Pencils are sharpened, busses are on the road, and the doors are open wide. K-12 schools around the state are mostly back in action. College students too have headed back to campus, whether in-person or virtually. Though education has certainly changed over the years, with its reliance on technology and online options, its penchant to be the fodder of films has been a constant.
Since movies could be made, writers and directors have been serving up films about students and teachers, set in the classroom and beyond. These movies range in tone from over-the-top comedies like “Billy Madison” and “Animal House” to the sad and serious “Precious.” These films are often based on true inspirational stories (though sometimes loosely), like “Dangerous Minds” or “Freedom Writers.” Whatever your favorite genre is, there is a movie about education for you without a doubt.
Though they have been out of school for a while now, Rob and Bridget still enjoy an occasional trip back to the classroom in the name of moviegoing. This week, they share some of their favorite education or school-based films, including a few honorable mentions. Since the kiddos are back to school and probably dealing with tons of homework, they invite you to retake your TV and check out these great movies!
Bridget’s Picks
Honorable mentions: “Finding Forrester,” “Gifted,” “Hamlet 2,” and “The History Boys.”
1. “The Breakfast Club” (1985) – The iconic coming-of-age education movie by Director John Hughes came to me at the right moment in my life. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t watch this movie until my later college years. The story about five high schoolers trying to find their place in the world and work through their unique problems resonated with me as I was trying to become my own person. Needless to say, I watched this one on VHS repeatedly when I finally discovered it.
The movie stars members of the Hughes “Brat Pack” – Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy, as teenagers from different high school cliques who spend a Saturday in detention with their authoritarian assistant principal (Paul Gleason). Today, “The Breakfast Club” is still well-known thanks to plenty of parodies and the ever popular song “Don’t You (Forget about Me).” Though we might not think about it as an “education movie,” it does take place at a school and digs into the problems that students drag to school with them on a daily basis.
Some of the movie might be a little cringey in this day and age, especially the aggressive behavior towards Ringwald’s character by Nelson’s. But I think the movie stands up pretty well. It is a comedy but it takes on weighty subjects like bullying and suicidal ideation. Maybe those problems get glossed over a little quickly as the marijuana starts to get passed around and the dancing begins, but the fact that a movie at this time hit on those themes is impressive.
2. “Stand and Deliver” (1988) – Another great school movie from the 80s! When I taught English at South Dakota State University, one of my classes studied an education unit. For their essay, I asked them to watch a movie that depicted American Education. In class, I would show “Stand and Deliver” as our ‘practice’ movie. That means I probably watched this movie close to 40 times over the years…and I still enjoy it!
The movie is based on the true story of a high school mathematics teacher, Jaime Escalante. (For portraying Escalante, Edward James Olmos was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor). The story is familiar. The teacher lands at a school in a poverty-stricken area where everyone is woefully behind where they should be. But thanks to a dynamic educator, magic and learning happens and great things are achieved.
Like I said…we’ve seen that story many times, but “Stand and Deliver” does it well. Olmos’ gruff, yet touching portrayal of Escalante hits the spot. A young Lou Diamond Phillips stars as one of the students and also brings a strong presence to the screen. Math certainly was not my favorite subject, but by the end of the movie, I have the ganas (see the movie for this reference) to pick up a textbook and try to become a calculus whiz.
3. “School of Rock” (2003) – I struggled with my last pick for this column. I was thinking of picking another movie that was more serious, but at the end of the day, I just wanted to ROCK! Directed by the great Richard Linklater, most of us have likely seen this movie a time or two or ten, thanks to its continuous presence on cable. It’s just so much fun, that I felt I needed to remind everyone to check it out if you haven’t lately.
“School of Rock” stars fun-loving Jack Black, who many people might know is a musician in real-life, being one half of the group Tenacious D. I sometimes find Black to be over the top and a bit grating, but he is literally pitch perfect in this movie as Dewey, a loser who assumes his roommate’s identity and becomes a substitute teacher. He is bored out of his mind in the classroom until he learns that his students might have some musical talent. He seizes the opportunity to form them into a band with the goal of sticking it to his former group at the “Battle of the Bands” contest. Lo and behold, the kids teach him a thing or two even as he touches their lives.
