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Stranger-than-fiction doesn’t come much stranger than “My Old School,” a cheerfully gobsmacked if overly twisted-up documentary about one student’s second fifth year of secondary school at Glasgow’s Bearsden Academy.

Before proceeding, a note for readers: It would ensure frustration and risk futility to write about this film without discussing its subject. But before this critic does so, those unfamiliar with the tabloid-famous story of seemingly 17-year–old ‘ Brandon Lee ’ and willing to go in blind are advised to read no further. That’s because, although “My Old School” digs into Scotland’s most notorious high-school hoax, director Jono McLeod teases out this reveal across his film’s first half, making a slight spectacle of concealing the real story he’s telling and going so far as to misdirect the audience. 

A grating ploy in recent documentary cinema—also see: “The Imposter,” “ Three Identical Strangers ,” “ Misha and the Wolves ”—such a choice is admissible but extraneous in “My Old School,” a film so directly about identity, deception, and the social conditions that create both that it scarcely needs the set-up. A cursory Internet search would clue audiences into the scandalous truth of Brandon’s career at Bearsden. And both the cheeky title and poster, which features 57-year-old Scottish actor Alan Cumming seated at a school desk—his expression unreadable and thus sinister, given his surroundings—threaten to give the game away upfront, making McLeod’s insistence on staging it as a rug-pull feel, well, insistent. 

In any case, upon arriving at Bearsden in 1993, Brandon Lee (who conspicuously shared a name with the American actor fatally shot on set months earlier) baffled his schoolmates and teachers. He was taller and more mature than his peers, with an “unplaceable” accent that often slipped out of place. He inexplicably knew answers that hadn’t yet been taught, to such a degree that his biology teacher fawned over a student teaching her biology. His face, too, had a strange quality to it that no one could identify. Still, Brandon’s appearance and the more suspicious details of his backstory—he was from Canada; his mother, an opera diva, had died tragically; he was scarred in the accident that killed her—served mostly to amuse classmates, while handing class bullies easy ammunition. Some called him “thirtysomething.” The teachers, meanwhile, considered Brandon a star pupil, and even managed to parlay his preternaturally deep understanding of “Death of a Salesman” into a leading role in the school’s production of “South Pacific.” 

McLeod, who attended Bearsden at the time, captures this larger-than-life character with an array of techniques. Animation reminiscent of trendy ’90s cartoons like “Daria” and “The Magic School Bus” adds a fantastical flair to scenes described from 1993, while news footage and unearthed photographs come into play later, as the film dispenses with its reticence around the facts. Cumming, in a chillingly mask-like physical performance, lip-syncs words spoken aloud by Brandon, who agreed to an audio interview with McLeod but refused to show his face for reasons eventually made clear. 

“Brandon,” it emerges, was not Brandon at all, but instead Brian MacKinnon, who was 32 when he re-enrolled at Bearsden posing as a 17-year-old pupil. Though he’d studied at the same school in the late 1970s, none of the teaching staff recognized MacKinnon, who’d permed his hair as part of his disguise. The imposter’s explanation to the headmaster that he’d recently relocated to the area, meanwhile, was accepted without further scrutiny after a quick address check.

The astonishing particulars of MacKinnon’s ruse—not revealed until 1995, a year after he’d aced his higher-grade exams and begun studying medicine at Dundee University—made him infamous in Scotland, and the case has understandably stuck with those who only thought they knew him. One such peer, McLeod stays mostly off-camera throughout “My Old School,” which interviews over 30 of his former schoolmates and teachers in a rueful but good-humored attempt to figure out how they all could have been taken in by such a ludicrous deception. 

As a result, “My Old School” often feels as warmly provincial as a class reunion, though the film’s analysis of what happened is stymied by its participants’ lingering mixture of bemusement and chagrin. “Bearsden Academy was a bit of a time warp,” offers one pupil, Nicola Walker, not quite keeping the grin off her face. “I remember it being very old-fashioned,” adds another, identified as Valerie. 

McLeod himself often seems content to have a laugh about the whole affair. The animation is especially rife with gags, such as one in which the young/old MacKinnon heads to class and is faced with directions posted at the end of a hallway: one points to History, the other Modern Studies. Also amusing but unrevealing is McLeod’s decision to seat his interviewees at school desks, cramped postures and bewildered expressions underlining that central question of how MacKinnon was able to pull off such a discomfiting masquerade, and why. 

“It was like being behind enemy lines without an enemy,” MacKinnon recounts boastfully at one point, an observation “My Old School” doesn’t initially pry at so much as amplify, fixating on this interloper’s mesmeric charms until he appears more myth than man. At first, McLeod’s playful, even nostalgic approach squares with the sentiments of his interviewees, who recall MacKinnon as both an odd duck but a folk hero. But the film grows darker as McLeod peers into schoolmates’ memories, surfacing half-forgotten incidents and unanswered questions. Sequences in which he points out inconsistencies in their recollections—or proves, using video footage, that the reality of MacKinnon’s actions was worse than they’d remembered—mark the film at its most disturbing and effective.

The film’s soundtrack is piled high with era-appropriate earworms, but none land as potently as the opening needle-drop, a synthed-out cover of Ace of Base’s “The Sign” that keeps echoing out on the final line of the chorus (“But where do you belong?”) until it registers somewhere between an existential query and a schoolyard taunt. “My Old School” straddles that middle-ground as well, speculating as to the inner workings of a troubled mind but more often settling for the familiar, picaresque pleasures of a great yarn colorfully retold. 

In limited theaters July 22 and expanding July 27.

Isaac Feldberg

Isaac Feldberg is an entertainment journalist currently based in Chicago, who’s been writing professionally for nine years and hopes to stay at it for a few more.

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My Old School (2022)

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"Old School" is this year's kinder, gentler "Animal House.". Slickly made, diverting albeit unmemorable effort from director Todd Phillips and his co-scenarist Scot Armstrong isn't half so fresh or funny as their prior feature, "Road Trip." Still, it's lively and different enough from concurrent releases to score just as well with the same demographic.

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This article was corrected on Feb. 13, 2003.

A comedy about grown-ups pitched at auds young enough to think college is a nonstop party you’d never want to end, “Old School” is this year’s kinder, gentler “Animal House” — as if anyone needed “Animal House” to be kind or gentle. Slickly made, diverting albeit unmemorable effort from director Todd Phillips and his co-scenarist Scot Armstrong isn’t half so fresh or funny as their prior feature, “Road Trip.” Still, it’s lively and different enough from concurrent releases to score just as well with the same demographic, with some crossover to twenty- and thirtysomethings.

