With COOLEY HIGH, screenwriter Eric Monte and director Michael Schultz put the experiences that defined their youth on the screen. Preach (Glynn Turman) and Cochise (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) are fast friends and comrades in Chicago’s notorious Cabrini-Green housing projects. Like Monte and Schultz, they spend their days rabble-rousing, chasing girls, losing friends to senseless violence, and the unfairness and inequality that defined the African-American experience in the 1960s.
Beyond its box office success, COOLEY HIGH inspired a generation of artists to share stories that balanced compelling drama with the real issues facing black Americans for decades to come.
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References:
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Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" written by Freddie Perren and Christine Yarian and performed by G.C. Cameron from the COOLEY HIGH soundtrack.
Timestamps
0:00 - Episode 394: COOLEY HIGH (1975)
3:15 - Whadja Watch This Week?
26:19 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary
28:15 - The 'hangout movie'/'issues movie' dichotomy
53:44 - The ‘authentic’ filming style
57:23 - Mr. Mason
1:08:16 - Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects
1:14:28 - Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs as Cochise
1:17:22 - Costuming
1:20:47 - The Junk Drawer
1:28:45 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1975
1:30:02 - Cody’s Noteys: The Movie Draft: — Criterion Collection
