What is the worst movie you were forced to watch in school?

[pstokely]

For me it's "The Buttercream Gang" from the early 90s, it was lame enough when I was forced to watch it over 10 years ago. It's a shame MST3k never did this movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i7IE1TgPS4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOWW-r0AWr8
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103900/

[haf216]

1. The Fountain Head.

Hated the book (actually didn't finish it) an then had to sit though the movie. My AP english teacher love them both!!!!

[Zero Division]

35. Ahhhh! Had to watch that for a high school philosophy class.

Mostly I recall laughing hysterically at the ending scene, where Roark rides the elevator with that cheesy, melodramatic look on his face. And to think of all the Randroids that probably watch that movie as if it's the greatest thing they've ever seen. A = A, but "Fountain Head" = boring Randroid fantasy about the "nobility" of being an uncompromising, selfish asshole.

[Ekirh]

2. Hands down . .

The short video "Rapping Walt Whitman"

[Blue-Jay]

3. "Taming of the Shrew" w/ Liz & Richard Burton.

or maybe "Hemo The Magnificent"

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. I LIKED that version of "Taming of the Shrew"

Of course, I saw it when it was new in theaters.

"Hemo the Magnificent" was from a late 1950s precursor to Nova that was called Conquest. In the days before PBS, Sundays functioned as a mini-PBS on network TV, with documentaries, travelogues, Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts, opera, ballet, and other stuff that network TV would NEVER program now.

[ashling]

46. I LOVED that movie

Burton and Taylor were both great!

[Phillycat]

101. What??? How could you not like that movie??

Liz Taylor is absolutely brilliant in it. The scene where he is chasing her all over the house, and she gets ahead of him and is about to slam the door in his face, and she turns around with this taunting look on her face, just GOADING him to keep following her...oh, I just love her.

[tigereye]

4. a strange travelogue in German

with unintentionally, semi-salacious comments from the narrator about zaftig Frauleins.

[skygazer]

5. Probably one of those strange anti-drug movies

Go Ask Alice was pretty laughable but the real low-budget ones that had people taking a hit of acid then jumping out the window just made us all want to try acid ("I wonder if it really makes you do that?" "Let's try and see!")

[petronius]

9. When I worked for the police department at UC Berkeley

we had a student who dropped acid and jumped out a dorm window. The officers and paramedics were all quite professional, but us student employees at the scene were just rolling our eyes and thinking "what a moron..." (We all had a wee bit of experience with LSD)

[michreject]

6. Duck and cover

Nuclear fallout and all that stuff.

[undeterred]

7. How to deliver a baby in an emergency fallout shelter

That's what they used for sex ed in my day. :shrug:

[hippywife]

8. It was a driver's ed flick

where two guys got decapitated in an accident. That was my junior year and it scared me outta my wits! I ended up not getting my license until a month before I turned 20!

[Whoa_Nelly]

10. Mr. Sperm and Mrs. Egg getting married and making an embryo

1966
Stupidest movie--used in what, back then, passed for sex education.

Girls in one classroom, boys in another. Both groups watching same movie with a follow up question time, all in all lasting about 30 minutes for the whole intro to Sex For Sixth Graders. :rofl:

[mainegreen]

11. God, they were still using those in the 80s.

6th grade. I lost my shit laughing watching that one!

[Whoa_Nelly]

12. Mr. Sperm actually wore a top hat

and Mrs. Egg had on a bridal tiara and veil :rofl:

[pstokely]

31. Did they have a guy in a panda costume talk to your class about sexual harassment?

[Whoa_Nelly]

47. If only! That would have made it "bearable"

:rofl:


(1966--Sexual Harassment openly tolerated and often encouraged.)

[ComerPerro]

77. Well, the point is, they were married, so its ok

[Left Brain]

13. How Green Was My Valley

The height of 8th grade English class boredom.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. Eighth grade was probably too young for that movie

Try it again as an adult, or better yet, read the book.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. Several contenders

1. A film of dialogues in German, with the speakers acting out the lines, then repeating each line, and then repeating each line again as the camera showed a close-up of their mouths. All I remember about the actual dialogue was that a man and woman were talking about going skiing in Wörgl. The woman wore really dark lipstick.

2. Death on the Highway--a classic of the gruesome car crash genre, complete with close-ups of mangled and charred bodies.

