Columbia Pictures movie. It's not it didn't come from some weird direct to video company that was trying to make money on the side. It wasn't made by some weird, like able for our helicoptering into New York City grime life. It's made by person from this place telling an honest story, but also supported by a system that historically didn't give filmmakers like him a chance.
So it's important that way that that doesn't mean that it created a revolution of filmmakers who got to do that. And that's kind of what's interesting about it is not just what happens in the movie, but what we learn and what the studios do after that. It's like the second coming of the Black Switation in the 90s, right? Where you have these Black films that are cheap to make, but they make a lot of money.
And we saw that with the Mac in the 70s. We saw that with Foxy Brown and all these things. And it was just like the second coming coffee and all these types of movies. And you kind of see, oh, yeah, Black films can make bread too for a major studio.
It was like, we had to prove ourselves all over again. Like we didn't help save the movie industry in the 70s. It was like, we had to do it again, you know what I mean? And it was one of those things where, it was one of those things was like, damn, we just need a chance.
And we got that in that revolution, you speak. Well, I look at it like, so in the 70s, this was being represented all over the place in TV movies. I'm just like growing up in New England, but all these shows on TV, different movies, like the ones you mentioned, I remember seeing, what was the one who was going to learn something Jacob's in the theater? Cornbread around me?
Yeah, cornbread around me. All those. And then it kind of stops right around 7980. And all of a sudden, this is gone.
And then it comes back in a big way, but I still don't understand what happened for those eight years. Well, I think basically Eddie Murphy, and that's it. I think that's kind of what happened. I think that, I think that you had mega stars coming to film.
Like 80s become the mega star film decade, and you see mega stars. And you almost kind of feel like those movies are enough. Like when you have Axle Foley out there, you say, okay, there's a Black, so there's a movie that's, that's, you know, the Black. Or when you have a film that's more of a historical concept film, like the color purple, you start to say, hey, there you go.
We're out there and you start to see these people pop up and they're around and you see them. But something different happens around the end of the 80s that really propels this type of storytelling into the forefront. And that's hip-hop. So like when hip-hop comes along, even this movie, this movie is just like a living NWA record, right?
And even when you go out to New York and you have New Jack City, like the soundtrack and the vibe of the streets have been so detailed and so explained by the music that these films came right after it to give it like sort of a wider push to a wider audience. So when I see, even when you see Ice Cube in this movie, it doesn't really feel like he's playing a part at all. It feels like he's living the rhymes that have been around. And Hollywood actually took notice if you ask me of just how popular the music had been.
The music itself had completely crossed over it. NWA was top five without any singles being played on the radio. There's an audience for this. People want to know more about this.
And so they followed suit. You know, when a movie is great, it's bringing you into some world, right? You're just in there and you're wearing this world. It's less than two hours.
And I feel like I know everybody, I feel like it's been 10 hours with these people. Nowadays, I think this would be a Netflix show. I think it's pretty clear they would not make this as a movie. But it's amazing to me.
He's 24 where he makes this. This has gone wrong so many times where somebody's like, all right, here's my vision. But it's like a guy who's or a woman who just doesn't know how to put the pieces together. The mystery of this movie to me, when I get it, it was a passion project.
He spent years trying to make the script. It was very autobiographical. But yet Sean, that's usually it doesn't work where the movie is actually good. I think this is in the running for best first movie and it was ever made.
Well, in addition to it being really great and arguably the greatest debut ever, it's crazy that they let him make it. The story of this historically, and it's certainly true for Black filmmakers, but it's true for a lot of filmmakers. If you're 24 and you're out of film school and you're like, I have a very important autobiographical story. Guess what?
So does every other person who graduated from film school? They're like, I have a dream film. It's about my life, my life matters. I need to see it on screen.
Same thing for books, right? I mean, how many people have been like, I just got out of college. Here's my passion project and everything's super all right. 99% of the time the people who have power and money say, that's cute kid.
Why don't you take this job over here, punch up that script, keep working on it. Maybe 10 years from now, we'll let you make it. But I mean, there's a very short list of people who are sub 30 who made a movie this good. Let's hear it.
I'm trying with this. Let's hear the list. I think there's three key ones. It's Orson Welles, obviously.
It's said it's in K. It's 25 years old. Who is that? Orson Welles.
