The Holdovers (2023)

Had I remembered that this was set around Christmas, I would have waited until late July if not December. As it was, I knew only that it was an Academy Best Picture-nominated comedy drama featuring Paul Giamatti. And that it was available on Prime.

Paul Hunham (Giamatti, naturally) is the Scroogiest teacher at a prestigious New England boarding school in 1970. Since he's unpopular and was going to spend winter break at the school anyway, he is assigned to supervise five boys who can't go home for one reason or another. Unlike the headmaster (Andrew Garman), he believes that the students need extra discipline at this time. Four of them get parental permission to go on a ski trip instead, leaving the neglected, rebellious, yet rather scholastically adept Angus (Dominic Sessa) alone with Hunham, cook Mary (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), and occasionally custodian Danny (Naheem Garcia).

Mean Girls (2004)

That's right, the original, not the musical currently in theaters. I had no desire to see it when it debuted, but people have continued to make references to it. Then I put it on my Netflix list and kept passing it over. What finally persuaded me? A limited DVD selection at the Red Cross while I gave platelets. (That unit was having technical difficulties with streaming.)

Cady (Lindsay Lohan) has been homeschooled up until age 16, leaving her good at grades but naive about the social environment at her new high school. Her first friends are outcasts, Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese), who warn her about the elitist clique known as the Plastics, especially leader Regina (Rachel McAdams), Janis's former friend. Nevertheless, when the Plastics invite Cady to join, she doesn't resist. Janis sees this as a golden opportunity to gather dirt on them and possibly engineer revenge. Cady agrees after discovering how bad Regina is -- and then comes dangerously close to becoming just like her.

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019)

I think the only other film I've seen set even partly in Bhutan is Little Buddha. By contrast, this one was shot entirely there, under rigorous conditions, by a Bhutanese production company. That alone would give me a reason to check it out, in addition to the Best Foreign Film nomination and the intriguing added subtitle.

In Thimphu, Ugyen (Sherab Dorji) is a terribly unmotivated teacher who would rather pursue a singing career in Australia, but his teaching contract demands one more year. He is reassigned to the sole elementary school in Lunana, a mountain village so remote it requires days of hiking to reach. Almost as soon as he arrives, he sees how underresourced it is and wants to go back, but he'll have to wait a week while his guides and their mules rest up. In the meantime, he might as well teach. Thankfully, he has enough discipline not to leave before the conclusion of a lesson....

Finding Forrester (2000)

I had known director Gus Van Sant only for Good Will Hunting, Milk, and a segment of Paris, je t'aime. When I learned that FF resembles GWH in that its protagonist is a young man who tends to hide his brilliance so as not to stand out from his lower-class buddies, I got interested. One key difference intrigued me further: It's about writing.

Between basketball skills and test scores, sixteen-year-old Jamal Wallace (breakout Rob Brown, who had expected to be an extra!) gets a scholarship to attend a ritzy private school, which he accepts with some uncertainty, since it's a very different culture from his usual environs. Around the same time, on a dare, he attempts to burglarize the apartment of a locally feared, mysterious recluse (Sean Connery) but panics and leaves behind a backpack full of his secret writings. The recluse, one William Forrester, returns them with a load of constructive criticism, which inspires Jamal to come back for more. It takes Jamal a while to figure out that William is a literary one-hit wonder who's pretty much disappeared for half a century (based loosely on J.D. Salinger). Naturally, each one can learn from the other, with William gradually opening up to Jamal and then people in general.

Booksmart (2019)

I wasn't particularly taken with what I knew of this movie going in. Sure, I was a high school nerd once, but it's not really my scene anymore, and modern comedies are always a gamble for me. But it had been a while since I last accepted a Meetup invitation. Besides, I liked Eighth Grade, and this might not be so different.

Valedictorian Molly and her one friend, Amy, feel pretty good about having prioritized study over everything else -- until they learn that their party-going classmates also got into prestigious schools. Now they, especially Molly, want to attend a wild pre-graduation party so they don't miss out on the experience altogether. Their first major obstacle is even finding the party they have in mind, since they received no personal invitation. Obviously, it wouldn't be much of a story if they didn't end up forming interesting memories, but will their efforts be worth the costs?

The Class (2008)

It's a little strange that I should see this film in 2019. The last time I heard anyone talk about it was a decade ago, when it was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards. Mainly I got intrigued by the preview, but to wait this long, I must have also felt some reluctance.

It certainly doesn't boast an original premise: François Marin (François Bégaudeau) teaches ninth-grade French in a Parisian school with an all-White staff and a mostly non-White, foreign-born student body, about half of whom Marin already knows from a previous year. This is based on Bégaudeau's semi-autobiography. (Most of the cast members use their real first names.)

My Mother's Castle (1990)

Had I realized that this was a sequel to My Father's Glory, I would have given higher priority to the latter. But since the two movies were released in the same year, I imagine that many viewers did not watch MFG first. Besides, MMC does a fine job of standing on its own; I never felt like I missed anything.

The Netflix summary is a tad misleading. While much of the plot does focus on how a vacationing family resorts to regular trespassing to save time, making it only a matter of time before trouble rears its ugly head, there are several matters to attend to before and after that. For example, preteen protagonist Marcel finds himself under uncomfortable pressure, not least from his teacher father, to participate in a big scholastic competition. He also falls for a pretty snob who gets him to do dumb things for her.

