When I was in college, in one of my last semesters I was in a film class, and that's an experience I'll never be able to block out of my mind. Right away the professor put up a bulletin, 'be prepared to be appalled, disgusted, uncomfortbable, etc', and she wasn't kidding, first we saw Shawshank Redemption which was alright, then Juno, only movie that made me fear my IQ would drop, Moulin Rouge, The Game, Donnie Darko, Requiem For a Dream (few movies ever make me want to puke but in that regard this one should be very proud of itself), and I don't even remember the name of the last one, something with Jack Nicholson as a gangster and a police force that was being killed off one by one.
All in all, it was a class I could've done without, and I started thinking, if I were to be in charge of a class like that, I think just to screw with people's heads I'd issue the same warning, and I could see it applying to a few films I'd pick, but my picks of what films everyone would see would be quite different, here are a few thing I was thinking of:
Thelma & Louise (apparently a lot of people feel threatened by this movie)
Harold and Maude (anybody who's seen this one will probably get where being appalled, disgusted, etc., comes in
Freaks
Crazy in Alabama
Holiday (1938) Yes hard to believe people could be insulted/opposed to a 30's Hepburn/Grant comedy but I recently had somebody call me and all others who like it a Marxist and traitors to America because they don't worship the working class system of punching a timeclock until you die
Also from 1938, You Can't Take it With You
And Justice For All, sure everybody knows the line 'You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order! They're out of order!' but how many people, especially young people today, know the whole story to that movie?
Stand Alone (1985) This one most people might actually cheer for because it's like the original Gran Torino but it doesn't have the PC solution of let the police deal with it, no no no, in this movie the policeman in charge is something of an ass and it's going to come down to this WWII veteran grandfather to protect his home and his family from a gang of assassins.
The Bat (1959) some people have actually credited this movie as being one of the first slasher films, and it manages to do that without blood, without guts, and as mind blowing as this is, without naked or half naked stupid teenaged girls running around everywhere.
Walking Tall (1973) Few people seem to know about this movie anymore, everybody knows the remake with the Rock, well I say screw that, let people find out about the original, and get a little insight to what REALLY happened in the 70's, yes a lot of it was Hollywood fabrication but there's a lot of truth in it as well.
Those are a few I'd pick if I was head of a film class, what would everyone else pick? Personally I say enough of catering to what everybody HAS seen like The Godfather or Titanic, and enough fo catering to what everybody WANTS to see, any run of the mill new movie coming out, give them things that they may or may not be familiar with, most likely are NOT, things that will shake them up and make them wonder.
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