Help a teacher out: movies to end the year?

Cafe Society
21

Hmm…I’d forgotton about that. I guess there’s also the “I didn’t want you guys to think I was stuffy…you know, all brains, no penis,” and “Kent, stop touching yourself.” Damn.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has a great scene about the misapplication of probability:{Harry shoots someone during a Russian roulette interrogation}
Perry: What did you just do?
Harry: I just put in one bullet, didn’t I?
Perry: You put a live round in that gun?
Harry: Well yeah, there was like an 8% chance.
Perry: Eight? Who taught you math!The fillm also as a couple of grammar lessons about the use of adverbs. (“Who taught you grammar? ‘Badly’ is an adverb, idiot!”) Unfortunately, there’s no a chance the movie will meet your critieria.

Stranger

22

Unless Little Man Tate, Looking for Bobby Fischer and War Games are racier than I remember, they may fill the bill. Kids may hoot when they watch those creaky old War Games computers in action.

23

And it looks like we have a winner. Not too mathy, but still school-appropriate and family-friendly:

Searching for Bobby Fischer

24

Supersize Me, though they’ve probably seen it already.

25

How about Pi? It’s rated R for language and some sexual content, but nothing really bad. It’s not exactly Requiem for a Dream, y’know.

26

No, he’s a photographer. But Batman’s a scientist!

27

Be creative. I got **Endless Summer ** approved one year as “a study in wave forms.” :smiley:

FWIW, my AP Euro kids are watching all 11 hours of Shogun while they are working on their final projects.

28

If the kids don’t mind subtitled Italian films, I would suggest Ciao, Professore! One of my favorite “kids” films.

29

Contact? Though there is a lot of math in the book that didn’t make it to the movie.

Apollo 13. Hey, it is applied math :slight_smile:

(and I second October Sky)

Brian

30

How about “Jurassic ParK?” They discuss chaos theory, and gene sequencing. Lots of math there. :smiley:

Or you can go with a classic: “Measure for Measure.” No math, but sounds like it should have some. :stuck_out_tongue:

31

*Contact *has a scene where two characters wind up in bed together, but it’s an “after-the-fact” situation and there’s no nudity (i.e. you can’t see “anything”).

October Sky is a great suggestion. One of the main plot points in the movie involves the lead character teaching himself advanced math concepts so that he can better build and retrieve his rockets. It’s a nice “see how useful math is?” type of moment.

32

Total recommendation for October Sky. I remember when I got shown it by my math teacher in 11th grade . . . Really fantastic piece of work.

33

You know, there’s really no sex, violence or profanity in ERASERHEAD.

Plus, you’ll become a legend.

34

Re: Apollo 13

You could give extra credit for whoever knows what the circular disk is when Tom Hanks ask for confirmation on his numbers.

35

I can’t find the title, but last week ai watched a documentary about the MIT blackjack team that fleeced Las Vegas casinos for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You know, it might just inspire them. :smiley:

36

Here’s a good page all about math in the movies.
While I like some of the other suggestions in this thread better, from a timing standpoint it sounds like it would work well to show one episode of Numb3rs each day.

37

I only saw one movie the whole time I was in school and although it might have had a little bix of sexual reference and minor violence, it sure didn’t deter from its overabundance of good points.

Little Big Man.