Mr. Holland's Opus

You know, we're teachers meant to inspire, motivate, captivate.

You know, that movie, Mr. Holland's Opus.

That's just a small list.

Parcells, all those guys are on it.

We're going to start with Kells.

Mr. Holland's Opus.

Why?

Dreamgirls.

Chips.

But it also says right next to it, oops, this is Arthur's answer.

The correct answer is Mr. Holland's Opus.

So, Sensei, what does that mean about Arthur?

So last week we covered two movies, obviously.

We did Mr. Holland's Opus and Follow Me Boys.

But...

Ahead of time, I was thinking, well, we could do two Boy Scout movies.

You could throw

out Mr. Holland's opus.

Who knows? The ball is in your court.

All of

...

Mr. Holland's Opus? It's what happens in Mr.

Holland's Opus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But middle school band was only 45 minutes long, and the teacher started it at the beginning every time.

So I've seen the first half of Mr. Holland's Opus many, many times.

We've talked about this-

And Rob sat there over in the UK, wrote in and said, "It's been a troubling few weeks, starting with Gene's football team, the Arsenal, stealing Bruno, our club captain, from my beloved football team, Newcastle United.

And then Mr. Holland's Opus Massacre," maybe the title for a sequel, "ripping the heart out of inspirational films forever.

Dark times indeed.

But as my mom always said, 'Keep looking forward.' And so on to my fourth and last commission for this batch of movies.

So here comes my wipe score.

Once again, the nerves are jangling and my palms are getting a little sweaty, but to hell with it.

It's a great '90s movie and surely it can't go the way of Mr. Holland's Opus-

[laughs]

and

i i'm not totally against the reading that like she is just totally a phony um i think there are a couple of scenes that kind of tip the movie kind of giving her a little bit of interiority that maybe speaks to some genuine feeling um but anyway yeah uh i think those are great places to start i also think we got to look at the much maligned but not totally uninteresting Mr. Holland's opus.

Um, if only to talk about sort of the idea of a work of art, particularly a piece of music and film and how, if you beef it, that's all anybody's going to talk about for the rest of your films history.

And like, you know, legacy is, Oh yeah.

Remember Mr. Holland's opus when they spend the whole movie talking about his opus and then the kids play the opus at the end and it sucks.

Um, And that's all anybody remembers about that movie.

Not me.

I thought it was needed.

But the movies I have assigned are Follow Me Boys from Disney in 1966 and Mr. Holland's Opus from 1995.

Had you seen either of these movies before this week? No, Brian, these were both new to me this week.

All right.

totally new to the movie.

I saw Follow Me Boys as a kid.

And then I saw, I think, Mr. Holland's opus on TV when I was like in high school.

And I would say they both had an impact on me.

Herrick already had success with two surprise small-budget hits in 1986's Critters and 1989's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

After Don't Tell Mom, he'd have his biggest hits with The Mighty Ducks and Mr. Holland's Opus.

All right, let's get into the film.

So it opens with Sue Ellen.