Painful Movies are Out, Class is in Session! #school #monday #meme #amblogging

It’s all about alphabet blocks and reading circles this week, as Dale at Smurfin the Web’s son starts nursery school. This week’s Monday Movie Meme makes me want to take a fun trip to the local parent/teacher store and buy some Thomas The Engine puzzles for my nephew. Dale says to share some of your favorite movies where the story is set in a school or a classroom. Here are my selections, not in any particular order, for the classroom theme.



Bad Teacher
Cameron Diaz stars in this comedy about a gold-digging middle school teacher named Elizabeth who really should not be able to step within five miles of anybody’s child. Elizabeth’s idea of a lesson plan is playing movies during the entire classroom session, while she sleeps and does drugs.

She is also verbally abusive to students, yet never gets fired for her inappropriate behavior and manages to exploit an academic incentive, in pursuit of breast enlargements. Yes, I am aware that this movie may seem absurd based on the description, but it IS funny -- so long as she isn’t teaching any of your kids!

Mona Lisa Smile
Oh, how I love this movie, starring Julia Roberts, Maggie Gyllenhal, Julia Stiles and several additional leading ladies in Hollywood! Set in the 1950s, “Mona Lisa Smile” is about an art history teacher who causes a lot of ruckus at an all-women’s college, when she challenges her students to go against the grain of what society expects of their future and strive for more than the role “wife” and “mother.”

Damn, I feel like watching this movie right now! -- If only I had a working DVD player. The computer just won’t do my “Mona Lisa Smile” DVD the justice that it deserves.

Lean on Me
What I find most interesting about “Lean on Me” is not the fights, teen pregnancies, drug use nor funny politics that plague an inner-city school -- it’s the soundtrack. This movie has one of the most unforgettable soundtracks ever, featuring soulful voices combined with some smooth R&B melodies that make you forget that the Eastside High School principal named Joe Clark almost got himself stabbed to death while trying to encourage students to work toward a better future for themselves.

Still, it is a classic drama film that shows the dangers of what happens not only when adults give up on children but also when children give up on themselves. Morgan Freeman gives an excellent performance as the principal, demanding excellence from teachers and parents, in an effort to show how while it does takes a village to raise a child -- that village must be able to lay a positive and solid foundation first, in order to make a difference.

“Lean on Me” also has some of the best movie quotes ever, I mean, who can forget those crazy Joe Clark one-liners -- “Get the chains off the doors...the enemy is here!” and “They used to call me ‘crazy Joe.’ Now, they can call me ‘Batman’!”

Higher Learning
To sum it up, racism and social inequalities collide on campus! Tyra Banks, Lawrence Fishburne, Jennifer Connelly, Michael Rapaport -- and the list goes on and on -- all star in this film about three University students who are trying to find their way but get tangled up in racial, political and social tension at their school -- As if freshman year isn’t already hard enough without all of this extra drama!

I have “Higher Learning” on VHS somewhere in my movie collection and am not sure if I’m going to buy the movie on DVD but I liked it when I watched it several years ago. Still, the explosive ending can easily make anyone disappointed in how we all fail to view our fellow man as just another human being like ourselves. No less, no more, no better, no worse -- just different.

Finding Forrester
Ok, half of this movie takes place in a school and the other half takes place in an apartment, so does it still count? I mean, Jamal was being taught in both places, so maybe Willam’s apartment could serve as some sorta homeschool for the purpose of this list. Yeah, I like that -- “Finding Forrester” representing for all of the private school and homeschooling folks out there! This is a great movie about a teenager who finds guidance in an unlikely source, to hone his writing talents. Sean Connery did well. All you Gus Van Sant fans will love this.

And an Honorable Mention, because it is on my Rental List:

Half Nelson
There’s nothing like a high school teacher with a drug habit!

Do you find the fact that the main character in “Bad Teacher” plays movies in her classroom, quite a coincidence for this week’s Monday Movie meme?

What are your favorite Classroom/School Movies?

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Films that go "Ouch!" #monday #meme #netflix #blockbuster

As my worst month of the year so far continues, thanks to a sad weekend and the new discovery of not one but two pieces of malfunctioning electronics equipment, I’ve decided to keep in line with the spirit of last week’s “Stick Me” theme that Dale at Smurfin the Web served up. So, this week’s topic is “When It Hurts Too Much.”

Share on your blog or in the comments section, movies that cause pain in one way or another to the main characters and/or movies that are painful to watch. Also, make sure to visit the blogs of fellow Monday Movie Meme participants. Here are my selections for the “When It Hurts Too Much” theme.
*Disclaimer: this post may contain spoiler alerts where noted.

The Bone Collector
Many unsuspecting characters had an up close and personal meeting with physical pain in this movie, which stars Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie and Queen Latifah. In “The Bone Collector,” a cop teams up with a forensics expert to solve crimes committed by a serial killer who goes around New York city kidnapping people, only to slice and dice them up later.

