Edd’s MANtra: School Daze 2? No thanks

Kanye can’t catch a break. A couple of weeks ago he and a buddy were locked up for smashing cameras at an LAX airport and later he re-recorded his new single “Love Lockdown” after complaints about quality (and sadly, it still sucks).

And last week, filmmaker Spike Lee revealed he has a script for a sequel to 1988 musical School Daze and that he wanted Kanye and Alicia Keys to be a part of the film.

According to Spike: “The film takes place at the same college but 25 years later, but the powers that be didn’t want to tell that story. It was gonna have Kanye in it and Alicia Keys.”

I bet Kanye would have loved to be part of this. Film is probably the next frontier for him to conquer and you know he can’t wait to start bragging about Academy Award nominations. Can’t you imagine him rushing the stage Oscar night, shoving down presenters George Clooney and Nicole Kidman, screaming that he deserved the award over “some dead guy who wore clown makeup?” Pure class.

But Kanye’s dreams will have to be put on hold. It seems no one in Hollywood wants to fund a School Daze sequel. And I can’t blame them. The original film was not good. At all. The only vivid memory I have of that movie is that there were a ton of people in it who went on to star in A Different World.

Nostalgia is a brain-distorting drug. We like to fool ourselves into thinking that those late 80s-early 90s flicks were good. Yeah, they were entertaining, but I wouldn’t call them good. Do The Right Thing? Higher Learning? New Jack City? Try to sit through one of those movies now without rolling your eyes or cracking up at the bad dialogue.

Here’s the test – if a main character’s death causes the viewer to laugh, that’s the sign of a badly written movie.

The best thing about those movies is that they broke down doors for black actors and directors, which not only added diversity in Hollywood, but later led to movies that were actually good, like Malcolm X and even lighter fare like The Best Man.

I think Kanye dodged a bullet (because you know there’s no way he would have turned that role down). I hope Spike goes back to the drawing board and comes out with something compelling instead of rehashing old stuff.

What are some of your favorite movies from that time period? And if anyone tries to say Girl 6 was good, I’m outta here.