7th: A Teacher

A teacher movie 2013A Teacher is a movie that will leave you feeling drained, even exhausted, as it revolves around obsession; a movie with no resolution except waiting for the other thud to drop. By continually deferring dramatic tension, the filmmaker puts more weight on the movie’s closing scenes — which are abrupt but true to life — than they can handle. This is not advertised as a family movie, as it portrays a relationship that yields many psychological insights.

The story

This movie explores the unraveling of a high school teacher in Austin, Texas, Diana (Lindsay Burdge), after she begins an affair with one of her teenage students, Eric (Will Brittain).

What starts as a seemingly innocent fling becomes increasingly complex and dangerous as the beautiful and confident Diana gets fully consumed by her emotions, crossing boundaries and acting out in progressively startling ways. As the story progresses, she realizes what she is doing is wrong but still can’t let go of her obsessive love.

So a teacher falls in love with her student. Isn`t that a bit cliché, thus boring?

Unlike other teacher-student related movies, A Teacher flips the power dynamic in favour of the student, giving Eric a surprisingly powerful upper hand. The affair that could devolve into emotional devastation for Diana seems, for him, destined to remain in memory as only a particularly eventful youthful tryst.

The film features the strong lead performance of Lindsay Burdge, who manages to keep her mostly contained performance while also holding nothing back. Although her character didn`t undergo much development, we can still feel the sympathetic vibe of the role, as she provides a touch of clarity to the character`s motivations in her relationship.

Some people might find this movie a bit too dour, but despite the rough element, you will be unable to look away from this head-on exploration of a woman escaping the demands of adult life by surrendering to inappropriate passion.


6th: School of Rock

school of rock movie scenePairing up Bad Teacher, here is another movie that emphasizes just how well can a teacher with a unique personality spice up the school environment. If you check the trailer out you might get the wrong impression, that this is a cheesy, airhead excuse for a story, but you`d be wrong to avoid watching this movie.

School of Rock is the perfect environment for a man like Jack Black can show off his many talents, and he is without doubt at his best in this role. School of Rock is a movie that promises entertainment and delivers it.

This isn`t one of those touching stories about a teenager`s rock band becoming famous, is it?

Not even close! This movie likes to show off just how big a difference a bit of rock music can do. The world’s least-employable heavy metal guitarist is entrusted with the minds of upstate New York’s best and brightest. After being fired from his own band, the guitar player Dewey Finn (Jack Black) needs to raise some money to pay for his rent and his bills.

When his friend and school teacher Ned Schneebly is called to a temporary work in an expensive private school, Dewey pretends to be Ned and accepts the job.

He finds talented young musicians in his class, and he decides to form a rock-and-roll band with the students and win a competition called “Battle of Bands” to raise the prize and be recognized in the show business.

Different teacher training film

As teacher training films go, The School of Rock is different. However, what makes his encounter with a class of prep-school fifth graders the greatest breakthrough in pedagogy is his discovery that even square kids might yet be saved by a swift baptism in the rejuvenating fount of Rock.

The School of Rock” is a very funny and politically incorrect comedy that suits Jack Black like a glove. He simply steals the movie. Most of the lines are the product of his own work and this movie is his best individual performance in his successful career.


5th: The Piano Teacher

So far we`ve seen good teacher and bad teachers, with either the right methods or a more unorthodox way of teaching, but how about a more romantic approach on this subject? However, this is not a movie fit for just any type of audience. Michael Haneke explores the dynamics of power, control and gender dynamics of a relationship in this psychosexual masterpiece. A family movie it isn’t. This could not be clearer.

Emotional story

Erika Kohut is a piano teacher at a prestigious music school in Vienna. In her early forties and single, she lives with her overprotective and controlling mother in a hermetically sealed world of love-hate and dependency, where there is no room for men.

However, at a recital, she befriends Walter, a handsome young man, whom she seduces and with whom she begins an illicit affair. As Erika slowly drifts closer to the brink of emotional disorder, she uses the love-stricken Walter to explore her darkest sado-masochistic fantasies, which eventually lead to her undoing.

What makes it so special?

The piano teacher movieThis movie should be called a masterpiece, regardless of the plot. The director obviously knows how to keep the audience in suspense.

The picture and the music are subtly arranged to accent the deep contrast in the personality of the pianist. There can be no doubt of Haneke’s extraordinary ability to generate scenes of nerve-jangling disquiet.

Performance of carrer

Isabelle Huppert gives the performance of her career. She is brilliant, demanding, unsmiling: a martinet who humiliates her impressionable students. But behind the movie`s cold and steely brilliance, we find an inspired nightmare – chamber music for a chamber of horrors. And in her severity, her mad anger and tragic fear of love, Isabelle Huppert gives one of the most compelling performances to be seen.

This largely unsympathetic role, that required her to plunge into dangerous territory that only the most courageous actors would dare to inhabit, won Ms. Huppert a best-actress award at the Cannes International Film Festival.


4th: 21

With yet another unconventional teacher role model, the movie 21 features professor Micky Rosa and his group of gifted M.I.T. students. What he teaches his brilliant students though, is not in the study plan.

Turning the odds

Ben Campbell is a brilliant M.I.T. student who is accepted into Harvard Medical School, but cannot afford the $300,000 fee.

movie scene from 21, blackjackHe is recruited to join a group of students that heads to Vegas every weekend armed with fake identities and a plan to turn the odds at blackjack in their favor.

Naturally, their unorthodox math professor and stats genius Micky Rosa leads the way. By counting cards and using a carefully built system of signals that enables them to communicate with each other, the team can beat the casinos big time.

Seduced by the money and the Vegas lifestyle, as well as his desire to impress his smart and sexy teammate, Jill Taylor, Ben begins to push the limits.

Though counting cards isn’t illegal, the stakes are high, and the challenge becomes not only keeping the numbers straight, but staying one step ahead of the casinos’ menacing enforcer.

Is this one of those college romance movies?

Not at all! It`s true that the movie has a pinch of romance, but in this case director Robert Luketic, whose previous efforts include Legally Blonde and Win A Date With Tad Hamilton, finally breaks loose from the romantic comedy chain .

Playing on the strengths of those elements from other gambling and heist dramas, he stays true to the story he’s trying to tell, striving to avoid the clichés that could so easily creep in.

The old saying goes that the love of money is the root of all evil, a principle that the movie seems to embrace. If the thrill of gambling were really about winning, there would be too few gamblers in Vegas. Considering the odds are always in favour of the house, gambling is all about the rush, not the pay off. But setting this moral story aside, 21 is still a movie meant to be enjoyed just for the fun of it.


 

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