Prologue has realtor Mitch (Luke Wilson) returning early from a miserable day’s business travel, only to find live-in girlfriend Heidi (Juliette Lewis) engaged with two undressed, blindfolded playmates. He moves out — into a rental home just off-campus in the town where his college buds Frank (Will Farrell) and Beanie (Vince Vaughn) still live.

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Beanie, who’s got a wife and kids but suffers from a serious case of bachelor-days nostalgia, decides the new house will be Party Central — and since he’s owner of an audio-equipment chain, the massive kickoff fest manages to get Snoop Dogg and crew as its “house band.”

Frank, meanwhile, is newly wed to Marissa ( Perrey Reeves ). She graciously allows him a “boys’ night out,” then is mortified when the notorious “Frank the Tank” of yore — who emerges like a John Belushi Dr. Jekyll after a copious amount of brewskis– is spotted streaking down Main Street.

This bacchanal attracts the attention of the male trio’s former teasing target Pritchard (Jeremy Piven), who’s now the university’s Dean. Intending to get the juvenile grownups thrown out, he has the house re-zoned as campus housing. However, Beanie finds a loophole — they’ll start their own fraternity. Craving quiet rather than collective madness after his recent spousal trauma, Mitch is a reluctant joiner. But he’s already got Frank as a housemate –Marissa having given him the boot — so why not.

As pledges are put through hazing paces, the “frat’s” anything-goes reputation (complete with KY-jelly topless wrestling contests) spreads like wildfire, a fact that does not aid Mitch’s earnest romantic pursuit of Nicole (Ellen Pompeo), a divorcee he’d had a crush on years earlier. Meanwhile Pritchard uses increasingly underhanded means in trying to shut the house down.

Pic lacks cumulative momentum or any especially hilarious setpieces to this point. But laugh quotient does jump a few notches with a climax that has the fraternity brothers forced to prove themselves worthy before an evaluation board — including debating against surprise guest James Carville — before a final confrontation with the vengeful Pritchard.

Compared with the clever situations and sunny attitude of “Road Trip,” “Old School” is less imaginative and more forced — the attempts to feign depth via semi-serious narrative developments, especially in Mitch’s dealings with Nicole, come off half-baked and unnecessary. Ample chances to lampoon aspects of college and civilian life are seldom taken. Script lacks verbal wit, with rote substitution of cusswords (not to mention a few dismaying homophobic jokes).

Nor are lead characters as idiosyncratically defined as one might like, though all are well played: Wilson’s protag is pretty much your basic Nice Guy, while the mix of misogyny and middle-class dad in Vaughn’s figure is pushed just far enough to be slightly creepy, but not far enough to be a wellspring of outre humor. The reliably funny Farrell’s periodic party-monster outbursts amuse, though he’s had better material.

Piven makes a dull villain (where’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School’s” Mary Woronov when you need her?). In addition to Carville and Snoop, there are middling cameos by “Road Trip” vets Andy Dick and Seann William Scott.

Nonetheless, “Old School” is better paced and more brightly mounted than most youth-skewed comedies of late. Phillips knows how to make an audience feel like it’s having a good time, a knack missing from most such efforts since, well, “Road Trip.”

As in that pic, soundtracked song choices are well above average in terms of variety and ironic kick, with particular nods toward such chestnuts as Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence.” Tech contribs are all solid.

• Production: A DreamWorks release of a Montecito Picture Co. production. Produced by Daniel Goldberg, Joe Medjuck, Todd Phillips. Executive producers, Ivan Reitman, Tom Pollock. Co-producer, Paul Deason. Directed by Todd Phillips. Screenplay, Phillips, Scot Armstrong, story by Court Crandall, Phillips, Armstrong.
• Crew: Camera (Technicolor), Mark Irwin; editor, Michael Jablow; music, Theodore Shapiro; music supervisor, Randall Poster; production designer, Clark Hunter; art director, Max Biscoe; set designer, Peter Davidson; set decorator, Traci Kirschbaum; costume designer, Nancy Fisher; sound (DTS/Dolby Digital/SDDS), Petur Hliddal; supervising sound editors, David Hankins, John Benson; sound designer, Mike Babcock; assistant director, Michael Neumann; casting, Joseph Middleton. Reviewed at AMC Van Ness 1000, San Francisco, Feb. 12, 2003. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 90 MIN.
• With: Mitch - Luke Wilson Frank - Will Ferrell Beanie - Vince Vaughn Pritchard - Jeremy Piven Nicole - Ellen Pompeo Heidi - Juliette Lewis Lara - Leah Remini Marissa - Perrey Reeves Mark - Craig Kilborn Darcie - Elisha Cuthbert With: Patrick Cranshaw, Jerod Mixon, Seann William Scott, Harve Presnel, James Carville, Snoop Dogg, Warren G.

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Old, review: A provocative horror that brings out the best and worst in M Night Shyamalan

‘sixth sense’ maestro seems more concerned with avoiding any potential plot holes than creating wonder, article bookmarked.

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Dir: M Night Shyamalan. Starring: Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Ken Leung, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abbey Lee. 15, 108 mins.

M Night Shyamalan still can’t quite shake his reputation as the king of plot twists. It doesn’t matter what he’s done in the decades since Haley Joel Osment saw dead people. The label has stuck. And it’s not quite a fair one. Shyamalan shouldn’t be defined by his twists, but by his constant unpredictability. It’s a subtle but important difference. What makes his horror films so effective – when they’re at their best, at least – is that he allows his stories to exist in a sense of perpetual tension. At any moment, the path might change. They could slip wildly into a different genre. New nightmares could emerge from any corner. What determines whether a Shyamalan film is good or bad is how he deals with that build-up of terror. Does he let it linger menacingly in the air? Or try to soothe it out of his audience’s minds with a tidy ending? Old , in that sense, brings out both the best and worst in him.

In its opening scene, we’re introduced to what should be a blissful scenario: a wealthy, nuclear family on a tropical vacation. The parents, Guy (Gael García Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps), gaze adoringly as their young children zoom around their hotel room. But the camera sits waiting on the outside, watching them through the windows, pacing up and down like a jaguar readying for the kill. What hidden torment will soon be revealed to us? Old feels like a repeat of Shyamalan’s 2004 film The Village – it’s provocative and inventive right until the point the director retreats into narrative neatness and conventional emotions.

A manager suggests the family spend the day at a private beach – one of those little-known hotspots that all holidaymakers crave. They’re soon joined by a second family – a doctor ( Rufus Sewell ), his mother (Kathleen Chalfant) and his modelesque wife (Abbey Lee), plus his young child. A little later, another couple, played by Ken Leung and Nikki Amuka-Bird, arrive. A dead body, floating facedown in the water, is the real starting point for Old ’s reign of terror. There’s a man, too, crouched in the shadows, who nervously reveals himself to be a popular rapper called Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre) – it’s unclear whether the name is intended as a joke or just a sign of cultural disconnect.

