Flashback #2: Dangerous Minds (1995)
July 29th 2010 13:06
Ok watched this movie last night. I have not seen it in over ten years. I love the soundtrack for this movie and the acting wasn't all that bad. The story is good but sometimes it seems the strechted alot to get the movie to a certain point. This is one of those movies you could watch every ten years and not be mad. There is no way i could watch this movie every year i would skip ahead to certain parts and that is it.
Plot of Movie from Wikipedia:
LouAnne Johnson (Michelle Pfeiffer), a retired U.S. Marine, applies for a teaching job at Parkmont High School in California, and is surprised and pleased to be offered the position with immediate effect. Turning up the next day to begin teaching, however, she finds herself confronted with a classroom of tough, sullen teenagers, all from lower-class and underprivileged backgrounds, involved in gang warfare and drug pushing, flatly refusing to engage with anything. They immediately coin the nickname "White Bread" for LouAnne, due to her Caucasian appearance and apparent lack of authoritativeness, to which LouAnne responds by returning the next day in a leather jacket and teaching them karate. The students show some interest in such activities, but immediately revert to their former behaviour when LouAnne tries to teach the curriculum.
Desperate to "get them," LouAnne devises classroom exercises that teach similar principles to the prescribed work, but using themes and language that appeal to the streetwise students. She also tries to motivate them by giving them all an A grade from the beginning of the year, and arguing that the only thing required of them is that they maintain it. In order to introduce them to poetry, LouAnne uses the lyrics of Bob Dylan's 'Mr. Tambourine Man' to teach symbolism and metaphor; once this is achieved, she progresses on to Dylan Thomas's 'Do not go gentle into that good night'. LouAnne rewards the students liberally, using candy bars, reward incentives, and an entire school trip to a theme park. Her methods attract the anger of the school authorities, George Grandey (Courtney B. Vance) and Carla Nichols (Robin Bartlett), who try to force her to remain within the curriculum.
Particular individual students attract LouAnne's attention for their personal problems. Callie Roberts (Bruklin Harris) is an unusually bright girl who excels at English, but is removed from the school halfway through the semester when she becomes pregnant. LouAnne visits her outside of school hours to try and persuade her to continue with further education. Raúl Sanchero (Renoly Santiago) is a well-meaning boy who is frequently involved in gang warfare and street crime. LouAnne tries to encourage him to focus by paying a special visit to his family to congratulate him on his work, and going to dinner with him as a way of instilling confidence and self-respect. Emilio Ramírez (Wade Domínguez) is her most troublesome personal project, as he believes strongly in a sense of personal honour that prevents him from asking for help. When LouAnne discovers that his life is in danger because of a personal grudge held by a recently-released thug, she tries to protect him, but due to the cold attitude of the school, he is abandoned at the crucial moment and is subsequently killed.
At the end of the year, she announces to the class that she will not be continuing to teach at the school, which prompts an unbridled display of emotion from the students who refuse to let her leave. Overwhelmed, she reconsiders the decision.
Side Notes:
On August 26, 1998,Wade Domínguez died of respiratory failure at Midway Hospital at 32 years of age.
Beatrice Winde who played Mary Benton died of cancer in Manhattan two days before her eightieth birthday.
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