Friday (1995)
February 28, 2018 8:20 PM - Subscribe
Two homies, Smokey and Craig, smoke a dope dealer's weed and try to figure a way to get the $200 they owe to the dealer by 10 p.m. that same night.
NYTimes: "Friday," a high-energy comedy starring the rap artist Ice Cube, isn't aimed at anyone much over the age of 18, but it would be a mistake for wider audiences to dismiss it. This is a ruder, cruder version of the hip-hop movie "House Party," and it offers a fascinating glimpse at the way street life enters pop culture. Like rap and much stand-up comedy, "Friday" is based on opened-eyed acceptance of drug use and guns as part of its characters' lives. The film, written by Ice Cube and D. J. Pooh, makes fun of those realities and replaces rap's anger with humor.
Entertainment Weekly: But somehow, in this morally indefensible story (written by Ice Cube and D.J. Pooh) about a layabout (Cube) who can’t be prodded to look for a job and his twitchy bad-news buddy who blows his days away in a cloud of marijuana smoke, Gray (who has directed music videos for Cube and Queen Latifah) has found an effective balance between nasty stuff and stuff that just cracks a viewer up. In the details, Gary builds a world: Craig’s sister sleeps propped on her elbow so her coif won’t get mussed; Craig’s girlfriend brushes back her waist-length hair extensions with fierce long red fingernails. Craig’s neighbors include a yuppie homesteader, a hulking bully of a guy who motors around on a cheap bike, and a seductive housewife shacked up with a dwarf. While Tucker twitches and fast-talks his friend into trouble, Cube, who first showed his theatrical stuff in Boyz N the Hood, solidifies into a believable lug.
WaPo: Clearly, though, "Friday's" creators have chosen to emphasize the bearable lightness of being. That allows for literal bathroom humor (Craig's father has a colonic fixation) and marijuana jokes (crackheads are un-gently parodied), as well as gender-based humor, mostly directed at women and sometimes cruel but never nasty (as when a girl who promises she looks like Janet Jackson shows up for a date with Smokey looking more like Freddie Jackson).
Trailer
Now streaming on Netflix
After 20 Years, “Friday” Is (Still) The Most Important Film Ever Made About The Hood
Friday Turns 20: An Afternoon with Ice Cube
NYTimes: "Friday," a high-energy comedy starring the rap artist Ice Cube, isn't aimed at anyone much over the age of 18, but it would be a mistake for wider audiences to dismiss it. This is a ruder, cruder version of the hip-hop movie "House Party," and it offers a fascinating glimpse at the way street life enters pop culture. Like rap and much stand-up comedy, "Friday" is based on opened-eyed acceptance of drug use and guns as part of its characters' lives. The film, written by Ice Cube and D. J. Pooh, makes fun of those realities and replaces rap's anger with humor.
Entertainment Weekly: But somehow, in this morally indefensible story (written by Ice Cube and D.J. Pooh) about a layabout (Cube) who can’t be prodded to look for a job and his twitchy bad-news buddy who blows his days away in a cloud of marijuana smoke, Gray (who has directed music videos for Cube and Queen Latifah) has found an effective balance between nasty stuff and stuff that just cracks a viewer up. In the details, Gary builds a world: Craig’s sister sleeps propped on her elbow so her coif won’t get mussed; Craig’s girlfriend brushes back her waist-length hair extensions with fierce long red fingernails. Craig’s neighbors include a yuppie homesteader, a hulking bully of a guy who motors around on a cheap bike, and a seductive housewife shacked up with a dwarf. While Tucker twitches and fast-talks his friend into trouble, Cube, who first showed his theatrical stuff in Boyz N the Hood, solidifies into a believable lug.
WaPo: Clearly, though, "Friday's" creators have chosen to emphasize the bearable lightness of being. That allows for literal bathroom humor (Craig's father has a colonic fixation) and marijuana jokes (crackheads are un-gently parodied), as well as gender-based humor, mostly directed at women and sometimes cruel but never nasty (as when a girl who promises she looks like Janet Jackson shows up for a date with Smokey looking more like Freddie Jackson).
Trailer
Now streaming on Netflix
After 20 Years, “Friday” Is (Still) The Most Important Film Ever Made About The Hood
Friday Turns 20: An Afternoon with Ice Cube
Chris Tucker @ DCJ around this time. A force of nature.
My suburban white ass got more out of Cooley High, but Friday is a close #2.
posted by rhizome at 4:27 PM on March 1, 2018
My suburban white ass got more out of Cooley High, but Friday is a close #2.
posted by rhizome at 4:27 PM on March 1, 2018
This was the most quoted movie at my school. Still holds up! I am amazed ChrisTucker just starred in (not just appeared in) a few more things then took almost a decade-long break after the Rush Hour series.
Also, who could have predicted Ice Cube would later star in or produce 25% of all live action family films!
posted by Freecola at 3:05 PM on March 4, 2018
Also, who could have predicted Ice Cube would later star in or produce 25% of all live action family films!
posted by Freecola at 3:05 PM on March 4, 2018
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posted by Sphinx at 8:34 PM on February 28, 2018 [2 favorites]