But there’s a strangeness that starts to consume these people the very second they step foot on the beach. They can’t quite put their finger on it. But their bodies simply don’t quite feel like their bodies any more. The truth is that their cells have started to age rapidly – the reason why is part of the great mystery Shyamalan knows his audience will be eager to solve. Although the film is actually an adaptation of the Swiss graphic novel Sandcastle , by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters, the director has provided his own resolution to the story.

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All the implicit themes at play here – not only of our general fears of ageing, but of the doomed inevitability that our medical histories create – run strongly throughout Old . There’s a primal potency to them. But the film, just like The Village , suffers from Shyamalan’s desire to forever chase a sense of order within the universe. Sometimes this can actually be quite refreshing – Old is the rare horror where the characters are all hypercompetent – but Shyamalan’s persistent refusal to leave behind any wonder, or instability, ultimately strips Old of its staying power. He seems more concerned with avoiding any potential plot hole that might send Reddit users into a rage than he does in creating something emotionally satisfying. It’s hard to talk about his films as something more than their endings when it’s the endings that always seem to decide their fate.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Very politically incorrect; funny for many adults.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Nudity and sexual situations.

Very strong frat-house language.

Drinking as male bonding, including drinking to ex

Parents need to know that this movie has a great deal of very mature and sometimes offensive material. There are homophobic references, a stereotyped Jewish character (wearing a "chai" necklace) shows up for group sex, characters drink to excess, and have casual sex. There are references to group sex and to…

Sex, Romance & Nudity

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Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Drinking as male bonding, including drinking to excess.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this movie has a great deal of very mature and sometimes offensive material. There are homophobic references, a stereotyped Jewish character (wearing a "chai" necklace) shows up for group sex, characters drink to excess, and have casual sex. There are references to group sex and to other activities like wrestling with topless girls covered in KY jelly. There is a "fun" blow-up doll. A group of women hire a man to teach them how to give oral sex and we see them practicing on vegetables. The fraternity is welcoming to men of all races and ages and -- aside from some hazing of the pledges -- the men are all very supportive of each other. One character who seems most bent on abandoning all rules turns down sex with a young woman because he will not cheat on his wife. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (6)
• Kids say (13)

Based on 6 parent reviews

CSM is on the nose with 17+

What's the story.

Think of OLD SCHOOL as the reunion of the gang from Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds . Three 30-year-old men, feeling squashed by responsibilities, end up turning a house into a fraternity with all of the fun of torturing pledges, throwing wild parties, and essentially relinquishing all trappings of civilization.

Is It Any Good?

After a long, long series of gross-out slob would-be comedies that thought it was enough to be disgusting, it is a relief if not always a pleasure to see one that has some very funny moments. Yes, it is morally bankrupt and completely politically incorrect. But what can I say, I laughed.

In even the best of this genre, there is about a five-to-one joke ratio of failures to successes. It really isn't very funny when a character finds out after the fact that the young lady he had sex with while drunk was not just a high school student, but the daughter of his boss; when a character calls out "earmuffs" to his six year old son so that the boy will cover his ears when his father is about to use bad language; when a character's wife asks for a divorce just weeks after their marriage; or when an elderly character is so struck by the sight of slicked-up topless girls waiting to wrestle him that he keels over dead. But over and over, Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn throw themselves so completely into the material that they make it work much more often than it deserves.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about whether people need to feel that their responsibilities are suffocating when they become adults.

Movie Details

• In theaters : February 21, 2003
• On DVD or streaming : June 10, 2003
• Cast : Luke Wilson , Vince Vaughn , Will Ferrell
• Director : Todd Phillips
• Inclusion Information : Middle Eastern/North African actors
• Studio : DreamWorks
• Genre : Comedy
• Run time : 90 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : some strong sexual content, nudity, and language
• Last updated : January 1, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Our editors recommend.

National Lampoon's Animal House

Revenge of the Nerds

Lord of the Flies

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Old School Reviews

Each comedian's distinct personality and contrasting style of humor lends to a diverting onscreen partnership.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Nov 7, 2020

Very politically incorrect; funny for many adults.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 26, 2010

Flawed, clich, contrived, and poorly developed...

Full Review | Jul 6, 2010

Mitch (Luke Wilson) has just been cheated on and moved into a nice new bachelor pad right near the local college. But when threatened with eviction by the dean of the college, Mitch's buddies Beanie (Vince Vaughn) and Frank (Will Ferrell) suggest that the

Full Review | Original Score: 79/100 | Feb 17, 2010

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 8, 2009

When an Oster Breadmaker gets some of the film's biggest laughs, you know the thing's in trouble.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 10, 2008

The lead males give impressively modulated performances that keep the laughs flowing as all hell breaks loose.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 7, 2008

Director Phillips confesses to frat membership in his youth, and even made a documentary on the subject. So why is this not funnier or more outrageous?

Full Review | Jan 26, 2006

Will Ferrell is a fearless comedian, and he commits completely to his insanity in the film, and that makes it work.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 6, 2005

Only fitfully funny, except when Ferrell is onscreen -- then you won't stop laughing.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 7, 2005

Une bonne location pour un party entre amis et pour ceux qui ne sont pas fatigus de la recette des films d'ados.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Feb 25, 2005

The recess bell should have rung immediately into the first period of this frothy yet flat and insufferable scholastic satire.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Jan 30, 2005

If you like humor that's somewhere below the belt, then Old School is for you.

Full Review | Jan 24, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 24, 2005

Enroll at your own risk.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Jan 24, 2005

Will Ferrell ... makes about ten minutes of this movie side-splittingly hilarious. That's like finding a few pieces of crunchy cereal in a bowl of sour milk.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Dec 6, 2004

You don't need to run stoplights getting to the theater - the video will do - but Old School fulfills your expectations.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 5, 2004

It may not be much, but these days, two or three big laughs is nothing to sneeze at.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 22, 2004

Normalmente, no aprecio o tipo de humor rasteiro que este tipo de produo costuma empregar, mas excees acontecem, e os risos provocados por este filme so a prova disto.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 9, 2004

Ferrell ... goes the extra mile and becomes the life of the party.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 2, 2004

Old School (United States, 2003)

Old School is exactly what director Todd Phillips intends for it to be: low-brow, moronic to a fault, and occasionally side-splittingly funny. I laughed aloud seven or eight times during this film, and smiled or chuckled on a few additional occasions. Admittedly, considering the bawdy, brainless nature of the humor, there were times when I was almost embarrassed to be laughing, but that didn't stop me. In an era when a viewer is lucky to find one or two humorous moments during the course of a 90-minute so-called "comedy," Old School delivers with surprising effectiveness.