3. The Nelson Eddy-Jeanette McDonald version of Naughty Marietta, chopped to fit a 50-minute music class. Imagine showing this to a bunch of seventh graders and then showing it again to the eighth graders the next year and then again to the ninth graders the year after that. Yes, our music appreciation teacher really appreciated this film to a degree none of us could. We were delighted to escape to senior high school, where we'd never have to view Naughty Marietta again.

4. A drug "education" film in which a sweet, all-American teenage girl goes from smoking tobacco to smoking marijuana to mainlining heroin and becoming a prostitute to pay for her habit and ending up in jail writhing on the cot as she goes through withdrawal.

5. A silent film version of Daniel Boone. As seventh graders, how could we resist making up our own dialogue?

6. Orson Welles' version of Macbeth. After the line, "Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped" the witches start shrieking, "Untimely ripped! Untimely ripped!" Not one of Orson's better efforts.

However, we also saw some good movies:

1. The Search, about a little boy who is taken in by a group of GI's after being liberated from a concentration camp.

2. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, which was later broadcast as a Twilight Zone episode.

[Kat45]

14. A movie of a lung cancer operation

It showed them operating and taking out a totally black lung. This was in junior high, and one of the boys in my class ran out into the hall and puked in the water fountain.

[Left Is Write]

15. You watched 90s movies in school? We never did that.

:D

[Haole Girl]

16. Red Asphalt

Just one of many reasons why I don't get why people are terrified to fly in an airplane but they think driving is safe.

:shrug:

This is a sampling...I'll warn you, it's disgusting.


http://www.pegasusdrivingschool.com/redasphalt.htm?gclid=CIiWuJKIvogCFQgxSQodD1P2DQ

[momophile]

24. I second this. nt

[sakabatou]

36. Third

How the hell is this supposed to scare us?

[nickinSTL]

91. "...I don't get why people are terrified to fly in an airplane..."

It's about control.

In a car, you at least have the illusion of being in control. In an airplane, your fate rests in the hands of the pilot.

[otherlander]

17. "Schoolhouse Rock"

We watched it in 1st grade...and 2nd grade... and 3rd...and 4th... and 5th... "Lolly, lolly, lolly, get your adverbs here...":hurts:

[pstokely]

32. My 11th grade government teacher showed us that stuff

This was only five years ago

[otherlander]

51. Did you see the Daily Show parody?

"Gee, Grandpa, that sounds really depressing. Can I go back to my parents' house now?"
"Billy, I have some terrible news for you..."

[dysfunctional press]

20. signal 30

driver's ed flick.

[begin_within]

21. "Signal 30," "Red Asphalt," and "The Twisted Cross." Best was "Why Man Creates."

"Signal 30" and "Red Asphalt" are gruesome driver's-ed scare films, with actual footage of accidents. I kept my eyes closed through both of them.

"The Twisted Cross" is a documentary about Nazi Germany, and it's not a bad film, but when you are forced to watch it every year for about 12 years in a row, it turns into a bad film.

The best was a film called "Why Man Creates," which should still be shown today, in my opinion.

[Broken_Hero]

23. The Buttercream Gang...

I remember watching that over a decade ago...it was a huge church movie, that my parents bought into...bleh, it was OTT fake to me

[pstokely]

33. That movie is full of stereotypes

The kid comes back from Chicago thinking he's a badass gang member and terrorizes the town by pushing kids at the playground

[mike_c]

25. when I was in school all the movies were about rocks....

I think the worst was "Rocks and dating."

[madrchsod]

28. late fifties early sixties

bad hygiene,drug,driving,dating flicks...no wonder i`m still fuck`d up in my soon to be 60`s

[pstokely]

34. Did you watch stuff from Young America Productions?

http://www.us.imdb.com/company/co0032193/

Their shorts have been on MST3k

[ganeshji]

26. Good touch/Bad touch

I thought it was some sort of dirty movie because my parents had to sign a permission slip for me to watch it. I was such a dork.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

27. The movie all the 6th grade girls had to watch about menstruation.

2nd place goes to the one about VD that we all had to watch in 8th grade chemistry class.

[madrchsod]

29. oh my god....i was in 7th grade in 58 and all the girls had

to go into a classroom to watch that movie...i can`t imagine how bad that was. funny the guys did`t get to see any movie about what we were going thru....

