Crappy movies you watched in school

[Jordacar]

Kids always like watching movies. Sometimes school teachers sit their young students down to watch an educational movie, or a venerable film classic. But sometimes it's clear that the teachers just like their students to shut up for 80 minutes while they go to the playground and smoke weed, so they'll throw on the latest flavor-of-the-week disposable piece of celluloid.

That being said, what less-than-classic movies do you recall enduring while you were attending grade school?

[Tobias]

I forget what the name of it was, but it was some 70's movie about life in prison that we had to watch during high school- and yes, the subject of man on man rape was touched upon. Luckily it was taped off of Fox (back when it was just mostly syndicated stuff before it became a network) so we didn't have to watch anything too graphic.

Grade school? Secret of Nimh. There, I said it, I never liked that movie.

[defunctzombie]

The only one I can think of is that awful War of the Worlds remake with Cruise in it. That was when I was in 11 or 12 grade. (My elementary school didn't have too many televisions so I can't remember watching much!)

[EinBebop]

Not completely on topic.... but some of my memorable experiences showing movies and such to classes:

• First of all, I can't tell you how annoying it is to show the first 50 minutes of a movie that I've never seen before... FIVE OR SIX TIMES (period schedules!), and wondering how it ends.
• "Inappropriate" Movies: I forgot about a couple of slightly nude scenes in Excalibur, and apparently so did that middle school teacher. I'd also never seen Pleasantville until one day in a high school literature class. That orgasm scene certainly took me by surprise.
• A PBS series called "Voyage of the Mimi", when the main kid in the show gave a public service message at the end wherein he introduced himself:

"Hi. I'm Ben Affleck."

[J'onn J'onzz]

We watched some pretty random stuff at my old school. Like, I can't count how many times we watched Shrek. In high school. We watched Finding Nemo a ton, too. Honestly, it was just kind of sad. Neither movie is TERRIBLE, but do they really think we're dumb enough that we can only handle CGI movies? Oh and we watched Boy Meets World in English, that was hilarious. Oh yeah and Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor in World History. I hated that movie. Oh, and Elf in Speech... I could go on and on...

[Classic Speedy]

I'll never forget, one time in Current Issues we finished a movie and as soon as it got done, the teacher put ANOTHER movie in. That was a light work week. One of the movies was The Chamber; I don't remember the name of the other one but it dealt with an inner city murder.

There were a lot of forgettable movies I watched in school, though I DO remember watching Patton in junior high, and that was awesome. There was also a movie about Stalin starring Robert Duvall which was fun, simply for his portrayal of the infamous dictator. And one of my favorite classic films, 12 Angry Men, was watched in school too.

We also watched Romeo & Juliet, the 1968 version. Apparently there was a nude scene but I never got to see it because I had to go practice forensics. All the guys were talking about it and rubbing it in, though.

[AhmedtheHead]

We watched some pretty random stuff at my old school. Like, I can't count how many times we watched Shrek. In high school. We watched Finding Nemo a ton, too. Honestly, it was just kind of sad. Neither movie is TERRIBLE, but do they really think we're dumb enough that we can only handle CGI movies?

You should have been to my elementary school, where they played the movie Matilda probably a BILLION TIMES during the lunch periods (Classes would sit down in the gym and watch a video before being called to the cafeteria to eat their food). I recall one day when the students got so sick of seeing the movie, they started booing. (We had to spend the period standing up with the TV off until my class was called to eat lunch).

It was a good movie, but I can understand the student's responses. Surely they had other tapes to play!

[J. B. Warner]

I don't know if this counts, since it's more of a near-miss of a crappy movie, but in eighth grade (1999/2000, the year I went Pokémon crazy - and I do mean crazy, as in probably certifiably insane and nobody noticed), I begged and pleaded with my teacher to let me show Pokémon the First Movie in class. Seriously, for weeks on end, I tried method after method, desperate for some way to make it look like the movie was educational. Finally, we had one of those "just shut up and watch a movie" days, and I brought the video in with me, hoping that I'd get my chance at last - but no dice. (I think we watched A Goofy Movie instead.) So I sat in the back of the room with my back to the TV and my hands over my ears and just re-read the video box over and over again for the entire hour and a half.

Again, I must remind you that this all happened when I was 13. Not 5 or 6 or anything like that.

[Rocketboy]

We also watched Romeo & Juliet, the 1968 version. Apparently there was a nude scene but I never got to see it because I had to go practice forensics. All the guys were talking about it and rubbing it in, though.

The teacher was gone during that scene, so some kids rewound it to that scene.