Mitch Martin (Luke Wilson) is an average middle-class guy whose life is thrown into a tailspin when he discovers that his live-in girlfriend, Heidi (Juliette Lewis), is into an alternative lifestyle that involves multiple partners. Fleeing his broken relationship, Mitch moves into a low-rent house on the outskirts of nearby Harrison University. Egged on by his best friends, Frank (Will Ferrell) and Beanie (Vince Vaughn), Mitch turns his new digs into a fraternity house for anyone who wants to pledge – young, old, student, non-student. Mitch's house is soon the most popular place on campus, which leads the straitlaced, vindictive dean (Jeremy Piven) to begin a campaign to close it down.

Luke Wilson, an adept low-key comic performer, manages to keep his dignity throughout the proceedings, which is something of an accomplishment. His character gets to have some fun, such as sleeping with 24 's Elisha Cuthbert (playing a girl who looks older than the age on her driver's license). Dignified is not a word to describe Will Ferrell, whose most memorable moment occurs when Frank is drunk and buck naked. Vince Vaughn's usual stiffness isn't a distraction; he's in his element. Supporting players include a priggish Jeremy Piven; Ellen Pompeo (the only good thing about Moonlight Mile ) as Mitch's would-be love interest; TV talk show host Craig Kilborn; and Juliette Lewis, who is mercifully in only a few short scenes.

The span of topics for Old School 's jokes doesn't range far and wide. Nearly every gag (and certainly every one that works) involves sex, nudity, drinking, male stupidity, or some combination of the above. (Plus, there's an unforgettable rendition of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" featuring some… shall we say… "alternative" lyrics.) Like Phillips' earlier effort, Road Trip , and older antecedents along the lines of Animal House, Old School cares little for providing a cohesive narrative or presenting characters. These things are inconsequential devices to move from one joke to the next. If the viewer's intention is to have a few laughs, this movie gets a passing grade. If you're looking for a more complete cinematic experience, Old School has a few too many absences.

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Old School Review

09 May 2003

Comedies set in frat houses - those sinister, sub-Masonic American university organisations which place an emphasis on infantile and frankly dangerous behaviour - have rarely travelled well to these stuffy, reserved shores.

Old School tries to bridge that gap, but quickly stutters after an interesting first half in which Phillips juggles funny set-pieces (the penises-tied-to-cinderblocks scene is a screamer) and an interesting if superficial look at male attitudes to the ageing process.

All this is soon left by the wayside, along with a flurry of underdeveloped and neglected sub-plots and ideas. The sure comic touches of Vaughn (sleazy, caustic yet strangely loveable) and Ferrell (barmy, mostly naked yet strangely loveable) somewhat redeem proceedings, but throughout you can't help but wish the inspired Owen Wilson, and not the dependable but bland Luke, had been the star.

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What You Need To Know:

(PaPaPa, Ro, Cap, HoHo, LLL, V, SSS, NN, AAA, D, MMM) Hedonistic worldview with glorification of alcohol, unbridled debauchery, and moral relativism, and some Romantic elements, some pro-capitalism elements and strong homosexual references; 38 obscenities, seven strong profanities, 11 light profanities, "gross-out" humor, and scatological humor; strong slapstick violence including reckless driving, fighting, pratfalls, man shoots himself in neck with tranquilizer gun, and car goes over bridge and explodes after landing on fisherman; strong sexual content includes cohabitation, live-in girlfriend cheats on boyfriend, implied sex with underage girl, porno tape fornication depicted, references to oral sex, homosexual themes and homosexual humor, elderly man drops dead after seeing naked women, and anti-marriage statements throughout; upper female nudity, rear male nudity and long shot of male streaker's genitals; excessive alcohol abuse; smoking; and lots of miscellaneous immorality including disrespect of authority figures and reckless behavior.

GENRE: Comedy

More Detail:

In OLD SCHOOL, several grown men ranging from ages 30 to 89 try to create an unofficial fraternity on a local college campus. Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn play the ringleaders. Although they are not students, the actual student body can come over and party without the prying eyes of university security or the stereotypical out-of-touch university dean. As the story progresses, the realities of their lifestyles catch up to them, and they must defend their on-campus existence on legal and collegiate grounds. This is met with disastrous and zany results.

Many movies are not art, and in that vein, it is probably safe to say this film will not be reviewed at Cannes. In fact, it will not likely come anywhere near France. Basically what the creators of OLD SCHOOL did was to take a 25-year-old script (ANIMAL HOUSE, 1978) and make it into a 21st-century version. It feels as though they rewrote and rewrote until they had something they could call their own. It is amazing how similar it is to the John Belushi classic.

For instance, OLD SCHOOL has the creepy “un-hip” University Dean who, just like ANIMAL HOUSE’s dean, is always trying to shut the frat down. Audiences rooted for him to fall. There are numerous similarities to ANIMAL HOUSE characters such as John Blutarsky and Flounder. Even certain ANIMAL HOUSE scenes are barely copied, like the famous, “Okay boys, we’re all losers, and the Dean’s going to shut us down, so what are we going to do?” scene. Also, just like the ’70’s film, the pledges and brothers are depressed, and the frat president gives a victorious locker room speech that makes everyone run into the streets revved up to save the fraternity. . . etc., etc., etc.

The writing and casting are successful, from a Hollywood standpoint, in that Will Farrell steals the movie playing the bumbling fool. His antics caused deafening laughter in the theater, and a couple of people actually slipped off the edge of their seats, laughing. Many view Farrell as the new master of physical, slapstick humor.

Why, however, does sidesplitting laughter have to be accompanied by horrendous language and sexual content, as well as a deplorable worldview? In this movie, the recently married Will Farrell loses his wife over his involvement in the fraternity. In fact, while he is standing at the altar, one of his already married groomsmen tries emphatically to get him not to marry, just as the bride-to-be approaches. Scatological humor includes a “K.Y. Jelly” wrestling match that causes an elderly man to die of a heart attack. Ick!

Other sexual content includes female upper frontal nudity and full frontal made nudity from far off. Also, a homosexual male, using carrots and cucumbers as visual aids, offers an oral sex class to local housewives. Another serious “ick!”

As for redemptive elements . . . still scratching head . . . ah, yes. . . . One of the fraternity founders, who happens to be the most bitter anti-marriage character in the movie, finds

himself alone with a college girl who tries to seduce him. He stops her, holds his left hand up to show the ring and says, “Hey, this isn’t cool. I’m married. I can’t do this.” Perhaps this was done for the censors, who knows?

In a day when the Lord seems to be cleaning up His bride and bringing her out of the Western Christian party mentality and into a sense of much-needed sobriety, movies like OLD SCHOOL seem even more crass, value-less and sad than ever. God, help our children!

