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Overall Rating
 Awesome: 54.31%
Worth A Look: 22.41%
Average: 6.03%
Pretty Bad: 4.31%
Total Crap: 12.93%
2 reviews, 104 user ratings
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| Dead Poets Society |
by LitzaMo
"There is a bit of Nuwanda in all of us."

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If I let myself get into this movie, by the end I'm in tears. There is no way around this. I look like pure, living hell when I'm crying and I tend to watch this movie with my two best friends (both extremely attractive guys) and not only do I not care, not only do THEY not care, but all three of us are in tears!! It is my solemn belief that very few movies indeed that can claim this.Robin Williams' character in Dead Poets' Society is the kind of teacher that we all wish we'd had in high school. He teaches his students to appreciate poetry, not just to plod through rhyme and meter like that stupid J. Evans Prichard seemed to suggest in the idiotic essay on Evaluating Poetry cited in the movie. (That essay was in my senior English textbook, almost word-for-word, and just reading it made me want to stand on my desk and howl.) Hell of it is, the first time I really saw this movie was in 10th grade American Lit. And afterwards we all stood on our desks to get a fresh perspective.
I can't review DPS without rambling. Many apologies. I just love it too much. There are so many great memories that go along with me watching DPS that I can't bear to not recount them. I can't even be coherent about this. Train of thought! NO!!
Plot: Tod (Ethan Hawke, cute as a button) is a shy newcomer to Welton Academy, a snobby prep school in Vermont. Doesn't help Tod any that his two older brothers were both Welton stars and that his parents gave him the same desk set for two consecutive birthdays. Luckily, a group of mismatched associates take Tod in. They all have English class with a Welton grad, Mr. Keating, (or if you're slighly more courageous, 'O Captain, My Captain.') who has his class rip pages out of their texts and march around the common to illustrate points. Keating covertly helps the boys revive the Dead Poets' Society, a group that meets secretly and reads the greats. Through the DPS, the boys all get some kind of guts. Neal auditions for a community theater production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and gets cast as Puck. Charlie forms an alter ego, Nuwanda. Another boy goes after his dream girl. Tod gets the guts, at the end, to defy authority, something he'd never before dreamed of. Tod also becomes a bona fide poet while describing a portrait of Walt Whitman, thus overcoming a paralyzing fear of public speaking.
Problems: One big one is that Neal's father has a serious objection to Neal doing anything that doesn't directly relate to medical school, and theater definitely does not. Tragic results. More and more results. I cannot spoil the ending for those of you who haven't seen it, but please, please go out and rent it, pop a big bowl of popcorn, gather with some friends who won't chatter through the whole thing and distract you from the visually stunning and emotionally encompassing DPS, and let the film envelop your mind. When Tod is in the snow, looking mournfully up at his friends and trying not to cry while saying "It's so beautiful..." just let the tears flow. I always do. And make sure to have Kleenex readily available.One of my all-time favorite films. Let it sweep you away.
del.icio.us
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=903&reviewer=222 originally posted: 07/15/00 12:35:40
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USA 02-Jun-1989 (PG) DVD: 10-Jan-2006
UK N/A
Australia N/A
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