Who is the most important filmmaker of all time? And then two people who were operating right around the same time as Singleton. Soderberg, who's 26, and he makes sex live in videotape. Shout out to Baton Rouge.
And Quentin, when he's 28, when he makes rest of our dogs. Very similar stories for both of those guys, who they said, I wrote this movie. This movie is very, very important to me. I have a very clear vision of it.
Other people tried to make the film, and they were under no circumstances where the movie made it unless I direct it. I think the biggest thing for that, though, is that John Singleton actually had an ally at Columbia. Like in our name, I really hope we can get this in post. But she was really instrumental in helping out John get this film.
She was a black woman. Who got promoted? Promoted after this film done. But you kind of need that, especially when you're from a minority background, you do need someone to come to bed for you.
And it was a perfect storm of somebody seeing his vision. And also his passion to wear like, Oh fuck that. I'm going to make this film. And you can kind of see that from John early on.
He was one of those guys that was very fearless at a young age. Because you don't see people that fearless at that young age right up in college. You said, Nah, I made it out of my circumstance. I made it through USC.
I'm going to make this film because you're not going to parachute somebody into this quote from Idaho or somewhere else to make a film about South Central in place that I know better than everybody else. And that was really important. Well, you think about best first movies. You mentioned a couple.
Get out, Jordan Beale. Sure. American Beauty. Dual Spielberg's first one.
Mad Max, bottle rocket. Reservoir Dog, Shaw, Shank. Frank Darrabant was older at that point. Most of those people were in their 30s.
The difference here is the dude's 24. How old was Spike when he made she's got to have it? Very young. Very young.
He's probably mid-20s, right? I think what's weird about this is this also became the best movie ever made. Right. Yeah.
This was his Get Richard Dog trying. Yeah. Yeah. You know, this was, you know, he explodes out.
You've heard all the buzz. And then you go into it. You know, I'm comparing it to the classic that 50 dropped. Do you just disrespect Howard the Dollar, though?
I mean, I feel like Howard the Dollar for first. Howard the Dollar is great. But Get Richard Dog trying is 50 cents. I think that's your disrespecting baby boy, but that's the point.
Hey, boys, baby boys, dope too. Look, I love John Singleton. I love a lot of, but this movie, like you watch it, it just has a different texture to it. Yeah, it does.
This is his ministry to the film going public. This is the story that he had to tell. And to the point that we're making, a lot of guys don't get the chance to tell the story that they have to tell until they've told every other story that people have told them that they have to tell. So something else I will say about him is we can compare him a couple of these other guys.
He is conventional in the way or was conventional in the way that like, this is what he went to a blue blood film school. Yep. You know what I mean? Like he, like he went to the film school.
Yeah, he went to the film school. It's like you almost compare him to Coogler of today. Yeah. Fruvelle isn't Boys in the Hood, but you know, it's the movie that.
Both USC alums. Both you mentioned Fruvelle. That's another one. Yeah, Fruvelle.
It's not Boys in the Hood, but it's the movie where, okay, here's the kid out of SC. This is the story that he's telling from where he's from. Look how great this is. This is the next guy.
But also the comparison that you have between Coogler and John Singleton's are both talking about something from home. Right. Like I remember like, Fruvelle for me was my Boys in the Hood. You know, we went to, I went to Grand Lake Theater when it first came out, right.
And you could see actually like Ryan and his brothers all outside. It was really a family, organic type of grit type of movie like that, right? So where they didn't have a lot of money, they had to figure it out. And you finally saw something like, man, Oakland's on screen.
It's not like we didn't have Oakland film before. It's like, not like you didn't have LA film before, but she spoke about a specific demographic of people that hadn't had their stories told. And I think that's the similar that you have between Coogler and Singleton. Well, you had do the right thing, doesn't in Brooklyn, and then this doesn't in LA.
But this isn't like that far away from that Colours movie with Sean Penn and Duvall, which is basically like the way cops are there. Even that blacks are other terrible gangsters. This movie is a revolution against that. Yeah, Singleton specifically cites it.
He's like, I saw that film and I did not understand why this movie is about the cops. Makes no sense. Yeah, this movie is like completely, we had all seen Colours, right? That was two and a half years before this movie.