Please address your comments to:

David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg & Steven Spielberg

DreamWorks SKG

1000 Flower Street

Glendale, CA 91201

Phone: (818) 695-5000

Website: www.dreamworks.com

SUMMARY: In OLD SCHOOL three men are disenchanted with life and try to recapture their college days by creating an unofficial fraternity on a local college campus. Besides some well-timed jokes, there is almost nothing worthwhile or redemptive in this extremely vulgar ANIMAL HOUSE re-write.

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Review: Scottish documentary ‘My Old School’ unravels bizarre 1993 events

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The curious case of Brandon Lee, an enigmatic 16-year-old who in 1993 arrived at Bearsden Academy near Glasgow, is told twice in the generally amusing, if perhaps too insensitively lighthearted, Scottish documentary “My Old School.”

First, director Jono McLeod recounts the early impressions of Lee’s classmates via interviews conducted inside a set that mimics a classroom, as well as 2D animation sequences that resemble the style of MTV’s high school-set 1990s series “Daria.” Each of them, now adults, recalls his intelligence and puzzling maturity for someone that age.

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Although Lee agreed to an interview, he didn’t consent to appearing on camera. We hear his voice lip-synched by actor Alan Cumming , whose extraordinary execution in costume makes the protagonist’s input blend seamlessly with the other talking-head conversations.

McLeod’s unparalleled access to this community is due to the fact that he himself was one of the teens who went to school with Lee. Once the boy’s shocking true identity surfaces, the story is revisited with the new information forcing every person who interacted with him to reassess their opinion of the event’s ordeal.

Archival footage from news broadcasts and talk shows and video of a school play take over to reveal the physical characteristics and personality of the actual person once known as Brandon Lee (presumably invoking the name of Bruce Lee’s tragically deceased son who died in 1993).

From the candid testimonies and Lee’s own statements, a contradictory portrait of this figure emerges, one that touches on his obsessive dream of becoming a doctor by any means necessary, the untimely passing of his parents, and the friendship and tutoring he granted to those lowest in the hierarchy of adolescent social life.

But in exploiting this anecdote about an impostor hiding in plain sight for its entertainment potential, “My Old School” feels dismissive toward Lee’s real motivations and gets caught up in the simplistic moral judgment on his questionable actions.

Still, the varied narrative devices and surreptitious construction to preserve the secret for as long as possible deliver an engaging film that will be best enjoyed if one restrains from searching the plot twist online before watching.

Ultimately, McLeod misses an opportunity to scrutinize the adage that presumes it’s never too late to pursue one’s dreams, the value that we place on the seemingly limitless promise of youth, and how institutions and society think about the expiration date of a person’s prime.

‘My Old School’

Not Rated Running time: 1 hour, 44 minutes Playing: Starts July 29, Laemmle Monica, Santa Monica; Laemmle NoHo 7, North Hollywood

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• "This sloppy, dumb, though occasionally funny comedy is so derivative of 'Animal House' (...) that it's like one of those by-the-numbers imitative movies Homer Simpson is so obsessed with."  Elvis Mitchell : The New York Times
• "A hodgepodge of a muddle of a mess (...) 'Old School' doesn't even deserve to go to video and DVD"  Paul Clinton : CNN
• "God bless [Ferrell's] little idiot-savant smile and vanity-free bared buttocks. They elevate 'Old School' to a higher plane of asinine (…) Rating: ★★½ (out of 5)"  Kimberley Jones : Austin Chronicle
• "Unsure of myself, I avoid altogether the question of 'Old School's' veracity and move on to its humor, which is easier to master because there is so little of it. This is not a funny movie (…) Rating: ★ (out of 4)"  Roger Ebert : rogerebert.com
• "It's a hilariously funny and unexpectedly warm look at three men who just want to be boys again (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"  Jamie Russell : BBC

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Storyline: Our Reviewer's Take

When ' National Lampoon's Animal House ' premiered back in 1978, it instantly redefined big-screen comedy. Its blockbuster success led to a wave of collegiate-themed, low-budget quickies, all filled with beer-guzzling frat boys, sorority girls not shy about taking their tops off, and plenty of gross-out humor involving bodily functions. Even now, almost thirty years later, it's not hard to spot the lineage between 'Animal House' and everything from the spoog-in-the-hair antics of 'There's Something About Mary' to the self-mutilating shenanigans of the 'Jackass' movies.

But what so many of 'Animal House's imitators have failed to realize was that what made the film work was a combination of strengths that were far more than just an assemblage of dirty jokes. 'Animal House' certainly had the gross-out factor, but it also had a cast of lovable losers everyone could identify with, an abundance of truly inspired wit to balance out the over-the-top slapstick, and a fearlessly anarchistic attack on the oppressive values of bourgeois intellectualism. Genuine comedic smarts married with inspired outrageousness is a rare combination on the big screen, but 'Animal House' had it in spades.

'Old School' is a film that desperately wants to be the 'Animal House' of its generation. It's nowhere near as good, but it does get close enough to the same mix of inspired lunacy that it at least earns the comparison. 'Old School' has an approach to its humor that is perceptive yet absurd, and manages to make us care about the foibles of its characters where so many other films of is ilk don't even bother to try. It also happens to be a pretty darn funny film -- in fact, I probably haven't laughed this hard since the last time I watched 'Animal House' on high-def.

The plot of 'Old School' will certainly be familiar to anyone who has seen 'Animal House' or any of the other college-set pictures that followed it. Mitch (Luke Wilson) has just lost his cheating girlfriend, and he's about to lose his house, too. So his married pals Frank "The Tank" (Will Ferrell) and Beanie (Vince Vaughn) hatch an inane plot. They'll turn Mitch's house into a fraternity, and get to relive their glory days of lost, inebriated youth all over again. But their plan works too well. Suddenly, the frat is the biggest on campus and the antics are wildly out-of-control, leaving the dean (Jeremy Piven) no choice but to shut them down.

Much of the credit for the success of 'Old School' should go to its young writer-director Todd Phillips ('Road Trip'). He's obviously studied 'Animal House' and other comedy classics of the era (such as 'The Blues Brothers' and 'Stripes') and realizes what made them so memorable. A movie is funnier when we actually like the characters, and even the silliest stories can offer enlightenment if we can recognize something of our own experience in their predicament. For all of its zaniness, 'Old School' doesn't shy away from painting its lead characters as the sad, pathetic men they are growing up to be. In fact, 'Old School' arguably draws as much inspiration from such mid-life crisis comedies as Blake Edwards' '10' as it does 'Animal House,' and by blending the two, Phillips manages to illuminate some painful human truths far beyond his own years.