Students in my English class used to watch this movie for their essays often. I always tried to get them to see how intuitive it is when focusing on different learning styles and the importance of a committed and involved educator. That all is a huge part of the movie, but at the end of the day, the music and rocking vibe are just as memorable as the school stuff.
Rob’s picks
Honorable mentions: “Lean on Me,” “The Gambler (1974),” “The Great Debaters,” the entire “Harry Potter” series (courtesy of Kellie), “Mean Girls,” “Bridge to Terabithia” and “Dazed and Confused.”
1. “Election” (1999) — Reese Witherspoon has enjoyed a fascinating career as a teen actress turned book club founder turned TV super producer, but I’m still not sure she was ever better than in her performance as the high strung, win-at-all costs Tracy Flick in Alexander Payne’s “Election.”
The film is, as its title suggests, about a girl at a suburban Omaha high school running for student body president and a teacher, played by Matthew Broderick (a grown up Ferris Bueller?), who hates her guts for a number of reasons that I won’t get into here. Paul Metzler, played by ‘90s teen movie king Chris Klein, is one of Flick’s challengers in the race, along with Paul’s sister Tammy (Jessica Campbell), who turns her anguish over a breakup into a nihilistic, burn down the system campaign that culminates in a raucous speech during an assembly in the gymnasium.
Payne is a master of low-stakes storytelling and droll Midwestern humor, and fans of the hit TV show “Parks and Recreation” may recognize more than a passing similarity between Witherspoon’s character and Leslie Knope, the obsessive do-gooder whose personality inspires either devoted loyalty or intense repulsion depending on the day and the interaction. As partial as I am to “About Schmidt” and “Nebraska,” “Election” is still his best movie.
2. “Dead Poets Society” (1989)- O Captain! My captain!
If you’ve seen Peter Weir’s surprise 1989 hit about students at an uptight New England prep school learning to love poetry with the help of an offbeat instructor played by the late, great Robin Williams, the delivery of that line is impossible to forget. Williams brings his characteristic intensity and mile a minute rambling to his John Keating character, but “Dead Poets Society” may now be best remembered for announcing then 19-year-old Ethan Hawke as one of the most important actors of his generation.
Kurtwood Smith is especially fearsome in a villainous role as the father of the lead student, Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard), and in the mold of several other films of the same ilk, Keating challenges the conventions of traditional education while almost constantly running afoul of the stodgy administrators charged with keeping him in line.
Whether you prefer Walt Whitman, Tennyson or Robert Frost, there are plenty of lessons to be learned from “Dead Poets Society,” and it encourages all of us to carpe the diem, er, seize the day!
3. “Mr. Holland’s Opus” (1995) — As a wannabe musician who’s still working a 9-to-5 job and probably will be until I retire, I was surprised by just how much I related to the Richard Dreyfuss character in Stephen Herek’s “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” a film that Kellie, Wyllo and I watched as a family earlier this year.
Mr. Holland is a composer who never quite hit it big, so he decides to take a job teaching music at a public school in Portland, Oregon, as a way to spend more time with his wife and young son. Like most teachers in most movies about education, he struggles to get through to his students until he introduces unconventional methods and gradually becomes beloved (in the case of one student, a bit too beloved), and before long, he’s changed the entire culture of the music program.
A young Terrence Howard nearly steals the show as a football player turned bass drummer who’s eventually drafted to serve in Vietnam, and other big name actors like William H. Macy, Olympia Dukakis and Glenne Headly play key supporting roles in a movie that covers a span of over 30 years of Holland’s career.
There’s a specific scene during which Mr. Holland leads a rendition of John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy” shortly after Lennon was shot to death (and dedicates it to his own deaf son, Coltrane) that makes me feel like there are onions all around me whenever I see it. This may be Dreyfuss’s last truly great film performance, and he makes it count.
Stay tuned for the latest edition of the column next week, and as always, send your feedback and/or topic suggestions to Bridget (news@wrightcountymonitor.com) or Rob (publisher@grundyregister.com). Thanks for reading!