Colours was a phenomenon in its own right. You know, like when I see came on and I see does the soundtrack of watching the movie, you got a young Don Cheadle Colours in it of itself. But it still was copaganda. It still was a look at people's lives through the lens of the people that police them.
And this was just completely different. And I think that shows that's why film is so important, right? Because for the most part, you see, like you said, the copaganda, but then when you see a film that is as great as boys in the hood from another perspective, that shows the world that, you know, black folks aren't just beasts, right? We're just not, you know, just up to no good.
And now we, I think this humanized black folks in a way where, you know, black folks are trying, even see in the beginning where, oh boy, he's broke. And he starts off, he's like, yo man, I just want to get some food. I ain't got no money, but I'm gonna get some food. That's basic survival instincts.
And I think that you don't see, and you see the graduation of that in the thing, but it humanizes of like, why this happens? People are poor. These people don't have the same advantages. They don't have these advantages that life folks have.
They don't have all these things. And I think that that really humanized black folks in Los Angeles in a way that I don't think college did. Well, in the other piece, there's no corny monologues in this movie. Anytime somebody has like a, I don't want to say a speech or like a long piece of dialogue, it's really good.
And it's organic. And it feels that that speech, Fishburne, gives in front of the empty lot, which is one of the best moments of the movie. That could be so bad in the wrong hands, right? And he basically sums up three big picture issues all like organically with this weird crowd that gathers around him.
And it's like, this shouldn't be good. And it's completely riveting. I don't know. There's just from a filmmaking standpoint, and it became Spike versus Singleton immediately because it was hard not to think of it.
I think Singleton tried to get a job of Spike on do the right thing and didn't get it. So there was a little animosity. And then eventually I think they got together. But they got pitted against each other right away.
And that's a media thing. That's what we do sometimes with this stuff. But Spike does Malcolm X was that a year later. And then just he kind of leaves him behind.
I just don't think obviously they're both black filmmakers at the same time, but they don't have a lot in common. They're obviously thinking about the environments that they grew up in, and it's important to tell the stories that they're telling. But Singleton's your point, Van, is a very conventional filmmaker. He's a studio filmmaker.
He's more like Rob Reiner. He totally is. There's so many stand by me. He's trying to touch his new movie.
He's trying to make a, it's not a crowd pleaser. It's crushing. But it's a classical melodrama. These kids coming of age, and then there are traumatic events that happen.
You get very attached to the characters. Spike was doing something very different. I mean, Spike was provoking audiences very purposefully trying to spark debate. I think Singleton is trying to create awareness and empathy for people.
And while Spike has some of that and Singleton has some of what Spike had, they weren't really trying to make the same kinds of movies specifically. Also, the difference between Spike and Singleton was, I think Spike was a bit more fully formed as a director when he made his first movie. And researching this, you see, I think I read somewhere that Singleton was literally, he got the film from a camera sampling from a storytelling standpoint. Got better as they kept doing the story because he was getting better as a director.
And so I think that's a bigger difference as well. Spike was a bit fully formed coming out of school more than Singleton. And it's weird to say that because I think by all accounts it's Singleton's best movie. Well, they're also making two completely different films.
Spike is making, especially when he first starts, Spike is making small, almost art pieces that are very rich and textured in terms of color. He's making, Singleton is attacking a gigantic societal issue. And he's telling a story from so many different perspectives. So many different people have their arms played out in this movie.
This is kind of different. One is a studio film and one is one of one guy makes independent films. Now Spike, by the time we get to do the right thing, it's a little different, but she's got to have it. We're talking what, four characters, like 60% of the movie is pornographic level sex.
You know what I mean? It's a great film. I love it. I'm just saying, you know what they have in common?
They had an unbelievable eye for talent. That's like Spike's best quality that probably doesn't get mentioned of in Singleton. It's what it is in hindsight. Just as he sees inside his ensemble cast and hindsight, right?
And you know, he just finds, he finds out he gave Angela Bassett a shot at this, right? No, that's cute. I got to convince Ice Cube to be in a movie. More chess than that.
Regina King. He got the right time. Well, Regina King happened on two to seven, but it was like a completely, it was like totally different when we saw her. We were like, oh, she even Fishburne, who was on P.
Herman, like, he had worked a little bit. He had worked a little bit. He had been around, but this is the kind of part that he deserved to get this movie. Good segue.
