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!