[ToOn~g@l]

Does college count because a few semesters I took a book vs. Cinema class or something like that, I forget the name, and we were forced to watch this aweful movie called Beowulf and Grendel. It was just terrible, I could not wait for that movie to end, waisted 90 minutes of my life.

[Zorak Masaki]

We watched Stand and Deliver in, of all classes, spanish class, and it wasnt even the Spanish dub. It wasnt exactly a bad movie, but to this day i wonder why they chose that class to show it in.

[EinBebop]

We watched Stand and Deliver in, of all classes, spanish class, and it wasnt even the Spanish dub. It wasnt exactly a bad movie, but to this day i wonder why they chose that class to show it in.

I wouldn't try to read too much into it. If a teacher decides to show a movie instead of teach, but actually wants to show a movie that has more educational value than a Shrek, 'Stand and Deliver' and 'Lean on Me' would be the first two movies that would come to the minds of most thirty-something teachers because we were shown those movies so many times ourselves.

[Anime Freak]

omg, "Indian in the Cupboard" , it was alrite the first time,but after that the countless other times reminded me of what a terrible movie it was.

[carlaspirit]

The 1990 "Lord of the Flies" movie. I kid you not, one of the kids talked about Alf.

We also watched "Michael" in Spanish (your guess is as good as mine).

[Tenku]

Out of all the movies we watched in Chemistry, we just had to watch The Core.

*sigh* Well, it's not like the teacher was there anyway, so I didn't pay any sort of attention.

[Michael24]

Hmmm... I can't recall many movies we watched in elementary school, and of the few that I can, they were ones we mostly enjoyed.

In junior high I remember watching The Candidate with Robert Redford in my History/Government class. Which no one seemed to like since, let's face it, how many 13/14 year old kids are "into" politics? (Though I imagine it's a movie that I could probably at least appreciate nowadays since I'm older.)

In my high school Science class we watched an old TV movie called Race For The Double Helix with Jeff Goldblum, about the discovery of the human DNA structure. I think many of the kids in the class hated it because it was "old," but I remember enjoying it. And on the last day before Christmas vacation, our History/English class had a vote on what movie to watch, since there wasn't much in the way of assignments that day. Ferris Bueller won out. My first time seeing it. How I managed to stay awake and actually see the end I'll never know.

And I saw plenty of movies in my college film classes designated "classics" or otherwise "important" films which I thought were pure snorefests.

[Old Guy]

The 1990 "Lord of the Flies" movie.

I saw that in my 10th grade English class after we had finished reading the book. The book was amazing and the movie was HORRIBLE.

Also, let's discuss good movies that teachers over-do. For example, I didn't really need to see Schindler's List in every history class I have ever taken.

Going back to bad movies, in my 12th grade Government class we watched 1776: The Musical. Who knew our founding fathers were such great singers.

[HomeMoviesFan]

And on the last day before Christmas vacation, our History/English class had a vote on what movie to watch, since there wasn't much in the way of assignments that day. Ferris Bueller won out. My first time seeing it. How I managed to stay awake and actually see the end I'll never know.

You might be the first person I've ever known to hate that movie. No disrespect, but you know, everyone (including myself) loves that movie.

On the subject, I remember in U.S. History AP in junior year of high school we watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington after the big exam. Everyone, being intelligent and thus probably having a better taste in movies, relished the viewing along with myself. Two months later, in summer school government (I needed the credit out of the way for my theatre electives), we watched Mr. Smith, and nearly the entire classroom snoozed through the entire thing. A lone girl who joined me in watching declared after it was over "BORING!" Sigh, oh, summer school...

[Michael24]

We also saw Mr. Smith Goes To Washington in middle school, though I don't recall much about it. I do know that most kids in my classes tend to automatically dislike any old black-and-white movie.

You might be the first person I've ever known to hate that movie. No disrespect, but you know, everyone (including myself) loves that movie.

I know it's popular, and I admit I've seen worse, but I just never saw the big deal about it. Or most John Hughes movies for that matter.

[Old Guy]

You might be the first person I've ever known to hate that movie. No disrespect, but you know, everyone (including myself) loves that movie.

Yea, man. That's a movie I thought everyone loved as well. lol.

Sigh, oh, summer school...

I'll never forget the summer school in-between 10th and 11th grade. I had to go to another school since mine wasn't having summer for some reason. I guess they wanted to save money or something. I don't know. Anyway, the school I went was in the rich neighborhood. And, believe it or not, they had HBO. Seriously. lol.