BEFORE: My anger towards Time Warner Cable has abated somewhat, since they have issued me a credit equalling roughly one month's service, and the new DVR is behaving (so far). But I feel like that's not enough somehow, considering how long my service has been buggy and freezing up, and all the work I had to do re-booting and swapping out the cable boxes. Plus my job (not the blog, my paying gig) depends on me watching certain shows, so not having adequate service is a blow to my wallet in the long run. On top of that, any hope of the company informing their customers of changes to their software which would almost definitely affect the performance of their hardware, or admitting that there are service problems systemwide? Forget about it - it ain't gonna happen. For quality of service, the company gets a big goose egg rating from me.
I've got to scramble now to get back some of the movies and shows I lost - again, more work on my part that really shouldn't be necessary. I hope someday they'll invent some kind of system where you tell the cable box you want to see a particular movie, and then it records it for you, and then you get to watch it before it decides to erase it, and it plays back in good quality. I know, I'm a dreamer. But with luck maybe it might come to pass.
What's worse, dealing with the cable company, or being a teenager? Tonight I'm still in high-school, dealing with more delinquents and bad behavior. Linking from "Bad Teacher", Justin Timberlake was in a film called "Alpha Dog" with tonight's star, Anton Yelchin (last seen in "New York, I Love You").
THE PLOT: A rich kid becomes the self-appointed psychiatrist to the student body of his new high school.
AFTER: Well, I've still got the same basic problem - a central character who does bad things. But there's a key difference here, at least some of the bad things are done to help others in the school - giving kids medications without prescriptions is technically illegal, yes, but Charlie does it because he genuinely wants to help them. He also takes the time to listen to their problems, holding court each day in the men's room. And, in a few cases, his advice is quite valid, and we do see that his words do help some of the kids and get them through a tough time (more commonly known as "high school").
OK, so he doesn't have a 100% success rate - what medical professional does? And in some cases he does have an ulterior motive, namely getting accepted and liked in a new school. Can you blame him for wanting that? And then we've got that whole illegal drug thing - but today's kids are getting so doped up on ritalin anyway, in fact he might have even improved the attention span of a few of them.
My point is, the main character here is ten times more likable than the teacher played by Cameron Diaz in "Bad Teacher", who showed no remorse for her behavior, or any desire to play within the system. Charlie subverts the system, but eventually realizes that prescriptions aren't the answer for everyone, butting heads with the principal is a losing game (at least for one of them), and that it might be better to work within the rules of the system to effect change.
Besides, if he crosses swords with the principal too many times, then he'll never get to score with his daughter. Yes, in true Hollywood style the wheels of coincidence have arranged a doozy here, wouldn't you know the girl Charlie likes just happens to be the daughter of the principal. My mother was a grade-school music teacher, and though I love her dearly, I'm kind of glad that she taught in a different town from where we lived and where I went to school. It just makes things more difficult dealing with your classmates when you're the child of one of your teachers.
Then again, things weren't that easy for me in school either - I had few problems with the course-work, but I admit I was lacking in many of the necessary social skills. I only had one close friend before junior-high, so in grade-school I was really low man on the totem pole. Sure, I got picked on, but I figured I was mostly there to learn, so I focused on that. One time I really engineered a creative solution to bullying similar to one seen in this film - a bunch of kids were hassling me and making it difficult to deliver newspapers on my paper route, so I contacted one of them and offered to buy his comic-book collection that he was looking to get rid of. It was perhaps the best $40 I ever spent, because I did him a solid, and he and his buddies left me alone after that.
Things got better in junior high and high-school - though I was still a dork, at least there were other dorky people to hang out with. I watch these high-school films and I cringe at all that cliquey stuff, like worrying about who you should or shouldn't sit with at lunch or who was interested in dating who. Talking to girls was mainly out of the question for me, let alone dating them.
God, the whole thing is really kind of awkward all around. Why do we still put kids through this? Viewed one way, this film is really a wish-fulfillment sort of story - don't all of us in our 40's wish we could go back to high school, knowing what we know now, and just really take charge of the place? Then again, part of me is glad that I'll never have to go through all that again - I miss my friends and taking standardized tests, but that's about it.
But I'm not here to judge our country's educational system, I'm here to judge the film. So I'm split again on this one, it has its charm and a few close-to-heartwarming moments, but it's still a depiction of youth out of control, and kids mostly not getting punished for their actions. But then again, Ferris Bueller never really got his comeuppance either.
Also starring Robert Downey Jr. (last seen in "Due Date"), Hope Davis (last seen in "About Schmidt"), Kat Dennings (last seen in "Thor"), Tyler Hilton (last seen as Elvis in "Walk the Line").
RATING: 5 out of 10 security cameras
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