It was time to change up a couple of shelves on the great Wall O’ Cool, so I began to wander the store and see what movies popped out at me. I hoped that through this process a theme would form.

The first title that caught my eye was Wonder Boys. One of my favorite movies, it stars Michael Douglas as Professor Grady Tripp, a college professor and has-been writer who is having a very bad weekend. His third wife leaves him, his crazy editor wants his long-awaited but still unfinished novel, his married mistress finds out she’s pregnant, and two students with their own issues add into the mix. The movie co-stars Robert Downey, Jr., Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand and Katie Holmes. Brilliant writing.

So I found my first film….what is the theme?

Crazy teachers.

So I grabbed Dead Poet’s Society, with Robin Williams daring to have individual thought at a boy’s prep school in the 1950’s. He is manic, strange and pisses off all the stuffed shirts by teaching everyone to “seize the day.”

Half Nelson stars Ryan Gosling as an inner city high school history teacher who befriends one of his students after she catches him doing drugs. The story is dark and strange, but the acting is excellent.

Since I didn’t want to much seriousness with this crazy teacher bit, I grabbed Art School Confidential with John Malkovich playing Professor Sandiford, a pompous art teacher who starts his class by telling everyone they should have become bankers.

Charlie Bartlett is about a boy who learns to fit in to public school after being booted by a bunch of private schools. His principal is Mr. Gardner (Robert Downey, Jr.), an educator who has lost faith in the system.

Also in the humorous department, we have Orange County, a film that has quite a few psycho educators. Lily Tomlin, Chevy Chase, Harold Ramis, Kevin Kline and my favorite, Mike White, who has some great insight on Shakespeare.

Notes on a Scandal stars Judi Dench as a teacher whose whacked out mind decides she needs to punish the new art teacher (Cate Blanchett) because of a tiny indiscretion involving an affair with a student. Don’t cross the scary old lady…

Lastly is Kinsey, the story of Alfred Kinsey, a biology professor who decides to investigate human sexuality and write the definitive study on it. I can’t decide whether he would be a cool science teacher whose honesty would be refreshing, or just a skeevy old guy who wants to know what’s going on behind closed doors. Good film though!

So that is my theme. I am sure we have a bunch more films that have super bizarre teachers, but 5000 titles is a lot to look through!

So Bruce Willis, Steve Martin, and John Cusack have all had the glory of being featured on our wall of cool stuff. I figured it was high time an actress had her turn. I barely had to think about who I would choose.

Cate Blanchett of course!

She can handle the meaty dramatic roles, dry comedic ones and can even pass for an ethereal, yet creepy elf.  So I grabbed a selection of Cate’s film’s from the shelves to share with our customers.

In her most recent role Cate plays Daisy, the love of Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Cate’s Daisy must deal with loving Benjamin as he ages backwards through his adventurous life.

In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Cate plays Irina Spalko, a Soviet psychic hell bent on taking a crystal skull from Dr. Jones and gaining power that could endanger the Western world. Not my favorite Indy movie, but Blanchett is a great bad girl!

Cate did the best at embodying the spirit of Bob Dylan in I’m Not There. She plays Jude, a character so Dylan like it is positively eerie. Also starring Heath Ledger, Richard Gere and Christian Bale as other incarnations of Dylan.

In Notes on a Scandal, Blanchett plays Sheba Hart, a free-spirited art teacher who catches the attention of the nearly retired battle-ax of a teacher, Barbara Covett (an always brilliant Judi Dench). Covett soon discovers Hart’s sexual indiscretion with a student and feeling betrayed, plots revenge on Hart.

Cate plays Susan Jones in Babel. The wife of Richard Jones (played by Brad Pitt), the couple is struck with tragedy as they are vacationing in Morocco. This touches off an interconnecting story of four groups of people who, while divided by distance and cultural differences, will discover a shared destiny.

In Charlotte Gray, Blanchett plays a young Scottish woman who joins the French Resistance during World War II to rescue her Royal Air Force boyfriend who is lost in France.

Her ethereal turn as Galadriel, the elfin princess/witch in Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring as well as all the other Rings movies, gives me the willies every time I see her. Spooky and beautiful, that’s Cate!

Finally, we have one of the films that helped propel Cate to A list actress. She plays the title role in Elizabeth, the story of Queen Elizabeth I. In this role Cate handles war, romance and the possibility of losing her head if she does not please her country and those running it.

All in all a good selection. While I wish we currently had copies of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou or The Missing, two of my more favored Blanchett roles, I think there is always plenty to choose from in her repertoire!

Enjoy!!