Lean On Me (1989)
Directed by John G. Avildsen
When principal Joe Clark takes over decaying Eastside High School, he's faced with students wearing gang colors and graffiti-covered walls. Determined to do anything he must to turn the school around, he expels suspected drug dealers, padlocks doors and demands effort and results from students, staff and parents. Autocratic to a fault, this real-life educator put it all on the line.
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What critics compared Lean On Me to
Based on a real life coach, also named Ken Carter (who's been hitting talk shows with Jackson to promote the film), Carter takes an approach that's part Lean on Me meets Hoosiers, part Stand and Deliver meets Friday Night Lights, and okay, maybe a little White Shadow, too.
You've seen "Coach Carter" before in the guise of such films as "Hoosiers," "Remember the Titans" and "Lean on Me," or the less notable "The Replacements" or "Drumline."
As if timed to counteract these days of "basketbrawl" and snipes at Hollywood morality, along comes "Coach Carter," a true story, feel-good parable and a respectable, uplifting descendent of "To Sir, With Love" and "Lean On Me."
Based on the story of an actual Richmond, Calif., high school basketball coach who benched his undefeated team until some of its members got their grades up, "Coach Carter" falls squarely in the group-Pygmalion tradition established by Sidney Poitier in "To Sir, With Love" and faithfully carried on by Morgan Freeman in "Lean on Me," Michelle Pfeiffer in "Dangerous Minds," as well as countless others, in which a lone-educator-who-cares rides into the mean streets of town to battle complacent parents, craven bureaucrats, low expectations and moribund systems, and single-handedly save the school day.
We also hear loud echoes from 1989's Lean on Me (school principal Joe Clark hanging tough against hoods).
This one seems cobbled together from the most enjoyable parts of Lean on Me, Hoosiers, and Remember the Titans -- with a generous drop of Dead Poets Society thrown in towards the end.
In this case, it’s Cameron Diaz as Elizabeth Halsey, a middle-school teacher who doesn’t bother to learn her kids names and spends class time showing them movies about teachers (“Stand and Deliver,” “Lean on Me”) and guzzling from airline-size bottles of liquor she keeps hidden in a false bottom of a desk drawer.
Speaking of movie teachers, Liz gladly cedes her job to a string of them, starting with Edward James Olmos (“Stand and Deliver”) and Morgan Freeman (“Lean on Me”).
As for actually teaching students, it’s enough to pop “Stand and Deliver” or “Lean on Me” into the DVD player before she succumbs to the crippling hangover she habitually wakes up with.
Class with her consists of playing DVDs of goodish Hollywood movies like “Stand and Deliver,’’ “Lean on Me,’’ and “Dangerous Minds,’’ movies about brown kids fighting to subsist in bad situations, while she texts or drinks or sleeps.
“Lean on Me”? “Dangerous Minds”?
“Dangerous Minds,” “Stand and Deliver,” “Lean on Me” — movies about heroic teachers changing students’ lives, and all movies shown in Miss Elizabeth Halsey’s seventh grade English class at John Adams Middle School.
If you’ve never been exposed to Stand and Deliver or Dangerous Minds or Mr. Holland’s Opus or Dead Poets Society or Lean on Me or Music of the Heart or Finding Forrester or Pay It Forward or Take the Lead , then have at it: you’ll probably love it.
Coming after so many similar films—Stand and Deliver, Lean on Me, and, especially, Dangerous Minds come to mind—Freedom Writers has its work cut out.
How do we explain our perennial support for school-based films such as "Lean on Me," "Finding Forrester," "Mr.
We’ve even seen the principal get involved when it comes to getting those low test scores up in Lean on Me.
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You take “Lost Boys” mixed with “Lean On Me,” and we get the story of young Oskar, a young recluse who prefers the company of anyone but his parents and the bullies who torture him day in and day out.
Fey's sexy-smart style, exploited effectively in her role as semi-cool teacher Ms. Norbury, detonates a cluster-bomb of snappily paced humorous approaches: cultural detail (the girls' parlance includes the term "half a virgin"), visual allusions (Lord of the Flies and Lean on Me both crop up), and highly tuned absurdity: seen in passing, Regina's little sister emulates Kelis's "Milkshake" video and "Girls Gone Wild" in the background, an ominous Plastic in training.