Recommended Reels for the week of September 8

“WalMart Back to School” by Mark Scofield is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

For the majority of kids around our nation, the first week of school is over and the fall semester is underway. As a way to commemorate Back to School month, I have selected three school-centric films to ease the transition from summertime fun to study hall blues.
 
 

FOR THOSE ENDURING JUNIOR HIGH

WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE (Todd Solondz, 1995)
 

No matter how shitty you think your junior high school experience is, Dawn Wiener’s is worse. Todd Solondz’s excruciatingly dark comedy is the litmus test for adolescent angst.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

FOR THE HIGH SCHOOLERS

GREASE (Randal Kleiser, 1978)
 

Because honestly, who doesn’t love Grease? It’s a happy, peppy, vintage high school musical with an underlying conviviality the likes of which aren’t seen too often nowadays. And it’s from 1978 and it has Olivia Newton-John. Done.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

FOR THE COLLEGE BOUND

BACK TO SCHOOL (Alan Metter, 1986)
 

Maybe it’s because I went back to college in my forties, or maybe it’s because watching Rodney Dangerfield bulldoze his way through undergraduate school is obnoxiously hysterical. Whatever the case, Back to School is a master class in comedy from a legend clearly having a ball.