[GoddessOfGuinness]

I saw it in 1968, and I think it was the same movie

All the guys were hip to the content, and laughed because they got to have extra recess while we watched the stupid movie. :grr:

[mcctatas]

30. I think it was called Night and the Fog...

footage of the liberation of concentration camps, I was 16, and everyone else in the class just kept going "ewwww, gross", and I couldn't stop crying, I had to leave the room to throw up, and I can still picture it in my head 15 years later...

[ghostsofgiants]

39. Night and Fog. I downloaded that recently. Haven't gotten around to watching it yet.

[joneschick]

48. I remember that one.

I stumbled out of that lecture hall absolutely stunned. That was 30+ years ago and I can still se images from it.

[begin_within]

66. I'm shocked a public school would make you watch "Night and Fog." Even "The Twisted Cross" was

enough to get the point across, and it is much milder.

[mcctatas]

79. I think my history teacher was a sadist....

of course now he goes to my fundie in-laws church, so I believe the evidence is mountintg in favor of twisted!

[begin_within]

80. That explains it!

[Porcupine]

85. I saw that in Sixth grade!! Bulldozers pushing bodies....

into pits for burial. I left the room but I didn't hurl.

[mcctatas]

88. I think anyone who didn't grasp the horror of it all when they read Night

by Elie Wiesel freshman year might never get it, and for those of us who did, the movie was torture. Maybe we should send a copy to Mel Gibson?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

100. I remember that one from a film class in college

My professor told us that he liked to stand at the front of the theater when he showed it so he could watch the expressions on our faces.

He said that he had some faith left in humanity after watching the horror displayed across the faces of 80 kids every semester for 25 years.

[sakabatou]

37. I'd like to see the Buttercream Gang go into Compton

[pstokely]

38. They'd probably come back to their small town as wiggers

According to the logic of those filmmakers

[ghostsofgiants]

40. Armageddon.

[pstokely]

41. With Bruce Willis?

[ghostsofgiants]

42. The very same.

Grade 8 or 9 English, for some unknown reason. I can trace my disdain of Michael Bay back to that class, I think. (Not that I wouldn't hate him otherwise.)

[pstokely]

44. Was this just to fill time during the end of the year?

Or was this related to the course?

[ghostsofgiants]

45. Related to the course, somehow.

[pstokely]

55. Was this a science class?

[ghostsofgiants]

58. English, as I already mentioned.

[mykpart]

43. "Diary of a Country Priest," a B&W

French film with English subtitles. I have trouble reading subtitles and watching the video anyway, but this movie literally put me to sleep.

[begin_within]

67. How funny - I rented that film a couple of weeks ago and I really liked it.

[mykpart]

84. You must be older than 16

and way more intellectual than I!

[begin_within]

97. When I was 16, I wouldn't have liked it. But now I love Bresson's style and technique

and I like European art films in general, which I had no interest in as a teenager. I think Bresson was the most efficient storyteller of all time - he could say in one shot what most filmmakers take a whole scene to say.

[carlydenise]

49. in grade school

in the early 70's.....those hygiene movies (I can still hear that click clicking and dragging that happens when the tape gets caught inside the old projectors, as well as the rewind, the whipping of the end of the tape on the reel)..........movies like Johnny doesn't brush his teeth regularly, he's never going to have friends or a job......or Cindy has bad manners, she will never have a husband......then in jr hi there was the "girls only, puberty; what to expect movies made in the 60's.....then in high school the driver's ed "dead bodies on the road...this is what happens when you drive carelessly" movies, which actually scared me, because they were so gross. I am taking it that kids watch vcr or dvd in the classrooms today, I kinda miss those movies in class, it actually was a treat, it was in the dark and one could....eat candy, pass notes or even sleep easily...
Carly

[begin_within]

98. And that serious-sounding narrator with the deep voice.

[annonymous]

50. This movie about PCP aka Angel Dust.

It featured someone cooking a baby in a roasting pan. I saw it during the early 80's. I also saw Signal 30 and Highway of Death in Drivers' Education. Those didn't upset me as much as that PCP movie.

[knitter4democracy]

52. 1st place: Macbeth, Roman Polanski version

2nd place: Johnny Tremain

3rd place: That stupid movie in middle school about the girl getting her period and going and getting a belt and pads that weren't even sold in stores anymore. Confused the whole class.