It's one of the biggest astronaut travesties of the 90s and maybe about time. We talked about it during the City Slickers podcast, because Jack Pound is one of the best supporting actor. Fishburne was not nominated. And when you watch this movie, and if you watch it with somebody who's never seen it before, you could tell that person, you know, Fishburne won best actor for him.
Like, oh, yeah, of course he should have not nominated. And this was the same Oscar as that. Singleton did get nominated. It became the youngest director ever get nominated.
More importantly, first black director, which I even seen it as a Wikipedia. I'm like, wait a second. Wait a second. Is that, is that one of those?
It's like, oh, oh. But that speaks to number one, speaks to the movies that weren't getting made. That's the whole thing. That speaks to the movies that just weren't getting made.
If you look at guys now like Barry Jenkins or Steve McQueen or, you know, even, we talk about the color purple and I have this running argument with people on Twitter, especially when I want to throw people and get them really fucking pissed off. I ask the question, is the color purple a black movie? You know, and people go, yo, of course it's a black movie. The source material comes from a black woman author.
I'm like Spielberg direct to that shit. So can the movie be a black film with a white guy at the helm? The answer is obviously, of course, culturally it can, but still in today's day and age, you would never, ever, ever, ever see a white dude in the director's chair for a movie like that. Ever.
Now, remember Ali, when Spike got mad that Michael Mann was the one that was doing Ali, and that was in 2000s and then years after that. There have been a couple in recent years that I've been surprised, like Hidden Figures was directed by a white man. So it does still happen from time to time, but the point you're making is right on. For some reason, Hidden Figures feels different though.
Yeah, maybe it does. It feels different. I don't know why, but come back to me on that, but it feels different. Like if it's a bunch of motherfuckers and we all out in the color purple era, and then I don't know, dog, fucking somebody, you know what I'm saying?
If Theodore Milfi had directed the Underground Railroad, you'd be like, this is fucked up. Yeah, yeah, but to your point, I guess it still does. But like that, the fact that no one had ever been nominated, it just shows you the types of films that we weren't getting. But even the movies that Logan was citing, Coffee and the whole black exploitation era, all those directors are white.
That's Jack Hill, Jacks Darrick. It's all of these guys who are working for these movies. Same thing with the TV shows. They're all written by Recast, Stanford and Sun, Jefferson.
I have this one to throw at you in terms of hyperbole. I think this is one of the best father's son movies of all time. And it actually made me go try to make my list of what I thought were the best ones ever. And I think it's this one, Kramer vs.
Kramer, the Godfather. Field of Dreams, a Bronx tale, and a movie I don't love, but I think has to be included boyhood just because it was so ambitious with how their relationship and how they did it over the years. But my point is, there's not a lot of great father's son movies. And this is ultimately, I know it's all for all the reasons we mentioned why it's so important, but ultimately it's a father's son movie and it's about that relationship.
Yeah, I think the biggest thing, and I think me and Van were talking about this before, we just started recording just how much emotion you got out of watching this film at a certain age. And I felt that emotion I was watching Trey in Furious Styles, right? Because Furious just wasn't Trey's father. He was in a lot of ways that whole neighborhood's father.
You're talking about the first scene when Trey goes to meet Furious, who's the one that's there? Go boy in Lil' Chris. They're over here saying, yo man, can you break my leaves up? I can use some bread.
And he's looking out for these other kids. And but there's a little bit, yeah. Yes. You think so?
Because are you doing his ag? Well, let me tell you why I'm his ag. Was he a good neighbor? Well, let me tell you why I'm his ag.
I think he in the movie, and this is why he reminds me of my dad. He reminds me a lot of my dad. My dad didn't give a damn about your kids. Like he just didn't give a fuck.
My father was like, hey Van B and his house. See the mother, see the mother, little mother's over there? He didn't say that verbatim. Yeah, see the mother, little mother's right there?
You're going to be in the house because then it ain't going to happen for them. And even, and even if they looked up to him, they all did. No, I think they were afraid of him. Like just like they were afraid of my father.
Remember at the end of the movie that he goes, Hey, yo, I'm sorry about your friend. But that's their problem. You're my problem. And I think that goes to show.
Now, I think the people, I think they respected him. But I think that goes to show you sometimes the survival mentality. My father used to tell me, he used to be like, yo, the reason why I'm doing this with you is because you have to be more scared of me than you are at him. So when they ask you to do something, you can't do it.
