Thursday, February 10, 2011
To Sir, With Love
IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself
The ol' motivational teacher movie. Was this the first? I don't know, probably not. It's is definitely not the last though. There's bloody thousands of them.
I guess by today's standards this is a slight film. Those rebellious teens don't seem too rebellious. I don't have the luxury of knowing the context in which this film was released so I can only judge it by the countless other films that came after it. By their standards, it's very straight forward.
Holy crap this is the first time I've ever seen Sidney Poitier act in a film. (besides The Jackal remake, but I don't even remember that, let alone him in it.) How can this be? I always wondered who that dude was that got that lifetime achievement Oscar in 2004. He was a black school teacher in England somewhere.
So, when teaching rebellious teens, I don't recommend having a boxing match with them. I do recommend field trips told with funky 60's photo montages. That was awesome. I do love British fashion in the 60's.
I'm afraid that's all I took away from this film. It wrapped up then kept going for half an hour. They also managed to work in a pop song. Good for them.
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I quite liked it - taped it when it was on TV last year sometime.
ReplyDeleteIt was sentimental, yes, but kinda innocent in it's depiction of troubled kids just needing a decent father figure in their lives.
Poitier is a charismatic lead, also good in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner with stellar support from the indomitable Kate and irascible Spencer :)
Yeah it was good. I should definitely see guess whos coming to dinner, that's another classic I know of but never got around to seeing.
ReplyDeleteGuess Who's Coming to Dinner is fantastic. His best. I watched To Sir, With Love for the first time only two weeks ago. I gave it a 42/100. It was bland and meandering. More to the point though, I don't actually think he was a good teacher! Short tempered, called students sluts, yelled, was closed to those around him, fought students (wtf?!).
ReplyDeleteIt was no Dead Poets that's for sure.