I was looking back at my old post, 5 Films from 5th Grade, and thought I should do a follow-up with a list of more films we watched in grade school – this time focusing on high school. Will people actually want to read this? Maybe someone. Whomever you are, this post is dedicated to you.
The general rule of thumb on whether or not a teacher could screen a film or television show in class was if it was educational or not. As you will see, some teachers followed that directive to the letter, while others bent it into a pretzel.
World Geography
The Loretta Clairborne Story (2000)
This was a tv movie that aired as part of The Wonderful World of Disney and based on a true, inspirational story. We saw this on the first day of school, and it helped make the transition to high school (and high school in general) feel less daunting. Also it featured Camryn Manheim – Eleanor in The Practice – as the social worker!
The Sum of All Fears (2002)
The teacher didn’t want to spend two class periods watching this, so we started it halfway through and I spent the whole time thinking, “What’s going on? Who are these people? Why is this happening?”
The News
The Iraq War was going on at this time and the teacher put on the morning news for the first 10-20 minutes of class. He was a fan of George W. Bush, but other than that, we didn’t really get his thoughts or opinions on the matter (or, really, any matter).
Gandhi (1982)
The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)
Pocahontas (1995)
These last three, I feel like the teacher didn’t give us any context or any real explanation for why we were watching them or what we were supposed to get out of them. Perhaps he wanted the works to speak for themselves:
French
Jean de Florette (1986)
This was my introduction to Gérard Depardieu. I suppose I’m glad this was my introduction to him and not, say, a news article about one of the many horrible things he’s (allegedly) done. It’s been so long since I’ve seen this film, but I never forgot that melancholic harmonica music.
Manon of the Spring (1986)
The sequel to Jean de Florette. There’s a part in the end where something happens, and the teacher paused the video right before it happened to let us know it was going to happen (giving us a trigger warning, essentially). A lot of my classmates groaned at the spoiler, but in retrospect, I totally understand why he did it.
The Man Who Saw Tomorrow (1981)
My second exposure to Orson Welles (the first was when we listened to the War of the Worlds broadcast in junior high). This was fun and I’d love to revisit it soon. The teacher recognized the inherent cheesiness of the scene at the end where there’s a montage of blooming flowers to show nature recovering after the apocalypse: “Hey, it was the ’80s!”
Joan of Arc (1999)
This was the 1999 Canadian miniseries, which I’m under the impression was a bit more historically accurate than the 1999 Milla Jovovich film.
Le Petit Prince (1974)
This was towards the end of French III, when we had advanced enough to reading Le Petit Prince in its original language.
Documentaries
We also saw some documentaries about French-speaking culture and geography; one was about Mardi Gras, another on Mont Saint-Michel, and then the Catacombs of Paris. Unlike other teachers, my French teacher ensured we were paying attention to the documentary by giving us a worksheet with questions to answer as we watched.
Every Friday, the teacher celebrated the end of the week by singing the word “vendredi” a couple times and doing a little dance. He would then show us 15 minutes of a French dubbed film, and we would vote as a class on what we would watch that day. His selection of tapes was very limited, however:
Disney Sing-Along Songs
There were two of these tapes: first and foremost Friend Like Me (1993) then later the teacher expanded our options with Be Our Guest (1992). My God. These almost always won the Friday vote, so the songs are seared into my brain. No, it goes beyond that. It’s even worse than that. Even today, I sometimes get these French versions of Disney songs stuck in my head – and not even the whole song. Sometimes mere seconds! Repeating over and over and over…
Pokémon: Volume 1 – I Choose You! Pikachu!
A French dub of the English version of the show (which is different from the original Japanese version). This tape contained the first three episodes of Pokémon and only the first three episodes. So, every time someone voted for Pokémon, I’d think, “No, you fool! You’re voting to watch one of the first three episodes that we have already seen countless times!”
Finding Nemo (2003)
This was a late addition to the teacher’s film library, and because it was a DVD, he would play it in French…with English subtitles. Bad idea. He should have put on French subtitles because with English subtitles, we zoned out and didn’t pay any attention to the French speech.
Batman & Robin (1997)
Snow White (1937)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
These rarely won the class vote. I feel like we just sampled each of them only once.
English
Dead Poets Society (1989)
I think we watched this after we read A Separate Peace, but if that’s the case, then why didn’t we watch the A Separate Peace film from 1972? Is Dead Poets Society a superior substitute?
Unknown Villa Diodati Documentary (’70s or ’80s)
This was a documentary about when Lord Byron, the Shelleys, and Polidori were in Villa Diodati in the summer of 1816. Periodically, we’d see dramatizations of Byron’s interactions with the Shelleys; I remember there was an odd cut in the middle of a conversation, where Lord Byron suddenly appeared on a merry-go-round and it was so weird that I loved it. It was low budget and shot on video. I’m assuming it was a BBC production but I can’t seem to find any information.
Unknown Documentary About Some Guy (’90s)
I thought this was charming. It was a late ’90s documentary about this guy who really loved this one obscure book, but he didn’t know anyone else who had read it. So what he ended up doing was buying multiple copies of this book online until he got someone’s attention and made friends.
Shakespeare in Love (1998)
I don’t even know why we watched this. We didn’t read any Shakespeare that year.
The Vikings (1958)
I think we watched this after our unit on Beowulf. Again, an odd choice to watch this instead of an adaptation of the thing we actually read. Was the 1999 Christopher Lambert Beowulf film too violent? I do remember my teacher being excited to show this to us and possibly used an inappropriate adjective to describe it (“cute”). An eagle gouges out someone’s eye in this movie! I would not call that cute.