It helps that Wilson, Ferrell, and Vaughn deliver some of the best comedic performances of their career. That they can do with the gags is no surprise, but each also finds a believable center to their character that makes them well-defined and three-dimensional. Ferrell in particular is not only go-for-broke in his manic energy, but here hints for the first time at the more serious side of his personality that he would explore in such recent films as ' Stranger Than Fiction .' The inspired pathos in his portrayal of the aging Frank gives 'Old School' a surprising weight.

None of this is to say that 'Old School' is a masterpiece of human drama. Make no mistake, this a low-brow comedy first and foremost. In fact, Phillips is so concerned with keeping the gross-out gags flying fast and furious that at times his desire to please reeks of desperation. Still, purely on the level of unapologetic dumb-ass humor, 'Old School' had me laughing so hard that I thought I might pee my pants.

Video Review

'Old School' originally hit home video at a time when the studios were just beginning to archive new titles in high-def en masse , in anticipation of coming formats like Blu-ray. As such, this 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 encode from DreamWorks appears to have been struck from the same master as the previous DVD released back in 2003, and is also identical to last year's HD DVD version. Which is not a bad thing, as that earlier transfer was a solid one, and there is a noticeable (if not gargantuan) upgrade in terms of clarity and detail on the high-def version.

Audio Review

The sole area where this Blu-ray improves upon the previous HD DVD is the upgrade to high-res audio. Paramount gives us a full-blown English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround mix (48kHz/24-bit) for 'Old School,' though I didn't find that it offered a huge improvement over what came before.

The film still suffers from comedy-itis, which is to say that like most films in its genre, it's pretty much a stereo mix with a few discrete effects thrown in. Only a few boisterous party moments and the use of songs on the soundtrack benefit from any rear action, and most of the time I forgot the surround speakers were even activated. Rear channels are slightly more engaging in TrueHD, with slightly expanded dynamic range and more clear sense of separation to effects. Minor ambiance remains meager, however. The quality of the recording is still strong, with adequate low bass extension and no issues with clarity or source issues. Dialogue is front and center as it should be, and only during a couple of the very loudest party scenes did the music and supporting effects seem a tad overpowering.

Special Features

'Old School' hit standard DVD back in 2003 in several Unrated and Rated editions, each with a collection of supplements long on self-effacing comedy but short on substance. DreamWorks hasn't produced anything new for this Blu-ray, and all of the features are again presented in 480 standard-def video.

'Old School' is a gleefully tasteless collegiate comedy in the tradition of 'Animal House.' Though I didn't think it scaled quite the same sublime comedic heights of its '70s precursor, I did laugh louder and longer than I have for any other movie in recent memory. This Blu-ray version is fine, with good video and a slight boost to Dolby TrueHD audio. The extras are also fairly amusing. 'Old School' is worth revisiting on Blu-ray, though I can't say those who already own the HD DVD need to run out and upgrade.

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‘my old school’: film review | sundance 2022.

Alan Cumming plays a key role in this unconventional documentary about a Scotsman who pretended to be someone he wasn't back in the 1990s, a first feature for Jono McLeod.

By Leslie Felperin

Leslie Felperin

Contributing Film Critic

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Debuting feature director Jono McLeod’s documentary My Old School offers a deliciously compelling look back in bemusement at the story around Brandon Lee, a young man with whom McLeod himself went to school — at Bearsden Academy, a much sought-out secondary school in a posh suburb of Glasgow, Scotland — in 1993. Lee turned out, to put it mildly, to be not exactly who he said he was. So there’s a poetic justice to having him “played” onscreen by Scottish actor-writer-singer Alan Cumming who lip-syncs immaculately to audio recordings of the real Lee.

It’s a wacky, rarely used technique, notably deployed in Clio Bernard’s equally off-kilter doc The Arbor . Here it makes sense in a story about performance and deception. Simply designed animation, modeled on the look of cool cartoons of the time such as Daria , adds an extra comic jauntiness. You could say, to use a popular slang term from the 90s, this puts the “mental” back in experimental, but in a good way.

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Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres) Cast: Alan Cumming, Clare Grogan, Lulu Director: Jono McLeod

These quirky comic devices also help to vary the texture throughout given that the story is essentially told through interviews with other classmates from the same year and the few teachers who remember what happened. We’ll be coy about what happened in the end so as to not spoil the fun, even though the story can easily be found on the net. It created quite the mini news-media scandal back in the 90s when Lee’s true identity broke.

Suffice to say, that on the first day of class in 1993, the kids in Year 5 (the equivalent of junior year in American high-school terms) were surprised to see a new boy joining them who looked odd somehow, as if something was off about his face or he was older than the other kids. He introduced himself as Brandon Lee, a name that seemed familiar to many kids as it was the same as the star of The Crow — the son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee — who had recently been killed by a stray bullet on set.

This Brandon had a strong Canadian accent, and gradually everyone learned about how his parents were divorced and his father worked in the diplomatic service down in London. Like something out of a Victorian novel, Brandon’s mother had been an opera singer tragically killed in a car accident. Brandon had come to live with his grandmother in Glasgow, in public housing on one of the shabbier streets of Bearsden, a hood otherwise known as the area where Glasgow’s professional elite lived.

Although shy at first, Brandon soon emerged as an academic star, especially in biology, which was handy as he wanted to study medicine at the University of Dundee next. While sitting at poky desks in contemporary classrooms, the Bearsden alumni interviewed here recall how once they got to know Brandon he proved to be a good friend, wise beyond his years. Stefen, one of the only Black pupils in the school, was frequently bullied and subjected to racist abuse but started to feel more confident and accepted after “all-round nice guy” Brandon befriended him. Another boy, Brian MacKinnon, who would play an odd role in the story when the truth came out years later, explains how Brandon took him under his wing as well. Brandon turned him and his friend Donal on to all sorts of cool punk and new-wave bands like Joy Division, Television and Husker Du from a few years back, a sequence shown in animation and nippily cut to Bearsden band Orange Juice’s “Rip It Up,” an immortal twangy pop banger from 1982.

While the interviewees seen on camera speak for themselves while the animation illustrates their narratives, characters in the story who are now dead or didn’t want to participate are either seen in archive footage or voiced in the cartoon sequences by actors. The voice cast includes Clare Grogan (a teen pop idol herself once and star of Bill Forsyth’s Gregory’s Girl ) and mono-named pop star Lulu, who voices the fierce deputy head of school. (She also contributes a rousey cover of Steely Dan’s song “My Old School,” played over the end credits.) Such casting again underscores the importance of music to the story, not just in terms of the tunes the kids listen to in their bedrooms but also a key moment in the story when Brandon gets cast as the lead in the school production of South Pacific , above all because he already had a North American accent.

