Mixed tape movies - School (sucks)

In the eighties it was the-thing-to-do to make a mixed tape (like a mp3 but touchable, always in need of a pencil and most definitely cooler). On it you would make a little playlist of all the cool songs. Now the trick was to make each song correspond with the rest of the tape. In this post I will try to do the same with movies.

Every once in a while I will select a general topic and select movies to accompany it. As you can see the more child-friendly movies are at the start of the day, but  when night falls: ‘here be monsters’. Please feel free to give suggestions of other unknown movies.

One rule though: Auteur themes like ‘Shakespeare’ or ‘James Bond’ are not allowed. ‘Spy-movies’, naturally, are.

Theme: School (sucks) 

School, both a period of pure hell and pure exhilaration. If there’s one period in a human’s life that sits comfortably in the top three of most important forming times this is it. And, as the amount of movies shows, I’m not the only one who thinks back now and again. 

08:00-10:00

De Boskampi's: A sweet little Dutch movie about a bullied boy who changes schools. Now, this time ‘round, he decides he isn’t going to get bullied. So he makes up a story that his father is a mob-boss. Hilarity ensues. It is a charming movie that doesn’t overstay its welcome. It tells the story it wants to tell and in the end everybody learned an important lesson.

 

10:00-12:00

Now you see him, now you don’t: Kurt Russell before he battled Aliens on the North-Pole (or was it the South?). As a university student he discovers a spray that turns you invisible. With this newfound power he decides to help the university and capture some villains along the way. A brilliant Disney movie. Absolutely hilarious when the whole golf-sequence starts. 

12:00-14:00

Diary of a wimpy kid: Somehow this movie made me remember all kinds of feelings that I had when I went to middle school for the first time. Top it off with some hilariously recognizable scenarios and you are left wondering whether your first steps into high school were actually a comedy.

 

14:00-16:00

Spud: Becoming a teenager sucks. All those hormones going around doing stuff to your body and whatnot. This movie takes that on a bit. But the main stage is reserved for the great John Cleese (Mr. Paycheck as I often call him. But when he is dedicated he is perfect.) who teaches the boy nicknamed Spud some valuable life-lessons.

  

16:00-18:00

10 Things I hate about you: Shakespeare at school. This was a short rage back then (we also had Othello for instance) but this adaptation of the Bard’s taming of the screw is one of the better ones- It even has a singing Heath Ledger. The script is funny and edgy. The actors are perfectly likeable or (when they play the villain) disgusting. And there are even tears to be shed during the final poem.

18:00-20:00

Teaching Mrs. Tingle: Three high school students decide to kidnap their teacher for better grades. No this isn’t the best movie on the list. This movie is filled with boring plot twists and characters that are incapable of drawing the tiniest bit of sympathy from the audience (especially Katie Holmes is particularly annoying –and she’s the main protagonist). But the highlight of this movie is Dame Helen Mirren with a crossbow.  Yes, that’s right The Queen goes medieval on the kids.

20:00-22:00

Disturbing Behavior: What Teaching Mrs. Tingle screwed up Disturbing Behavior did right (and a good role for Katie Holmes this time round). Teenagers –again with all those hormones raging around- are weird. But adults –to them- are even weirder. So this movie takes this schism between old and young as its basis and creates a nice thriller plot from it. In short: Stepford Wives-light.

It’s got everything the teen audience wants cute actors and actresses, a reasonable amount of mayhem and a cool soundtrack.

22:00-00:00

Plain Clothes: A young cop reenrolls into high school to investigate the murder of which his brother is falsely accused.

I loved this one as a kid mainly because it's a genuine who-dun-it. With a killer –once revealed- who is awesome in the ”Oh cool it’s him/her!”-spectrum.  

Also, the sex-poem (when you see the movie it’ll make sense) was and is without a doubt the most erotic thing my young ears ever heard.

00:00-02:00

Prom Night: The scream queen herself: Jamie Lee Curtis stars in this one. Not the best slasher ever made but definitely one of the more intriguing ones. The faults are obvious once you watch is. The kills only happen in the last act of the movie (the pacing is wrong) and there is far too much disco. But it is also a slasher film with a genuine heart. You understand the killer in the end.

 

02:00-04:00

Scream: What can I say? The perfect high school horror has to be included on the list. It has everything: a who-dun-it, a who’s-next, nail biting tension, humor and lots of gore. This movie is also a fun little cheat on my part. Because Scream references so many teen slashers from the past, I won’t have to mention them all.

Honorable mention: Summer school. A fun movie but it relies heavily on that one cool scene. Not enough for me to put it on the list.

Final Destination. Yes this horror movie deals with a bunch of high school kids but it hardly takes place at the school. I’ll use this one for a theme about disasters or death or something.

American Pie. Yes, this is an important high school movie but since I’m planning on writing a sex comedy topic later on I decided to leave it out.