Because you have to be, forget about what they're going to say. You have to be afraid of what I'm going to do. And so in that situation, I think that, I think that that shows you sometimes that being in a place where survival is like always on your brain, sometimes it actually stops you from being a good neighbor. Sometimes it stops you from caring about the kids next door because you have to worry about your kids so much.
They might get way up. I think if your pronoun is a he that they're, and you have a father like that. There's only certain things that that father can tell you, right? And I think you got that during, you got a lot of, Trey got a lot of guidance that a lot of those other kids couldn't get.
He just did. Even when they go out to Palace of Artists and they go and play around and stuff. And they have like the sex talking, things like that. I feel like Trey was a bit more sure of himself and a lot of like, then Dovoy wasn't even Ricky was to a certain extent.
It really helped him to have, I don't know what he's saying. I really don't want it to be a cliche thing, but just to have parents in the house. And that's just the, based on circumstances didn't happen for those other kids, but I think it's set up Trey in a lot of ways that it didn't set up those other kids. Yeah.
Fishburne. You don't need to tell the story about my authoritarian upbringing. Should I tell it? No.
We never live in anyone. My father. Hey, what's a bunch of different? He sounds like a house of cops.
My dad used to come in and lay out a switch. Hey, you know what I'm going to show here, dude? You know what I'm going to show here, too? That's one of the things that Asia wears, by the way, is the haircut sentence we'll talk about.
Yeah. What did your dad cut your hair? One time he did. My dad used to always cut my hair every, like, I couldn't go to a barber till I was like in sixth grade.
And I remember like that scene in particular was really good when he was like, fake cut in his hair. And he's kind of side-dying up with himself. Fishburne 29 really made this movie, which is the craziest fact. The movie is only seven years older than Cuba Gooding.
Fishburne was one of those guys who always seemed seven years older than he was. And almost like a Greg Oden type situation. Even now I'm black as he seems older than he is. Yeah, because he was in Apocalypse Now.
What was he, 17? Yeah, I think younger than that. Or 16? And he's like, has a real part.
He's on the boat for 20 minutes of this movie as the sequel to that. Oh. Because he went to Vietnam. Oh.
And then he came back. Oh. That's my question. We know his name in Apocalypse Now.
It's not Furious Now. It's not Furious Now. It's not Furious Now. It's not Furious Now.
It was his name. But still, I like to think of this movie. As soon as he said that, I'm like, oh, wow. This is the guy from Apocalypse Now.
He went to the army. He came back. Boom. I would not be shocked at all of that cross.
I was like, this line that was riding it. You know? Let's do Fishburne for two minutes here. We had Tarantino on him when we did.
Which one was that King of New York? Mm-hmm. And Tarantino did this whole impassioned argument that he thought Fishburne was the best actor in the 90s. And there's these two forks of the road with Fishburne.
One was. It's a heartbreaking story. Yeah, it's tough. One was Pulp Fiction.
And the other was Die Hard with a Vengeance, right? And both times, same Jackson takes the part for reasons that had to do with his agents and stuff like that. And it just kind of never totally happens for him, even though it should have. And this turned out to be his best performance.
I think in a movie, I would put this first. And it's kind of like the best part of the entire that Denzel didn't play. I turn this up here. I was just going to say what's next to it.
Also, I think what Fishburne is like, he has at low-key presence, but like he's been in the middle of a Saturn life character, right? That would be a good night turn. Now he's got the wig. Like, you have props.
He's got no props and boys did. I just think it's easier to play a character. To be so over the time. Yeah.
In this movie. I think he is at this time at the absolute. He's getting the best parts. He goes, King of New York, boys in the hood, deep cover, what's love got to do with it.
And your favorite search and copy, Fisher, and then higher learning. I can't get enough of that movie. Love that. He's good in that movie too.
So that's a pretty damn good run, even though he doesn't get full fiction and he doesn't get the blockbuster. And he doesn't get the blockbuster. In that Matrix, right? It's fine.
Okay. Matrix. Matrix on your mate's money. So single thing nominated for best director, best original screenplay, youngest ever to be nominated for director, first black director, obviously.