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
This was an unsanctioned viewing – our teacher was out that day and my ne’er do well classmate happened to have this on him and put it in the VCR. Our substitute teacher was a pushover, and at most, she may have asked, “Are you supposed to be watching that?” then immediately relented when someone assured her that yes, we watch The Matrix Revolutions all the time in this class. When our teacher came back and heard what happened, she was pissed.
Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
I don’t remember why we watched this. Pure unadulterated entertainment, perhaps?
The Graduate (1967)
The teacher showed us this at the end of the year. She warned that there was some nudity she would have to fast forward through, but then she left the classroom and was out for awhile, missing one of the parts she wanted to protect us from!
Julius Caesar (1953)
Of Mice and Men (1992)
The Crucible (1996)
The Great Gatsby (1974)
A Raisin in the Sun (1989)
The rest of these were just instances of us watching the film adaptations of whatever we were reading in class.
History
The Lion in Winter (1968)
My first time seeing Katharine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole. Thank you, History Teacher, for making things classy (no pun intended) and introducing us to these great actors.
The Last Samurai (2003)
I barely remember this and have no idea why we watched it.
National Treasure (2004)
One of my classmates recited the punchlines of a couple of the comic relief scenes right before they happened.
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
The teacher put this on as end-of-year entertainment, but none of us paid any attention and it was relegated to background noise. A damn shame! I eventually did see it a few years ago, giving it the attention it deserved, and I was blown away by how good it is. And Sir Alec Guinness, of course.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
This one we didn’t technically watch in class because it was extra credit. I rented it from Hollywood Video and it came in a huge box because it was on two tapes.
Technology
Technology Documentary (’80s)
This was about some new and exciting technology (in the ’80s) that had the potential to change the world. I remember one segment was about a robot that gave museum tours, and it would send an email to its creator at the end of every day to tell him what he did. O.J. Simpson also made an appearance in the documentary, which elicited reactions from the class because we were all used to O.J. Simpson the Alleged Murderer and not O.J. Simpson the Football Player.
WarGames (1983)
My tech teachers loved this movie, so we saw it at least twice.
Random 3D Animation Showcase (’90s)
A documentary about 3D animation with clips from some short films. All I remember is that one featured a mermaid, but they were all crude by today’s standards, of course.
The Jetsons: First Episodes
One of my tech teachers was a big Jetsons fan, and I think had a Jetsons photo or printout framed on the wall. So naturally, as the semester came to a close, he played this tape of the first few episodes of the show.
Shrek 2 (2004)
Pre-holiday filler.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001)
Finding Nemo (2003)
The Incredibles (2004)
Robots (2005)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
Ultimate Avengers (2006)
All these films were from the same teacher. He played them under the guise of, “Look, they used technology to make this.”
Physical Education
Family Guy
After we finished our workout, we’d all lounge around, resting, doing whatever. The teacher would put on TBS and we’d catch the end of whatever Family Guy rerun was on.
Billy Blanks Tae Bo
The following year, we had a new coach who liked to try new things. She instituted “The Tae Bo Challenge,” wherein we would workout to a Billy Blanks tape, and whoever made it through the whole thing without giving up, would have their name written on the whiteboard for all to see. I passed and got so into it, that tae bo became my “thing” for the rest of that year.
Homeroom
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
After everyone was done taking that year’s end-of-year standardized test, we joined another classroom and watched this together as a reward.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
End of year filler that we watched on the last day of school.
The Island (2005)
More end of year filler. When Ethan Phillips showed up, I yelled “Neelix!” and a couple of my classmates shushed me.
Health
28 Days (2000)
As part of our unit on substance abuse.
The Truman Show (1998)
I guess we watched this to learn that being surveilled 24/7 is bad for your health. Who knew.
Married… with Children
The teacher turned on the tv to give us background noise while we worked on a project and left it on this after cycling through the local channels.
Science
Mr. Wizard’s World
If you’re not familiar with Mr. Wizard, he was tv’s science guy before Bill Nye was tv’s science guy – and if you’re not familiar with Bill Nye, then I don’t know what to tell you. In this particular episode, there’s a moment where Mr. Wizard scares the crap out of his kid assistant and all of us in the class laughed at him. My teacher was offended and seemed to have taken the laughter personally; a couple of my classmates and I theorized that maybe the kid in the Mr. Wizard video was our teacher.
Math
High School Musical (2006)
I was a bit cranky when the teacher put this on because I didn’t want to see it. I wanted to work on Calculus Ninjas instead. Fortunately, I was able to pull a couple of my classmates away individually to film a quick scene (thus making them a bit cranky).
Speech
Fever Pitch (2005)
The teacher thought Jimmy Fallon was cute.
Economics
Protectors of Universe (1983)
I gave a bunch of my friends $1 Korean anime DVDs that were at Wal-Mart for Christmas (I’ll write a blog post about them soon, don’t you worry). At our holiday party in Economics, my friend showed the teacher his copy of Protectors of Universe and the teacher put it on as background noise.
Film Club
Real Women Have Curves (2002)
Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
Pi (1998)
For completion’s sake, I’ve included these films from an after school film club my friend started, that I was briefly involved in. I only went a few times, but I don’t think it lasted much longer than that.
Well, there you have it. That’s the list of all the films I saw in high school that I remember. What do you think? Anything objectionable in there? Anything we should have seen instead?
Most importantly, what did you watch?
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