WHAT WE'RE WATCHING
The Westerly Public Library Reference Staff
suggests these titles.
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Fall 2007
Fall means back to school.
So what could be better than some great high school movies?
Which one reminds your of your school days?
1950s - Rebel Without a Cause
In one of the most influential performances in movie history, James Dean plays the new kid in town whose loneliness, frustration and anger mirrored those of postwar teens - and still reverberate 50 years later. Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo were Academy Award nominees for their achingly true performances.
1960s - American Graffiti
American Graffiti captures the look, feel, and sound of 1962 by chronicling one memorable night in the lives of several young Californians on the cusp of adulthood. The action is propelled by the music of Wolfman Jack's rock & roll radio show--a soundtrack of pop hits that would become as popular as the film itself. The once-in-a-lifetime ensemble cast members inhabit their roles so fully that they don't seem like actors at all, comprising a who's who of performers--some of whom went on to stellar careers--including Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, & Cindy Williams.
1970s - Dazed & Confused
You remember high school? Really remember? If you think you do, watch this film: it'll all really come racing back.. The story deals with a group of friends on the last day of high school, 1976. Good-natured football star Randall "Pink" Floyd navigates effortlessly between the warring worlds of jocks, stoners, wannabes, and rockers with girlfriend and new-freshman buddy in tow. Surprisingly, it's not a coming-of-age movie, but a film that dares ask the eternal, overwhelming, adolescent question, "What happens next?"
1980s - The Breakfast Club
John Hughes's popular 1985 teen drama finds a diverse group of high school students--a jock, a metalhead, a weirdo, a princess, and a nerd--sharing a Saturday in detention at their high school for one minor infraction or another. Over the course of a day, they talk through the social barriers that ordinarily keep them apart, and new alliances are born, though not without a lot of pain first.
1990s - Clueless
Set one is a world of cellular phones, nose jobs, and fast, funny mall-speak, where all the girls love sexy makeovers and all the boys are beautiful young pups. Alicia Silverstone plays a matchmaking high-school queen named Cher who is so naïvely confident that she doesn't see how manipulative her behavior is; like Jane Austen's heroine Emma, she's spoiled, but her heart is in the right place. With its charming performances, bubble-gum colors, and intentionally funny product placements, the movie is like a kiss in a candy store-silly and sweet.
2000s - Mean Girls
A new term at high school is even more of a trauma for Cady than it is for everybody else, since she is not just an out-of-towner but an out-of-Africa, her parents having raised her as a bush baby. Now she is confronted with the complexity of school loyalties and fads, which are twice as bloodlusty as the lives of African fauna.
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