The John Singleton 4-Movie Collection: Higher Learning / Baby Boy / Poetic Justice / Boyz N The Hood (DVD)

HIGHER LEARNING: In Academy Award®-nominated director-writer John Singleton’s third feature, students of all races, classes, nationalities and sexual identities come together at fictitious Columbus University in California.

The contemporary college experience is seen through the eyes of three incoming freshmen. Former high school track star Malik Williams (Omar Epps) thinks he can cruise through his first year of college until he learns he has to run faster and harder to keep his track scholarship.

Typical white Orange County coed Kristen Connor (Kristy Swanson) is date-raped the first week of school, leading her to question her sexual orientation. And misfit Remy (Michael Rapaport) becomes an easy recruit for campus neo-Nazi skinheads.

Professor Maurice Phipps (Laurence Fishburne) provides guidance and a lone voice of reason in a stratified social environment as challenging to negotiate as the toughest organic chemistry exam. BABY BOY: Academy Award®-nominated director John Singleton (Boys N the Hood) returns to inner-city L.

A. to tell the story of Jody (Tyrese Gibson), a misguided 20-year-old African American boy-child who is finally forced to face the commitments of real life. Streetwise and job-free, he has not only fathered two children by two different women, but still lives with his own mother.

Unable to find direction in his chaotic life, he must also contend with his volatile best friend, Sweetpea (Omar Gooding), while adapting to his mother’s new boyfriend, reformed O.G. Melvin (Ving Rhames).

On a journey filled with violence, romance, tears and laughter, Jody must face Melvin, both his “baby mamas,” a new adversary (Snoop Dogg), and his own fears of adulthood if he wants to escape the life of a baby boy.

BOYZ N THE HOOD: ohn Singleton made his debut with this gritty coming-of-age story that earned him Academy Award® nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay. Young Tre Styles (Cuba Gooding, Jr.

) has been sent by his mother to live with his father, Furious Styles (Laurence Fishburne). Their South Central Los Angeles neighborhood is beset by gang violence and drugs, but Furious managed to avoid their ill effects and is determined to keep his son out of trouble.

He can’t, however, protect Tre from the influence of other forces, including his friends, Doughboy (Ice Cube, in his acting debut), who’s drifting into drugs and run-ins with the law, and Doughboy’s brother, Ricky (Morris Chestnut), a high school football star and teenage father.