[sweetheart]

53. harold and maude

A nightmare is to be trapped in a room watching that film over and over, clockwork orange style,
until all the sincerity becomes hollow and empty, until empathy is a multiple choice word,
and the domain permanently conquored by rich kids that i don't relate to... but the girlfriend
stabbing herself was pretty funny.

[knitter4democracy]

54. My husband remembers a horrible library one.

He wants to know if anyone else had to watch it.

It goes like this: in some apocalyptic future, a librarian gets frozen by some wizard and then thaws out to save the last group of surviving humans with aliens on the way (he thinks they were called the Wipers). She uses the library and the Dewey Decimal System with a paper card catalog (even though most humans escaped to another galaxy, they were still using a paper catalog) and the survivors to build a laser holographic system to scare the aliens by projecting some image of some weapons system on the clouds. The librarian finally admits at the end that she's fallen in love with one of the other survivors, and they're going to be rescued after somehow getting a hold of the humans who escaped.

You know why she didn't make it to the transport to escape with the other humans? She was driving a bookmobile and it got stuck somehow.

Hubby feels really stupid for remembering that movie, let alone that much of it. He doesn't remember the name of it, but we're laughing until we're crying over here. It has to be the worst school movie ever.

Learn that Dewey Decimal System--or aliens will kill you!!

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

99. OMG!!!! I remember that Library movie! I watched it in 5th grade.

I'm 23 now.

[GirlinContempt]

56. The entire rocky series

[pstokely]

57. for what kind of class?

[GirlinContempt]

59. My phys ed teacher made us watch them

when he was too lazy to make us actually do stuff

[pstokely]

60. how are Rocky movies related to PE?

[GirlinContempt]

61. Uh..... they have... boxing

and uh... running up all those stairs?

fucked if I know

[zanne]

62. That classic'marijuana causes insanity' film.

Actually, it was a camp classic when I was in high school, but my social studies teacher showed it because he thought it was funny, too. It has some ominous-sounding name. Anybody know what I'm talking about?

[joneschick]

63. reefer madness?

aaaand kicking for the evening crowd. :hi:

[zanne]

64. That's it!

A Boomer generation Classic Hit.

[Porcupine]

65. The Red Balloon, The Red Ballon in FRENCH!! again and again

My grade school had that movie and "Our Friend Mr. Sun."

Oh, how I hated that stupid balloon.

[kiahzero]

68. The first version of Wuthering Heights.

The other ones weren't so bad, but the original one was just really awful.

[nuxvomica]

69. "The Magic World of Topo Gigio"

Somehow the nuns managed to snag a copy soon after it's original release. Gigio's charm as frequently displayed on the Ed Sullivan Show was an acquired taste to begin with but didn't translate well to the big screen. All I can remember is that the story was set in a circus.

[wickerwoman]

70. Shane

Come back Shane......

Why, oh why, was that on the required reading list for 9th graders (unless the district was buying books by weight?)

[BlueIris]

71. The film adaptation of A Separate Peace.

Worst movie ever.

[Recovered Repug]

72. Fahrenheit 411.

If I saw it again now, I might have a different view. In 10th grade English, it put me to sleep.

[Spirochete]

73. Other than the driver ed films

From what I remember, I'd have to say either Jane Eyre or Great Expectations.

On edit: I'm only counting actual movies - not those National Geographic pygmy-villagers-kill-mud-badger-and-prepare-it-for-the-tribal-dinner films or the public service (how-to-floss-your-teeth-effectively-with-either-hand)stuff.

[philosophie_en_rose]

74. "The Miracle of Life"

At ten, I was not prepared to see a huge baby head coming out of a woman's vagina.

[Jamastiene]

76. That is my pick too.

I never want to see that movie again, unless I'm extremely drunk and I have control of the remote. I liked the parts about how the sperm meets the egg, but I could have done without all those consequences scenes (i.e. the disgusting pregnancy/birth part.) *shudder*

[citizen snips]

75. Nanook of the North.

:boring:

[Little Wing]

78. The Glass Menagerie

Never had I wished for a freak gas explosion before

[Mendocino]

81. Sarah T. Portrait of a Teeenage Alcoholic

Starring Linda Blair, I think it was the first thing she did after The Exorcist. UGH

[tinfoil tiaras]

82. The "Animal Farm" movie in 7th grade english

that movie was scary. The animals weren't cute AT ALL. They talked and they were scary (they were like ACTUAL animals...not cartoon). The pigs were really fat and gross (not like Babe in the "Babe" movies), not how I pictured them in the book at all. That movie ruined the whole book for me :grr:

[cmkramer]

83. In elementary school

I went to a Catholic school and we saw about 4 movies every year. One selection was always "The Long Gray Line" starring Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara. It was a story about West Point. It was not a bad movie, but we saw it so many times you could hear the collective groans when the title music started playing. BTW, Tyrone was playing an older kind of schlubby guy so we didn't even get to see the handsome studly Tyrone.

