Hi! I’m Pete! You may remember me from such Troy McLure knockoffs as this intro! That educational video inspired this latest batch of Covid Classics. We’re off to schools of all shapes and sizes, in the hopes of gaining some higher learning of some kind.
Below are 6 Movies with course titles and descriptions. Take them at your own risk. Seriously. A couple of them might be real fatal for you.
Young vegetarian joins her older sister at a Veterinary University in France, and learns why it’s not smart to eat meat.
Why It’s Good
Julia Ducournau’s first feature is a fascinating film that could only be made in France. Garance Marillier plays a girl in her first year at vet school: a shy timid soul unprepared for the social and sexual awakening that university is going to to be. A common college awakening is given terrifying life through Ducournau’s story, which finds a strange new way to explore those feelings. It’s visceral, but exciting stuff, building to a harrowing climax in all its bloody, grotesque glory while never losing sight of its main characters and their totally grounded emotional turmoil/growth.
Course Title/ Description
Nutrition 5637, or LEGS on a calculator: Don’t pledge a fraternity or you become a cannibal.
A middle school girl goes about her life in suburban New Jersey.
Why It’s Good
In the middle of the feel good 90s is maybe one of the more cynical, funnier movies I’ve seen about growing up. Heather Matarazzo plays the part she was born to play: Dawn Weiner, a completely awkward middle schooler bullied at school by awful people and at home by her neglectful parents and “overachieving” siblings. Of all my stages of growing up, middle school was by far the worst, and Todd Solondz holds no punches in his depiction of how vile that time is, especially for the ugly awkward kids. Inside his horror comedy of middle school living is a real emotional tale about how some of us just get dealt a bad hand, and there’s nothing we can do but learn to play the game, if that’s even possible. But let’s sing that school fight song kids!
Course Title/ Description
Family Understanding 911, or FU for short: If you make up horrible stories about your family, they come true!
A college reunion between a group of friends 20ish years after college ended
Why It’s Good
Now for something a tad lighter: middle age angst. Reuniting after the death of a friend, this disparate group of people who were friends in college reminisce positively and negatively about what they have become. Lawrence Kasdan, an amazing writer, gets SO close to something amazing here, as each of his intimidatingly good cast (William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Glenn Close, Tom Berenger, Jeff Goldblum, and JoBeth Williams among others) confronts their past and their present. The results have big highs (Glenn Close/William Hurt’s arc) and frustrating lows (how all the resolutions cop out with physical acts), but are always compelling, complete with a killer soundtrack.
Course Title/ Description
Midlife Crisis 69: Michigan football is a major aphrodesiac.
After accidentally sending his sex tape to his long distance girlfriend, a guy and his buddies go on a road trip to recover the tape before she sees it.
Why It’s Good
The frat boy comedy has a long, storied, vile but hilarious tradition. What makes this one special is who directed it: Todd Phillips. You can see seedlings of Old School and The Hangover in this movie: school is secondary to the party atmosphere, with Breckin Meyer a trial run version of Luke Wilson’s Old School character, Tom Green an early version of Zach Galifanakis, doing his own weird thing. Most importantly, Phillips’s eye for an evil laugh shows a glimpse of the future, better comedies he’d make, as we get very funny uses of blind theft and cult suicide that made me burst out laughing a couple times.
Course Title/ Description
Toxic Masculinity 80085, BOOBS on a calculator: Women like filming their sexual encounters, one of the 80085 things the movie famously gets wrong about how women, you know, think and act.
A look at the world of Blaine, Missouri’s, local theatre thespians on the eve of Blaine’s 150th anniversary.
Why It’s Good
Rob Reiner started the mockumentary format with This Is Spinal Tap. But Christopher Guest is the true master of the form, creating a host of films in this style, including this one, his best. There’s just something innately funny about a local theater production getting delusions of grandeur, and listening to the amazing cast (Guest himself, Fred Willard, Parker Posey, Eugene Levy, and Catherine O’Hara for you Schitt’s Creek stans!) pontificate about how important this production will be in their lives and futures just delivers laugh after laugh, building to that great over the top 150th Anniversary show.
Course Title/ Description
Theatre -101: the opposite of Theater +101, which would actually teach you something: Keep dentists from trying out for community theatre!
A boy and girl growing up share a love of basketball, which complicates their relationship as they journey from child to adult.
Why It’s Good
What a delight of a romance! Sanaa Lathan is a revelation playing a girl gifted with an ability to ball, and the acting talent to carry incredible emotionally charged scenes throughout her decades long relationship with Omar Epps. The pair are amazing together, as their relative status complicates their evolving feelings towards one another as time marches on. The movie also has a lot to say about athletes, gender dynamics, and fame while telling its swoon worthy tale.
Course Title/ Description
Sports Psychology 247: Games of pickup basketball can be as romantic as anything else in this world.
