Thursday Movie Picks - Movies Set in a High School

Written as part of the blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You should join; it's fun and easy! Just pick three movies that fit the week's theme and tell us about them!

Ah, high school: that great cesspool of American teenage life. I actually had a pretty decent high school experience - certainly not the best time of my life (that would be college), but certainly not even close to a bad one. But in the movies, high school is either a magical place you never want to leave or a hellhole you can't get away from fast enough. And nothing in between. I always wondered if people who wrote movies about how amazing high school was were people who peaked in high school or if they were re-writing their teenage years to be better than they actually were.

BUT ANYWAY.... Enough about me. On to my picks for the week! Two 80s classics and two modern almost-classics.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I originally didn't pick Clueless and She's All That for "Teen Comedy" week because I wanted to save them for this. But then I thought of two other films I liked better.

The Breakfast Club (John Hughes, 1985) Easily the greatest movie about high school ever made, and the only movie I can think of that is entirely set inside a high school. This '80s classic should be shown to every incoming high school freshman on their first day, so effectively does it show that no matter what our outwardly defining traits may be, everyone has some deep hurt in their life, and that "each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal." John Hughes's masterpiece speaks to every teen, and to the teen inside all of us. If only all detention was this rewarding (and unsupervised).

Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir, 1989) Set in an all-boys prep school in the 1950s, this film's cast is like a who's who of (then) up-and-coming actors: Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, Josh Charles... and of course, Robin Williams as the English teacher we all wish we had (except for the whole defacing a book thing). Williams's Mr. Keating (which also just happened to be the name of my favorite high school English teacher) inspires his students to actually love poetry and live by the principles of the great poets - to really see beauty in the world around them, not just study it as the school's Headmaster would have him do. Of course, this being a prep school in the 50s, the parents don't take too kindly to their sons getting silly ideas in their heads about performing in plays and not respecting their fathers' authority. A beautiful film filled with great performances.

Hamlet 2 (Andrew Fleming, 2008) It's really a pity not many people saw this movie. This story of down-and-out high school drama teacher Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan), who decides to write a musical sequel to Shakespeare's immortal play Hamlet for the annual school show, is the best/worst, funniest/stupidest, most inappropriate high school movie ever made. A spoof of inspiring-teacher dramas, let's-put-on-a-show musicals, and high school movies in general (think of an unholy combination of Dangerous Minds, Step Up, and Waiting for Guffman) Hamlet 2 is completely insane, and that's before Elizabeth Shue shows up playing herself. And WAY before we actually get to the performance of the show itself, which includes such stirring musical numbers as "Raped in the Face" and "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus".

BONUS PICK:

G.B.F. (Darren Stein, 2013) When three popular high school girls running for prom queen realize that the must-have accessory for the school year is the elusive (in their neck of the woods) Gay Best Friend (or GBF), they all latch onto the one gay guy they know, who was recently accidentally outed by his own gay best friend. Suddenly, his life becomes worse and better simultaneously. Because you see, he's really a shy little wallflower, not the outgoing FABULOUS! gay the girls want/expect him to be. Naturally, they help hum out! But do any of these girls actually like him for him? Or do they just like him for what he can do for them? G.B.F. isn't quite the next-gen Mean Girls it's clearly dying to be, but the cast is game (all hail Xosha "fluorescent beige" Roquemore from Precious, who is EVERYTHING), it's pleasant to watch, and it's very funny. And lead Michael J. Willett is, as the kiddies say nowadays, totes adorbs.