The Dutchess*
Lots of emotional pain is at the center of Georgiana Spencer’s scandalous home life, where her husband, the Duke of Devonshire is sleeping with her best friend. That isn’t even the tip of the iceberg in this movie, where the Duke refuses to acknowledge their daughters and is livid with Georgiana who has not given birth to a son, for whom he can make his heir.

Georgiana finds solace in the arms of a politician named Charles but their affair is forbidden (gotta love the hypocrisy!) but the Duke. From living in an unwanted threesome at home to being forced to give up the child she had by the man who she truly loved, while still being expected to keep up appearances, Georgiana didn’t have it easy.

The Tombs
The mental anguish that the main character of this short film experiences just builds scene by scene. “The Tombs” is about a man who spends three days in New York’s central booking system for a crime that he may not have even committed.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans*
A combination of physical and emotional pain plague the main characters of this action/fantasy movie. Their pain is the result of forbidden love between two different species, which causes an elder to go on a personal rampage. Lucien gets beaten and whipped while Sonja is forced to watch, before she is burned alive -- literally and figuratively by the very person who is supposed to protect her. As if that’s not enougg, Lucien is also forced to witness it all, bearing an unbearable burden of losing his family.

Now for the viewers point of view: here are films that while great, have been difficult for me to watch without being angry, depressed or sad....not necessarily in that order.

The Battle of Algiers
Since there is nothing pretty about war, I am aware that the violence and torture in “The Battle of Algiers” is to be expected but watching it still makes me uncomfortable. I read about this movie while doing some research on a filming technique that I want to try, and then rented it from Netflix. The film is another one of those real-life tales, which makes it all the more sad. In this movie, an Algerian revolution is in play as the people of this country fight to gain independence from the French.

Sometimes in April
Idris Elba stars in this movie about two brothers who unfortunately find themselves on opposites sides of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. I’m glad that I didn’t dismiss “Sometimes in April” when a friend recommended that I watch it but find it to be among the most violently gruesome of films based on real life. Much like the violent acts in “The Battle of Algiers,” people do some disgusting things in “Sometimes in April.” It’s a real shame and insult to our humanity.

While it’s one of those made-for-television movies, many people who are familiar with this HBO flick believe that it provides a much better account of the tragedies that ensued during that time, than “Hotel Rwanda” starring Don Cheadle did. Having watched both films (...and I wasn’t interested in watching “Hotel Rwanda” either but my grandmother insisted that I check it out), I’m partial to the overall consensus of Elba’s film doing a better job than Cheadle’s movie, but are still just as moving and just as painful to watch. They definitely aren’t something that makes you want to pop a bowl of popcorn and get down with on a weekend night.

I Am Sam
My cousin told me that this movie, starring Sean Penn and Dakota Fanning, is so good that it will make me cry. After all, she was a grown 30-something mother who cried AND her eldest son broke down in tears during the film. Still, I didn’t believe her and had little interest in watching “I Am Sam” but low and behold -- there I was at her house one day, where she played this movie on DVD. Needless to say, yes, I did get teary but was not balling my eyes out as much as she predicted.

What are the most painful movies that YOU remember?

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"Stick Me," says the Monday Movie Meme!

It looks like February is not shaping up to be one of my best months. First, I lose all my data on my iPod last week and today (more like an hour and some change ago), I lost the actual device in a New York taxicab...at the worse time ever! Anyway, this week during the Monday Movie Meme, Dale at Smurfin’ the Web put the focus on movies that revolve around the use of needles or injections. With only about 20 minutes to spare with Internet access before I have to run out and try to find a cell phone store that sells chargers, here are my selections for films in some kind of injection mode.

Gia
Angelina Jolie plays the lead character in this made-for-television biopic about the famous model Gia Carangi who became addicted to drugs. In this film, Gia goes from using cocaine to shooting up heroine and later gets HIV from an infected needle.As to be expected, the scenes in the movie are gross and sad as the story progresses. I much prefer the beginning to maybe early middle of the movie, during her fashion shows and magazine cover days.

Ray
While the movie may be centered on music, it also does tell a story about the famed musician’s dark side, which includes his drug abuse. I recall the bathroom (or was it a bedroom or hotel room? I forget that detail) scene where one of his background singers found him prepping for his routine shoot-up of heroine (...or something).

I mean, do we really need to even mention “Requiem for a Dream” here? I think not, since it would be an obvious choice on everyone’s list. It’s the first movie that came to mind this morning, when Dale chose the needles and injections topic.

I’ve watched some drug smuggling movies but many of them involved pills such as “Bad Boys II” and “Minority Report” while other movies that I saw at least once involved cocaine use such as “New Jack City.”