After last week’s venture into uncharted Air Bud territory, I wanted this week to be all about some of my favorite sports movies that I’ve ever seen, as we head into these last few weeks of this 73 Sports Movies in 73 Days venture. And then this morning, I wrote about the new CBGB movie trailer for FilmDrunk and realized that the movie’s director is Randall Miller, who also happens to be the same guy who directed the 1992 Kid ‘N Play high school comedy Class Act.
Class Act wasn’t a great movie, by any means, but it’s one that I grew to like significantly more over the years because of its corny, camp value and ridiculously cheesy humor. It’s also a favorite of some of this network’s original commenters, and because of that I decided to drop everything I was doing this morning and watch Class Act, which is actually a movie about sports.
What an amazing trailer. Especially this part…
More movie trailers need that kind of style.
The Hippity Hop Plittity Plot
At its core, this is a film about two young men from different sides of the tracks, as they end up realizing that not only can they help each other out in school, but they also have a lot more in common than either of them could have ever imagined. But as you can see in the trailer, they would have never even known about each other, had the school’s clerk not thrown a stack of files into the air, causing their photos to separate from their files and land on top of each other’s files. It might sound unrealistic, but it happens all the time in inner city high schools!
So what about the sports aspect? That’s why we’re all here, damn it, and I won’t stand for this author of this nonsense to keep us waiting any longer.
What these two men need from each other is help in school, as the real Blade Brown needs the real Duncan Pinderhughes to pass all of his classes for him, and in return Blade will pass gym class for Duncan. You see, nerds are horrible at sports, because they all have asthma and cannot grasp the basic idea of wrestling, nor can their puny arms manage to take any of their peers down. That’s why Blade will excel in Duncan’s place, because he knows how to wrestle his fist against a nerd’s face.
Meanwhile, Duncan poses as Blade in the classes that are apparently scheduled for drug dealers, their girlfriends and henchmen, because this guy Wedge is there wearing his neon half shirt and Zubaz, and he’s keeping his eye on his woman, Damita, and his yes man, Popsicle. Wedge looks like he’s at least 30, and I’ve never been able to tell if he’s actually in high school, or if he’s just a full-time thug and collector for the city’s drug kingpin, and he stops into the classroom occasionally to rough some kids up and check on Damita.
Regardless of why Wedge is there, he at least shows that he cares about the importance of education.
The problem with two guys pretending to be each other for the sake of defrauding the state’s educational system is that they at least need to sort of act like each other would, as to not draw any attention to their scheming ways. That means that Blade will have to dress and talk as Duncan and vice versa. Sound confusing? You bet!
However, I have to recommend that you ignore that part about how he “be hittin’ on A BITCH!” because I think that might be viewed as insensitive and misogynistic in this day and age. I’m not positive and am going to have to check with my broad when she gets home to cook me some dinner (better be on time, too) but I’ve heard that some chicks out there don’t really like that kind of talk.
With that in mind, Duncan has to teach Blade how to speak like an intellectual gentleman so that he can properly court the elegant and poetic Ellen, who would never accept such a vagabond and his brutish ways. On the flip side, Duncan needs to use Blade’s advice to properly woo Damita away from Wedge, and she would definitely never be caught dead with a nerd like Duncan. Even though she works in a wax museum.
Seriously, how high were the writers when they decided that this film needed a climactic action sequence in a wax museum?
The Thing That Bothered Me The Most In This Completely Ridiculous Movie
Is the moral here that if you change your clothes and style your hair differently that you can suddenly rap well? Or is it that if you become good enough friends with someone, you can suddenly rap in sync to the same background music, despite the fact that you’ve never heard that music before? Or were we simply supposed to understand that Pauly Shore’s uncredited character has magical powers that can turn any two men into a talented rap duo?
I think I’m just asking too many questions, because this is ultimately a movie that included a rap scene that gave us the line: “High school doesn’t mean you have to get high.” Why didn’t we listen to Kin ‘N Play, America? WHY???
Final Grade: YO DEMITA, I THOUGHT YOU WAS GONNA PLAY WITH MY FROG!
