Fellow Dopers, please help me with this little problem that I am facing. I teach at a charter high school, and I teach what is essentially business English. I also coach girls’ basketball, and am taking a few workshops to help out first-year teachers. In other words, I’m going to be out of the classroom a couple of days this quarter. The students at our school are particularly bad about doing work when they have a sub, so I try to keep it simple by showing a movie and having an assignment to go along with it. This is less headache for the sub (who is usually one of our night school teachers who comes in early to cover) and for me, since I don’t have to worry about repeating what was missed the day before. Our classes are 1:45 long, so I have adequate time to show a movie in there. This is where you come in.
I need a list of business related movies that are rated G-PG13. I’d love to show Office Space, but it is rated R, and therefore not acceptable. Same with Glengarry Glen Ross and other similar movies.
See if you can find Clockwatchers. It’s about 3 temps and it will scare the bejezzus out of the students, lest they end up the same way. It’s rated PG-13, is funny, is written and directed by women (two sisters), it’s indie but not SO indie that anyone will be scared away, and it stars two women that most students might know: Lisa Kudrow and Toni Collette. It’s 96 minutes long.
This may seem like a dopey suggestion, but the PG-rated 9 to 5 is a funny movie and is another horrors-of-the-office film. It’s one of those very minor classics that gets referenced a lot but that they’ll probably never see on their own. And hey, the girls will like the revenge angle and the boys will like staring at Dolly’s chest. Win-win.
I was going to suggest Working Girl, but it’s rated R. So is Wall Street and Boiler Room.
I was going to suggest Billy Wilder’s The Apartment but (1) I believe it lasts more than 1:45 and (2) since it was made in 1960, it’s now pretty much a historical period piece of what the business office environment was like nearly 50 years ago (i.e., all white and nearly all male with casual sexism as thick as the cigarette smoke that pervades the working space).
I take it Fight Club and Brazil would also be out of the question.
Thirded for 9 to 5. I still remember the revenge-fantasy scene where Jane Fonda is a big-game hunter and Dabney Coleman’s head pops up from behind the rows of desks like a frightened deer. Funny stuff.
Would All the President’s Men fit your needs? The character spend a lot of time in the newsroom, writing, on the phone, and talking to the editors. A good, smart, true-life political thriller.
Could you get the parents to sign a waiver to show Office Space or Glengarry? I’m sure the kids have seen more… impolite stuff.
You could also show a few episodes of The Office - Brit or American version. The first American season in particular uses a standard workplace issue for the basis of each episode: downsizing, racial sensitivity, sexual harrassment, and so on.
*Joe Versus the Volcano *has a good bit with his workplace at the beginning, but it’s not what the bulk of the movie is about.
The Devil Wears Prada raises some interesting questions about how much you have to sublimate your personality and whore yourself out to achieve what you want in your career.
How about Desk Set? It’s a Hepburn/Tracy comedy made in 1957 so you might think that’s too old fashioned. It’s about trying to bring automization into the office, so they might get some enjoyment from the “yes, there was a life before computers” aspect.
This’ll probably bore them to tears, but I really enjoyed William Holden’s Executive Suite. Pretty short (104 minutes) b&w film about the future of a company when its founder suddenly dies.
The problem is getting permission slips back. I teach in a very, very urban school with little parental involvement. If I don’t get a slip back, I have to have something else for that student to do.