The cast. We mentioned it. Ice Cube, Cuba, Good Inc., Lord's Fish, were near long. Morris Chestnut, Angel of Basset, Tara Farrell, Regina Kane.
All of them went out to do more stuff than this. Six million dollar budget. Made 69 million dollars. It was only released in 811 theaters.
Wow. Killer. That per screen average. There were some some states that probably didn't get a lot of boys in the hood screening.
So I'm guessing. They might have avoided a couple of them. A big proponent of this movie. Our guy, Raj.
He did it, Raj. He wrote the the big review. It went to con. There's funny.
If you really care about this movie, if you want to Google it, Google some of the stories about it, where they go to con. And Singleton had never left California before. And all of a sudden, he's with Madonna and all these people. And his head's just spinning.
It becomes a thing of con. Ebert gets a four stars. He's crying in the theater. It was like a legendary.
So it was a legendary film. No, not that. It was just a legendary film. Legendary content.
Yeah. Where they were like over the Raptors clapping. And it was just like. And they did some merch stuff too.
That kind of made it a thing. Singleton said at one point, he saw Madonna wearing a boys in the hood T-shirt. Nobody didn't even see the movie yet. And he was just like, what's happening to my life?
Can you imagine that 24? He's 24. Madonna. So Ebert said.
It was pre-Pock Madonna. Yeah. Yeah. It's pre-Pock Madonna.
Ebert said by the end of Boys in the Hood, I realized I'd seen not simply a brilliant director or they view, but an American film of enormous importance. And I think that still stands. We're going to take a break. We have a lot of categories to go through here.
All right. I have too many rewatchable scenes. I usually try to keep it between six and eight and that became impossible with this movie. We'll start with the burglar breaking into a furious house.
We get some tension right away. The two holes through the door and then the cops showing up and all of a sudden the tension in the movie does this. And it's like, oh, we're off now. I think the biggest misconception with this movie is there's like a lot of violence.
There's not a lot of violence in this movie. There's a lot of tension though. There's a lot of like what the fuck is going to happen. And that's one of the first scenes where it's like, you get to do a creep in and it's great camera work in this because they're not filming the person that's breaking into the house.
They're filming the mirrors on the floor. They're filming the bathtub. It's just building suspense. And then when you see the bathtub, it's just like drip, water, water, the whole scene.
It's so much suspense. And that's the start of it. Next one, you want to go see a dead body. Why you have to bring that ball?
Why are you saying that? I'm not going to feed you too. Don't want to see a dead body. Yeah.
unabashed at standby me. Oh my, I swear they had the producer from standby me working for the movie. Sing with them. Love that.
And it's the four guys just like in there. And they go off and only in this time, they only have to go like five feet. And there's the dead body. Can I ask a quick question for the table about that?
So when Kendrick does that, you want to see a dead body line? Do you think he's overtly referencing boys in the hood or standby me? Although I wouldn't be surprised if Kendrick was a big standby me. That's a cultured brother right there.
But I'm going to go with boys in a hood. Stone football. I appreciate that the guy threw the football back. I just, but he dropped it.
That was a point though. That was a very important point. I knew that this was going to be one of my nitpicks. Can I do this now?
Was young Ricky a good enough athlete? He kept that in his room. He kept that in like his throwing motion and he dropped the pass. I didn't feel like he was.
I have furred his burst was incredible. Later. Later. Young 10 year old Ricky.
I don't feel like they cast that one. I don't really have you guys can look at my paper. I don't really have any overacting scenes. And it's just the question marks.
But I think one overacting thing. I'm sorry. We're going switching. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You brought it up. We'll get to it anyway.
He goes little man. Cush. That's probably over. That's not a great one.
That's not a great one. Kendrick says I'm real quick. That's one of the most important scenes in the movie. It is it is.
And one reason why is because. So in that scene, number one, Doboy can see the street. Ricky can't. Doboy says, Hey, somebody will take that ball.
Lead the ball down. Doboy is brave to the point. He loves his brother, but he thinks he's soft. All of that stuff is coming back, right?
But also in the in the guys who stole the football. Yo, every time I watch a movie and some dudes on the block just completely fuck over a kid like that, I always go, not true. Because there's going to be some one of those guys. There's going to be like, Hey man, yo, give him his ball back.
But I've never seen it to where it's been. And it's dehumanizing. It makes it makes people look like they running packs and they're out to exploit and hurt people every single time. There's going to be somebody that tries to take the ball.
