A DOZEN YEARS AFTER 'BOYZ,' SINGLETON REFLECTS.

Byline: Jerry Rice  Staff Writer

Most directors never have a hit movie or receive an Oscar nomination.

Not John Singleton. With 1991's ``Boyz N the Hood,'' he had both right out of the gate.

``The cool thing is it made it possible for me to have a career, and to have a voice,'' Singleton says of the movie.

It's a career that has taken the 35-year-old filmmaker from the mean streets of Los Angeles to the streets of Miami for this summer's ``2 Fast 2 Furious.'' Now he's trying to map out his next route.

But first a look back with the recent release of the two-disc special DVD of ``Boyz'' ($27.95 on Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment).

``I was just learning how to make a film then,'' Singleton says. ``I had done little Super 8 movies before 'Boyz N the Hood,' but it was the first film I ever did that people actually spoke in.''

``Boyz'' has been speaking ever since, and is credited with giving a major boost to the gangsta-hood genre.

It's a coming-of-age story about Tre Styles (Cuba Gooding Jr.), a young man caught between one set of rules imposed by his strict father and the code followed by the teens in his violent South Central Los Angeles neighborhood.

It's a life the young Singleton was all too familiar with.

``Growing up there was no picnic, especially in the late '70s and early '80s,'' Singleton says. ``Crack came into play, and the gangs ceased to be a social thing. They became a business, you know what I mean?''

Singleton found refuge from that life in Rialto, where he attended Eisenhower High School for his sophomore and junior years.

``I had to get out of L.A. for half a second,'' Singleton says. ``Rialto was idyllic for me because I could ride a bike to school. It allowed me to free my mind up and know that the whole world wasn't like a war zone.''

From Rialto, he went to Pasadena for a year before being accepted to the prestigious USC School of Cinema-Television.

``The first thing they tell you at film school is write about what you know, so that's what I did,'' Singleton says.

And he did it very well, impressing critics around the country and eventually landing Academy Awards nominations for director and original screenplay.

``Singleton is a director who brings together two attributes not always found in the same film: He has a subject, and he has a style,'' Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times just before the release of ``Boyz.'' ``The film is not only important, but also a joy to watch.''

And there was this from Janet Maslin in The New York Times: ``Singleton may not be saying anything new about the combined effects of poverty, drugs and aimlessness on black teenagers, but he is saying something familiar with new dramatic force - and in ways that a wide and varied audience will understand.''

Besides the storytelling, Singleton displayed a sharp sense for picking the right actors on their way up - much like George Lucas did with ``American Graffiti'' or Joel Schumacher with ``St. Elmo's Fire.''

After ``Boyz,'' Gooding Jr. went to smaller roles in ``A Few Good Men,'' ``Outbreak'' and ``Losing Isaiah'' before landing his Oscar-winning turn as the flamboyant football receiver in 1996's ``Jerry Maguire.''

Laurence (then Larry) Fishburne and Angela Bassett, who played Tre's parents, reteamed two years after ``Boyz'' as Ike and Tina Turner for ``What's Love Got to Do With It,'' earning each of them Oscar nominations.

Ice Cube made his jump from rap music into acting for ``Boyz,'' and has since written, produced and starred in the ``Friday'' series, and is currently executive producing and starring in the sequel to last year's surprise hit, ``Barbershop.''

``A lot of people don't know about the past unless it's right up in front of them,'' Singleton says. ``The cool thing about 'Boyz' is Ice Cube is still a huge star. Fishburne is a star. Cuba Gooding Jr. is still doing good work. So when people see (something from early in their careers), it's like, 'Wow.' ''

That's the same word they would probably use when talking about Singleton, who continues to impress with his biggest box-office hit to date, the high-octane sequel to 2001's ``The Fast and the Furious.''

But what path his movie career now takes is anyone's guess.

``I approach whatever I'm going to do from an emotional standpoint - whatever I'm feeling at the time,'' says Singleton, who hopes to pick his next project by the end of the year.

In the meantime, he is working on a script, but reluctant to offer any details about it. Singleton also has outlined a story for a sequel to ``Baby Boy,'' his 2001 return to the 'hood starring r&b singer and MTV personality Tyrese as an unemployed single father of two who still lives with his mother. While it earned a modest $28.7 million at the box office, that was nearly double what the movie cost to make.

Whatever his direction, one thing is certain, Singleton says. ``I'm trying to keep passionate about making different types of films.''

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Director John Singleton took Hollywood by storm 12 years ago with the Oscar-nominated ``Boyz N the Hood,'' which is being rereleased as a special-edition two-disc DVD.

Chris Pizzello/Associated Press