Quatermass

Ask them "Which movie will distract you less from your texting."

OldBoy

just got final approval and $200 stipend. yay!

Nick Danger

Poor girl.

Fifteen years from now, she'll watch a Great Film, and she'll say to herself, "I think I might've seen this before. Oh yeah, that sound's just a bus."

Mabuse

Curse of the Cat People, not Cat People

The sequel is not really a sequel and it's not really a horror film. More of a dark childrens fantasy.

Neitzl

I haven't read the entire thread yet, as I am substituting for a class and the bell is about to ring. Do what I did for the first one. Get something a bit more mainstream, to draw the casual viewer in, then the following weeks, do a switcheroo!
I've started with 12 Monkeys a few times, but the one that drew the most was The Mummy...no not the classic one, but with Brendan Fraser. Lots of kids stayed on afterwards though and got to see Eternal Sunshine, City of God, etc. Yes some are a hard R, but I do somewhat censor the films. I got away with showing The Usual Suspects....I had forgotten how much they swore in that until I was sitting there watching it with the students and a few other faculty members who wanted to rewatch it.
Ahhh, the bell!

Neitzl

Ok, here's what I've shown in the past:
12 Monkeys
The Lady Eve
Children Of Men
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Adaptation
Minority Report
Russian Ark
M
Sullivan's Travels
City of God
The videos of Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze
Three Kings
Being John Malkovic
Monsoon Wedding
Kwaidan (not all of it)
Office Space
Trainspotting (with edits here and there)
etc...
I've been doing this for about 10 years, and the students really seem to get a kick out of it. Many of the members go on to film/art school, so yay.

OldBoy

^ when you say "edits", do you do that with editting equipment or fast forward?

grip

High School literature class had some incredible movies attached to it. My suggestions would be to have not only a genre meeting, but also examples of technique , writing (comedy, drama, satire perhaps), decade (comparing 60's to 70's might work real well) and of course, gotta have an epic in there.

Other than the fine movies listed already, I would like to throw in:

A Man for All Seasons
Unforgiven (unless "R" is right out)
The Silence of the Lambs
A Thousand Clowns (Play Adaptation night?)
and (only because I just recently saw it on BluRay)
Ben Hur
Oh and gotta go with Airplane!

Please please please show them citizen kane to encompass all.

Ash Ketchum

Props to any teacher/film club adviser who shows the kids ZERO HOUR! first and then AIRPLANE! Now that's a real educational experience.

Ostello

Start with

Dog Day Afternoon

- followed by these

Battle Royale

Misery

Grave Of The Fireflies

West Side Story

Cinema Paradiso

Dead Poets Society

I'm Not Scared

Schindler's List

Lawrence of Arabia

The Secret In Their Eyes

Leon

The Shawshank Redemption

riley_dude

Breaking Away, Broadcast News or Big Chill

PenguinJoe

If this is a public school are you allowed to show R rated movies to the students?

Nick Danger

But the joke didn't work. Curse doesn't really have a scene that will stick in her head for fifteen years. "Here's where the doctor says that the girl is too imaginative."

Neitzl

I don't do any real edits, too much time. I would change the source for the video projector, to say, the computers desktop. It's been pretty funny at times. I know it takes one out of the film, but hey, I like my job!

Others I've shown:
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Un Chien Andalou (everyone should see this...)
Frankenstein
Primer
Return of the Joker
Aliens
Run Lola, Run
Lost in Translation
This Is Spinal Tap
Gimme Shelter
......

OldBoy

we are, with permission slips sent first, but i am still hesitant to show anything that would be remotely controversial.

Jason

I think Run Lola Run might be a good bet as a first film. The chances they've seen it on TV are about zero, it's easy to follow, relatively short, shouldn't need editing, and it's got a lot going on. Plenty of symbolism to discuss, lots of fancy camera work and editing, and above all, it's a good movie.

OldBoy

i love the movie don't get me wrong, but i would be a little leery of showing a subtitled movie as first.

OldBoy

And the first film is...

Kids are loving it!

Drexl

That's good to hear. BTW, what is the money for? I figured you'd just be taking the discs from your personal collection.

TimeandTide

The stipends I get (as adviser for the creative writing club, for instance), are typically for the extra hours involved in running the club. Guessing Scott is getting paid a bit extra for the effort.

rbrown498

Just a heads-up, for what it's worth:

I used to be a public high school librarian, and I would guest lecture twice a year in the "Introduction to Fine Arts" class. The teachers would squeeze me in somewhere around Halloween, so that I could teach a class on the history of horror films (which the kids LOVED), and then in the spring I'd do a more general history of cinema. I always started the class with a video clip quiz--20 15-second-or-so clips from films that one would think that the kids SHOULD know. Usually, the only clip in the cinema history class that kids would recognize was one from The Wizard of Oz.

But I digress. When I was getting the clips together for the history of horror films class, the other librarian (who also happened to be the superintendent's wife) warned me against using the shower scene from Psycho. When I asked why, she said that a teacher elsewhere in the state had shown Psycho in class at school and had been fired for it.

So, for those R-rated movies that have been suggested, I would approach them with extreme caution. There are still plenty of classic films to show that WON'T jeopardize your continued employment.

Oh...one more thing. I always included a bit in each lecture about aspect ratios. I showed a clip from the pan-and-scan version of 2001, freezing the frame at one point to discuss exactly what we could see. Then I'd show the same clip in its proper aspect ratio, pointing out how much more we could see and how better balanced the compositions were, even though the whole television screen wasn't being used (yeah, this WAS 10-11 years ago). The kids had never actually seen a comparison of the two, and it usually changed the minds of a few of 'em at least.

OldBoy

no, i'm not getting paid. $$ is for any movies we can't bring in and have to buy. little odds and ends. we have one of those big popcorn makers at school, so i am thinking kernels, popcorn bags etc...

foofighters7

I applaud your efforts and make sure you mix in plenty of International films.

Ringo20000

Some that haven't been mentioned yet:

Rushmore
Ghost World
Ghostbusters
Memento

Here is a good list of the 20 best long takes:

http://www.geekweek.com/2010/01/20-g...e-history.html

You probably can't show most of these films, but you could get away with most of the clips.

ikiilecru371

Dark City
Royal Tenenbaums
Brazil
Raging Bull
25th Hour
Serpico

Not sure if any of these were mentioned or not. I know Children of Men was mentioned, and I definitely second that.