It definitely will be. But if it's if it's enough dudes, somebody's going to be like, Hey man, give him his ball back. Like seriously, like, okay, you had your phone. Give him his ball back.
I y'all piece out. Get out of here. And like when you watch the movie, you think, and you see the guy the whole time he's peeping it. You think there you go.
These are human beings that like are in, and it's just a little small thing that only somebody with John's experience would like, would add to the movie. Also, bro, who said who gave him back the ball. You can kind of see that right? Like you reference it just now of him looking and like, damn, this is fucked up.
What's going on? But you also be like, yo man, that dude could have been Ricky. He probably could have had those. He just didn't work out for him, right?
And you see that in that movie. You see that where he's like, yo, give me the. And he's also OG and the thing like, give me the fucking ball back. Or go do it.
And that was very humanized. And seeing also establishes a lot of things that going into that setting, it shows the divide between Ricky and Dovoy that's bigger than them, because the mom clearly favors Dovoy. Clearly, I mean, I have Dovoy. Clearly favors Ricky.
Yeah. And it's always like, shitting on Dovoy. He internalizes that, internalizes that. But Ricky is still his little brother.
He loves my form. And you see that, and they come back around to that at the end of the movie. You know, Sean was the guy who's still everybody's ball. That's just not true.
That's just absolutely true. He's still the ball. I sincerely mean this. I was like, give that kid his ball back.
I really wasn't that dude with that. How many of you always was Jackie Kiasbury? Wow. It's long out.
It's the bullies. Yeah, come on. It's time it's the bullies. Next rewatchable scene.
We're not even close to being done. The father-son fishing scene. Any fool with a dick can make a baby, but only a real man can raise his children. I wasn't, but 17 when your mother was pregnant with you.
All of my friends was dropping out of high school, hanging out on corners in front of liquor stores, getting drunk and high. Some of them was robbing people. Some of them was even killing people. Fishburns just dropping gems.
It's too good. Any fool with a dick can make a baby, but only a man can raise his children. It's just crazy. It's just crazy.
Drive home, leaving the oo child size. Oh, that's great. The barbecue scene, which does a lot of stuff in five minutes, because we have to like- That's the first time we're in the- We're in the present. And he sees Ice Cube and it's clear.
It's like, oh, these two, but it doesn't seem like they're as close as they were. It's like, what's happening? And then they do the jail reveal. But they do it all in a way that's not like, he was in jail.
That's why they, it's just really- I love the party scenes when it was the establishment party scenes, right? Where seven different stories are happening at once, right? We can introduce what, 15 characters? Five minutes?
We need to introduce to me along, which just makes that the best. Yeah. Regina Kings. Regina Kings throwing 98.
He's coming in hot. I just love when you talk about Regina King. This movie was a reminder of how much I love women from LA, specifically black women from LA. You see different types.
You see, you see Neil Long, who is about to, I don't even want to say a reference, but then you also see Regina King, who's the ratchet around the Gregor. I love her just as much. And I love how diversified. And you see, yo, yo, in the back.
You see them all chilling like, yo, yo. This looks like a party that I want to go to. This is Logan pushing for a poetic justice rewatchable right now. Oh, we hear.
We hear. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Logos, come back to us, come back. The USC recruiting visit is another scene that does a lot in a short amount of time.
What do you want us to then be side playing ball? Like what you mean? I mean, what would you want a major man? What kind of degree would you like to pursue?
I'm just asking, because you know, there's a strong possibility that you won't go into the NFL at the college. Just the fact it happens. And I ended up before, well, actually I was thinking about majoring in business. Yeah, I got this friend who's always talking about going into business now.
That's like computers. Maybe I could do that. What do you think? Young brother, then you can do anything you put your mind to.
And the actor is actually good that some of his, as he's kind of solving things, I have him coming up and recasting couches. I have a better idea for an actor for this, but he's, you can see him just kind of processing like. Oh, oh, also one of the kid. Oh, on that scene of I remember correctly, those are real helicopters.
And then he's just like really just like when the recruiter is looking up. That jumped out to me watching that. He's like, he's looking up and seeing that. It made it so organic.
And the guys on the poor, he got five guys. And we're like, what? Let me get away. Let me get away.