Some of the interviewees misremember him as singing really well, and to bolster that impression we hear the showstopper “Younger Than Springtime” sung by Cumming himself over the cartoon sequence. It turns out that Brandon’s real singing voice in the show, revealed in a video recording shot at the time, was nowhere near as good as Cumming’s (the actor won a Tony for playing the Master of Ceremonies in the Broadway revival of Cabaret ). But this only ties into the film’s thematic thread about the slipperiness of memory and how charismatic people can almost hypnotize us into not believing the evidence of our eyes.

Full credits

Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres) Cast: Alan Cumming, Clare Grogan, Lulu Production companies: Hopscotch Films, Creative Scotland Director: Jono McLeod Producers: John Archer, Olivia Lichtenstein Executive producers: Mark Thomas, Jono McLeod, Clara Glynn Director of photography: George Geddes Editor: Berny McGurk, Jono McLeod Music: Shelly Poole Music supervisor: Gemma Dempsey Animation director: Rory Lowe Lead animator: Scott Morriss Sales: Dogwoof

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My Old School review – audacious tale of thirtysomething man who posed as a teenage pupil

Jono McLeod directs this intriguing documentary about his former classmate Brian MacKinnon, who at age 30, went back to school as a ‘teenager’

H ere is a documentary for anyone who’s ever suffered from impostor syndrome or ever fantasised about going back in time to their school days, to reverse all those heartbreaks and humiliations. In other words: all of us.

In 1995, a 32-year-old failed medical student called Brian MacKinnon became a global news story and a legend when it emerged he had, two years earlier, posed as a teenager called Brandon Lee to reattend his old school, Glasgow’s Bearsden Academy, taught by his old teachers who did not recognise him, just so that he could retake his Higher exams and reapply to medical schools, which would not admit people over 30.

One of his classmates was Jono McLeod, and it is McLeod who has directed this film about MacKinnon’s extraordinary true-life tragicomedy, interviewing his school contemporaries and using animated sequences with Lulu and Clare Grogan voicing incidental characters. He also interviews MacKinnon himself who did not want to appear on camera, lip-synched instead by the actor Alan Cumming . It’s a verbatim-cinema effect which is intriguing if misleading. Cumming has a naturally approachable, sympathetic face whereas MacKinnon’s is blanker and more mask-like.

With staggering chutzpah, this grown man, not so very far from middle age, put on a school uniform and bluffed his way through class, befuddled pupils who didn’t want to mention how weirdly old he looked, delighted teachers with his intelligence and maturity and even took the starring role in the school play, South Pacific, to universal acclaim, singing the line: “Younger than springtime am I …!” He had to kiss his 16-year-old leading lady, a disputed moment which is the subject of this film’s great revelation. MacKinnon avoided having to present a birth certificate to the teacher in charge of admissions – who declined to be interviewed – bamboozling her with a preposterous tale about having been privately tutored as he travelled around Canada with his now dead opera-singer mother who was estranged from his university professor dad.

He might have got away with it entirely. In fact, he did get away with it entirely, in that he was admitted to Dundee University’s medical school, but thrown out in his first year when the scandal emerged, either because a classmate had seen his passport while on a Spanish holiday with him or because MacKinnon couldn’t help confessing – it’s not entirely clear.

Which brings us to the semi-acknowledged elephant in the room. Wasn’t there something revoltingly inappropriate in this thirtysomething male consorting with teenage girls? Fascinatingly, everyone in the South Pacific cast (including MacKinnon and his leading lady) and everyone who saw it, remembers the climactic onstage kiss being embarrassing, sure, because it was such an awkward platonic peck. But then McLeod shows the video taken of the performance, which reveals something very different: a pretty definite kiss. Groupthink memory is trumped by the facts. Then there is the sad issue of MacKinnon’s elderly mother and how much she knew about his fraud.

This is a film which could be put alongside other “faker” films, like Louis Myles’s Kaiser: The Greatest Footballer Never to Play Football or Bart Layton’s The Imposter , in that it shows us not just a rational trickster who is coolly carrying off a dangerous pretence to get what he wants, but as someone in the grip of something beyond his conscious control. And you could compare it to many high school movies: after all, the whole high school movie genre is driven by thirtysomething screenwriters who are obsessed with their school days.

My own theory is that MacKinnon’s spectacular dysfunctional meltdown helped create the market for the explosively popular, but toxically nostalgic website Friends Reunited, launched five years later in 2000. He was the guy crazy enough to live the dream: not the dream of being a medical student (which is entirely incidental to the story) but the dream (or nightmare) of being a teenager for a second time.

• Documentary films
• Alan Cumming

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10 Great Movies That Criticize the Results of Globalization

Globalization is defined as a process of an international integration and interaction based on sharing ideas and products between different cultures. A few decades ago, it was a hypothesis and an economic strategy. In the 21st century, it is our everyday reality. Even though there are several great advantages to it, globalization also has a negative impact on people all over the world.

I would like to present a compilation of 10 movies that explore the topic either directly in the form of a documentary, or through a subtle hidden meaning. This list tries to cover all the different aspects of globalization: food, clothing, economy, travel, environment, communication, trade. Most importantly, it attempts to define a position of a human being facing all of the above.

10. Cyberbully (2015)

This Ben Chanan drama is a brilliant illustration of a potential danger connected to highly evolved technology and communication services. Casey Jacobs (played by “Game of Thrones” star Maisie Williams) give a stunning performance in this one-actor movie. Although there were other attempts to make a movie placed entirely on a computer screen (e.g. “Unfriended” in 2014), “Cyberbully” creates the atmosphere of a thriller in a very sophisticated way.

People truly reveal too much on the Internet and share the most intimate material in a naive conviction that their secrets stay safe. Casey, as an innocent young girl, is totally unprepared for the situation and succumbs to an anonymous cyberbully ‘s requirements and blackmail. It takes her a really long time to realize that she is at liberty to just switch the computer off.

9. Paris, I Love You (2006)

Several great directors participated in this anthology movie, followed by an American ‘version’, “New York, I Love You” in 2008. Let’s mention Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Tom Tykwer or the Coen brothers, and for actors we saw Steve Buscemi, Fanny Ardant, Willem Dafoe, Juliette Binoche, Natalie Portman and many others.

Each of the 18 well-crafted stories takes place in a different ‘arrondissement’, which is a title for an administrative district in Paris. The central idea is love and its different forms and expressions, which are tragic, hilarious, magical, crazy or even horror-like as it is shown in Quartier de la Madeleine.

Paris is often called ‘City of Love’, one of the ‘fashion capitals’, or the ‘City of Lights’. But in this movie, Paris is depicted as a multicultural giant that became a guardian of Africans, Asians, Mexicans and other people from all around the world.

Multiculturalism as one of the side effects of globalization; however, it wipes out the uniqueness and the difference between the various cultures. It makes great cities like Paris, New York or London look and feel exactly the same.

