Terrell Howell (KnightsofNi11) This movie is a mess. Hardly anything works. There are too many story lines going on with no clear direction or focus to it. It is a crude mishmash of story lines, all of which are equally uninteresting. School Daze is Spike Lee's second feature film. It is set at the fictional black college Mission University where there are two opposing groups of students who can't accept the differences between each other. Laurence Fishburne plays an unpopular student who opposes pledging to fraternities in a school where that kind of thing is the social norm. The most prestigious of these fraternities is the Gamma Phi Gamma fraternity which Spike Lee's character, Half Pint, is trying to become a part of. There are many other story lines about other underdeveloped characters, but in the end I got no entertainment out of a single one so they are hardly worth noting or remembering.School Daze is a poorly stirred mixture of genres that confuses more than entertains. It is dominated by aspects of drama with some unfunny comedy mixed in. The jokes for the most part aren't even amusing and the drama is useless and uninteresting. Oh yeah and it's also a musical. I knew almost nothing about this film going into other than the fact that it was a Spike Lee film, so I engaged in some hefty head scratching when the first musical number kicked in about 25 minutes into the film, which should be a big no no in the musical genre. School Daze is the only musical I can think of that doesn't open with a big production number. However, what songs there are in this film are sparse and unmemorable. All the dance numbers seem awkward and every song feels out of place. I think this film could have done slightly better if the musical aspect had been dropped completely. The songs appear at the most random and scattered moments of the film and contribute nothing to the film, story wise or artistically.Honestly, School Daze is a pretty boring film. Nothing much happens and scene after scene makes the film as a whole feel more pointless and misguided. I felt like I was accomplishing nothing by watching this film, which can be OK as long as the film has some entertainment value, which School Daze has none of. The film supposedly has a deep seated and heartfelt message about African American relations, but I didn't feel this at all until the cheesy and abrupt ending of the film where I once again proceeded to scratch my head in confusion. Maybe I missed some of the more important aspects of the film amidst my boredom, but it was hard to stay mildly interested in these mediocre characters and dull story lines.Overall I can respect Spike Lee for trying to make an important and relevant film, but the execution of his idea went horribly wrong. I couldn't get into this movie at all. There was nothing interesting about School Daze. It was a jumbled mess of story lines and characters that had little motivation or development. There were times when a certain character that we hadn't spent any time previously developing would all of the sudden pop up and be important. But really everything towards the end of this film didn't resonate with me in any way because I was already fed up with the movie and wanted nothing more than for it to end. I truly wanted to enjoy this film, but it was just impossible. School Daze was a major disappointment.

Steven Jones I loved this movie! I have it on VHS and DVD.I always related to this movie. As an African American man who was actively pressuring the institution of "higher learning" that I was attending at the time to divest from South Africa, I felt like one of "Da fellas". My boys and I even went to see it in a raggedy Chevrolet.I completely vibed with the whole frat versus GDI issue. As a student at a northern predominantly white institution some of the other issues around skin color were new to me.A must see for any African American student attending or planning on attending college - especially if they plan on attending an Historically Black Colege or University.

arthur-jongewaard School Daze brings to light the politics and hierarchy of college life. When Spike Lee's character is initiated into Gamma Phi Gamma his ethics and morals stay behind. This film describes these institutionalized problems through a musical genre in a interesting way.

Deceptikon225 This film dealt with a lot of inner conflicts that African-Americans where unwilling to deal with at the time. Class struggles, light skinned vs. dark skinned and greeks vs. non-greeks. I just purchased it on DVD, but I remember seeing this film when it first came out in February of 1988 and it is just as powerful and entertaining now as it was then. It's amazing to look at this film now and see all of the actors who went on to successful careers afterwards, like Laurence(then Larry) Fishburne, Tisha Campbell, Giancarlo Esposito, Roger Guenveur Smith, Kadeem Hardison, Jasmine Guy, Darryl Bell, Rusty Cundieff(director of "Tales From The Hood"), Bill Nunn, Branford Marsalis, and of course I can't forget Samuel L. Jackson. Three years after this film came out a cousin from Seattle came to visit, I showed him this film and he was surprised to discover that there were actually historically black colleges and universities(HBCU's) in this country. He later attended Southern University here in Baton Rouge. That was the effect this film had and continues to have on young African-Americans and their views of HBCU's.