Sounder (1972)

Dramatic movies about dogs tend not to end happily. Stories that won Newbery Medals have that reputation even more so. Perhaps it's fortunate that the title character has less importance to this movie than Toto has to The Wizard of Oz or Asta has to the Thin Man series. Either he plays a bigger part in the book, or he serves a metaphor.

The real focus is on David Lee Morgan, circa age 11, eldest son in a poor Black family of sharecroppers in 1933 Louisiana. Early on, his father steals and gets sent to a prison camp, leaving the rest even more desperate. At his mother's request, David Lee goes on a mission to find and visit the camp, with Sounder tagging along.

Queen of Katwe (2016)

Ads for this movie jumped out at me because, for the first time to my knowledge, Disney was portraying native sub-Saharan African humans. Specifically set in Uganda, with a number of authentic Ugandans, tho they had to settle for South African backdrops and cast members much of the time. I appreciate that most of the actors, regardless of age, had little to no prior experience, so they probably gained a bit. And we the viewers lose nothing from it.

The story covers in brief the adolescence of real-life Phiona Mutesi (herein played by Madina Nalwanga) from 2007 to 2012. Coming from one of the poorest families in one of the poorest regions of an overall poor country, she doesn't expect to make much of her life. Then missionary Robert Katende (David Oyelowo) discovers her talent for chess and encourages her to compete as far as she can. Of course, in true Disney fashion, her mother (Lupita Nyong'o, evidently employed only by Disney nowadays), not without reason, does not readily see the value in having her stray from her assumed position in the world. And Phiona herself repeatedly doubts her worth.

Not One Less (1999)

Zhang Yimou might be best known in the west for directing action flicks, including the wuxia variety, like Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Most recently, he has disappointed audiences with The Great Wall. But I have seen even more of his films in the drama genre, most of them following common hardships of people in China. This is one of those.

In a remote village, the only available substitute teacher at a dwindling elementary school is 13-year-old Wei Minzhi. She has been promised a monetary reward if none of the students drop out during her month of teaching. When 11-year-old Zhang Huike gets sent to the nearest city, Zhangjiakou, for work, Wei and the class put their heads together for the best way to fetch him. Ultimately, Wei alone heads for the city, with very little money to spend.

Handsome Devil (2016)

Wow, only 31 IMDb votes before mine and no comments. Leave it to AFI to dig up obscure foreign titles. Still, an 8.7 is nothing to sneeze at, so my parents and I went for it.

Narrator Ned, at 16, wishes he'd be allowed to drop out. Anyone at his boarding school who doesn't love rugby, such as himself, is an outcast subject to anti-gay slurs, and administrators do nothing to make outcasts' lives easier. He prefers to keep to himself, cheating on assignments to retain plenty of time to do basically nothing. When he gets a roommate, Conor, who has been a rugby star elsewhere and promises to be one here, Ned thinks his luck just got even worse. But Conor isn't all he pretends to be, and they do bond over music. Furthermore, Dan Sherry, a new teacher who combines strict discipline with relative coolness, encourages his students to be their best. If only the rugby coach saw things his way...

Mr. Holland's Opus (1995)

I was starting to think that I shouldn't bother seeing any more films about inspirational teachers. They're usually enjoyable, but they threaten to run together after a while. MHO triggered a further alarm by having a pretty long runtime: 2:23. I did note that Glenn Holland was a music teacher, but would school band music soothe me enough to sustain my interest? Then I remembered how much fun it was to watch Richard Dreyfuss in The Goodbye Girl and made up my mind.

The film begins in the early '60s, when Holland joins the faculty of a high school newly renamed after JFK. He just wants to pay the bills while hoping for his big break as an orchestral composer, but teaching is not for the half-hearted. The students seem even less-hearted, if you will, until he figures out how to speak their musical language -- to the dismay of the principal (Olympia Dukakis) and especially the vice principal (William H. Macy), who fear backlash from rock 'n' roll-hating parents. After that, Holland nearly forgets his ambitions, continuing to teach for the next three decades.

The Great Debaters (2007)

Somehow, I hadn't heard about Denzel Washington's second directorial effort when it was new. Perhaps I just wasn't paying attention in the right circles yet, or perhaps the combination of old-time Black struggles and, well, college debates didn't lend itself to mainstream discussion, despite praise from Roger Ebert among others. But those defining attributes did pique my interest.

Inspired by true events -- too loosely for a good history lesson -- the story follows Prof. Melvin B. Tolson (Washington) and his Wiley College debate team in 1930s Texas. The team has such a successful track record that Harvard (rather than the University of Southern California as in real life) eventually accepts their challenge. Alas, Tolson's pro-union activities get him in too much trouble to be there for the team in Cambridge, and Harvard insists that the teammates write their own arguments. Difficult, but you can see the ending a mile away.

Rachel, Rachel (1968)

Paul Newman's first time as a director netted him and wife/star Joanne Woodward several awards and nominations. It's one of those generally credible dramas that focuses on a small number of ordinary people in ordinary situations, which almost merit a subgenre classification. I only wish this movie offered fun, too.