My choice for worst film we were forced to watch? Hands down, "The Red Balloon". I know it was an award-winning film, but God, it was boring. Of course, we couldn't just watch, we had to have a discussion about it afterwards which just added to the excitement.

[coolhandlulu]

86. A movie about abortion...

depicting actual aborted babies or remnants of aborted babies. I remember one scene had an aborted baby that was left on the procedure table and it was gasping for air. Mind you, this was shown to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in a catholic school. I don't remember if we needed to have a permission slip signed or not to see it, but it wouldn't have matter because my dad ok'ed everything the school suggested.


Does anybody know if catholic schools still practice this mental abuse on their students these days? I'm still traumatized at the age of 35.

[unsavedtrash]

87. Romeo and Juliet

every year from 7th to 12th grade those horrible low quality copies.
Could be why I can't stand Romeo and Juliet now.

[elfrangel]

89. 1968 version of Romeo & Juliet

I love the play...love Shakespeare, but I HATED that movie.


Someone mentioned "Taming of the Shrew" with Burton & Taylor. That film is one of my favorites. I thought it captured exactly what Shakespeare had in mind...Liz always made a good witch.

[Bridget Burke]

90. "Death on the Highway"...

Which consisted of graphic shots of highway wrecks. Blood, gets, etc. Supposedly, it would inspire us to become SAFE drivers!

Don't remember any commercial films in school. But films were, at least, a break from class. (Yeah, I had a few GOOD teachers...) In Jr & Sr High, they were accompanied by the AV club, proudly wearing their sliderules!

[LaraMN]

92. The "Becoming a Woman" filmstrip.

That wasn't the actual name- but you get the idea.

[Jokerman]

93. Animal Farm - In the second grade.

You know, it's animated so it must be for kids. To make matters worse, the teacher started a movie she had never seen and then left the room. It was a traumatic experience for many of my classmates.

[begin_within]

94. Did anyone see the one about genetics, with the woman who had the white streak in her black hair?

The woman looked like the bride of Frankenstein, yet the narrator said, "I noticed you have a white forelock. Very fashionable!" and the entire classroom erupted with laughter.

There was another science film we watched in my physics class, and I can't remember what most of the film was about. But about halfway through, our physics teacher said, "Now here comes Igor!" And the stage within the film started to rotate completely around, and when the back side was showing, you saw there was a little old man who was actually pushing the stage to make it rotate. That was another moment the entire class erupted in laughter. That's the only thing I remember about that film, I can't even remember what it was about except some scientific topic.

[begin_within]

95. Was anyone here shown "Boys Beware" in school? The anti-gay film from 1961

which you can download for free here:

http://www.archive.org/details/boys_beware

[bmbmd]

96. I can think of several.

"Duck and Cover" was full of good advice. (be sure to wear your raincoat if you go outside following a thermonuclear exchange). I also remember a "VD" film in seventh grade-Coach Alexander exhorted us to pay attention to the sargeant-he was now a big movie star. (Ronald Reagan). Best advice from that movie was "Remember, men-stick it on before you stick in in..."

[noonwitch]

102. "The Red Balloon"

I saw it 3 or 4 times in elementary school. I hate it! It's one of those things I hate about the french! Existential movies for 5 year olds. I guess it beats "Veggie Tales", though.

[jakefrep]

103. We had to watch "The Day After"

At the time it was pretty freaky stuff....but having seen it recently, I realized it's just incredibly cheesy.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

104. Anti-drug program films around 1970.

The films alternated some Hanna-Barbara style animation (I vaguely recall a caveman-type character but it wasn't Fred Flintstone) with live action. Pretty goofy but we had to go through weeks of this stuff.

I still remember we had the hippest social studies teacher at the Jr High at the time (Mr. Bell) and he didn't make it worse by talking down to us.