8. The True Cost (2015)

Directed by Andrew Morgan, this documentary film captures another aspect of globalization: clothing. Along with the invention of the ‘fast fashion’ movement, fashion retailers started to look for the quickest and the cheapest way to deliver hot fashion trends to eager customers. And it comes at a very high price; a collapsed Bangladesh fashion factory with more than 1,000 victims is only the beginning.

The fashion industry influences the environment and suppresses basic human rights. Moreover, the authors of the documentary claim that the whole “fast fashion” idea was created so that the people of the lower and the middle class forget that they can’t afford a new house or a quality education. Fashion industry tries to compensate for frustration and bring a little joy in our lives via new collections of a popular fashion brand every week. Too little, don’t you think?

7. Cloud Atlas (2012)

There was a lot of discussion about this German-American sci-fi movie back in 2012. A collaboration of Tom Tykwer and his great visual style, the Wachowskis as the founders of ‘The Matrix’ films, and great acting performances (Halle Berry, Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent) couldn’t possibly go wrong. “Cloud Atlas” is a mosaic of lives, portrayed in multiple plots crossing six different eras. It is a representative example of how science fiction as a genre criticizes globalization and its consequences.

Development in science and technology, the monopolization of production and trade, radical policy making, and greed for money could lead to dystopian future, as many books and movies tell us. An Orwell-like control of an individual is present in the story of Sonmi-451 (Doona Bae), a human being cloned for slaving in a fast food restaurant and fed by other clones, after they are killed and recycled.

6. Fast Food Nation (2006)

A Richard Linklater film depicting the fast food industry stands unfairly in the shadow of a more famous one – “Super Size Me” (2004). An adaptation of  Eric Schlosser’s book “Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal” goes deeper in the system of the meat processing, the health risks, the safety regulations, and the work organization.

Three basic storylines mix up several extraordinary actors (Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Greg Kinnear, Kris Kristofersson, Paul Dano) and unmask the political, social, and environmental ambush of fast food companies.

The most touching is the story of illegal Mexican workers who come to Colorado in search of a better life. They end up injured with a lifelong consequences or addicted to amphetamines in order to stand the horrible work conditions. Either way, there is a new movie, “What the Health” (2017), pursuing the topic.

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Where’s The World by Jia Zhangke or Unknown Code by Haneke

network (1976) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jIw22XXSso – World is a business https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFvT_qEZJf8 — We are in a lot of trouble

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Men, Women & Children is balls cinema

Exactly. Just rewatched Network. Anti-globalist before I think most people were even talking about globalization.

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The 10 Best Gary Oldman Movies, Ranked

He's the hero movies deserve, and the one they need.

The Big Picture

• No one screams insults and threats quite like Oldman in "Leon: The Professional" as a menacing corrupt cop.
• Oldman captures the sharp wit and intelligence of Winston Churchill in "Darkest Hour," a thrilling portrayal.
• Oldman's performance as Sirius Black in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" changes the tone of the dark chapter in the series.

Easily one of the most versatile and committed actors of the past few decades, Gary Oldman has been delighting and terrifying moviegoers for generations. While he is receiving some of the best reviews of his entire career for his standout performance on the Apple TV+ spy series Slow Horses , Oldman has appeared in numerous classic films across many different genres. Oldman may have earned a reputation for playing menacing villains, but he’s mixed in a few heroic and comedic roles in order to indicate his full range as a performer.

Oldman is a massive cinephile who often recommends underseen films , and has even taken a stab at directing with films like Prick Up Your Ears . He’s one of the rare actors who can even manage to make a bad movie more enjoyable; however, Oldman’s best work ranks among the finest in cinematic history. It’s evident that he has many years of great performances left in him, but Oldman’s filmography as it stands is already quite impressive. Here are the ten best Gary Oldman movies, ranked.

10 ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ (2004)

Directed by alfonso cuaron.

The Harry Potter franchise managed to give its young actors great material to work with by casting veteran stars as some of the series’ older characters. Oldman changed the Harry Potter saga’s tone with his performance as Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban , a character who was blamed for the death of Harry’s ( Daniel Radcliffe ) parents. After realizing that Sirius is innocent, Harry accepts his father’s former friend as a mentor. Oldman’s dramatic performance helped Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban become the darkest chapter in the series.

While the previous two installments of the series from Christopher Columbus were more family friendly, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban reflected the characters’ maturation. Alfonso Cuaron contributed some of the most stunning visuals, scariest villains, and most intimate moments of the entire Harry Potter franchise.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban can be streamed on Max in the U.S.

Watch on Max

9 ‘State of Grace’ (1990)

Directed by phil joanou.

Sometimes films are simply a victim of their release dates; the excellent crime thriller State of Grace was released so close to Martin Scorsese ’s classic mobster movie Goodfellas that it couldn’t help but suffer in comparison. Nonetheless, State of Grace is a powerful mafia thriller that examines loyalty, societal violence, and police corruption. The film centers on the undercover cop Terry ( Sean Penn ) as he is forced to inform upon his former allies in the Irish mafia, including his childhood best friend Jackie (Oldman).

Oldman’s performance is critical to making State of Grace more emotional , as the dynamic between Terry and Jackie is what drives the tension.

State of Grace is certainly not lacking in great actors; Robin Wright, Ed Harris, John Turturro, and John C. Reilly all gave memorable performances. However, Oldman’s performance is critical to making State of Grace more emotional , as the dynamic between Terry and Jackie is what drives the tension. Oldman was able to play an eccentric mafia character who never risked being too over-the-top.

State of Grace can be streamed on Tubi in the U.S.

Watch on Tubi

8 ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ (1992)

Directed by francis ford coppola.

Dracula is a character who has been adapted to the screen many times, as films like Nosferatu and The Horror of Dracula is already regarded as all-time horror classics. However, Francis Ford Coppola ’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula turned the classic source material into a gothic historical epic with no shortage of gruesome moments. Oldman steals every scene he’s in, which is impressive considering that the film co-starred such acclaimed actors as Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves, and Winona Ryder . The Academy Award-nominated makeup effects only made Oldman’s performance more creepy.

Oldman managed to make Dracula scary again , as other interpretations of the character had made him into a more comical figure. Impressively, Oldman was able to turn Dracula into a somewhat empathic figure at times; it was clear that he was as much a victim as he was a villain.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Bram Stoker's Dracula can be streamed on Amazon in the U.S.

Watch on Amazon

7 ‘Mank’ (2020)

Directed by david fincher.

While he’s played his fair share of historical figures, Oldman took on one of the most challenging roles of his career when he played the famous screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz in David Fincher’s biopic Mank . Set during the Old Hollywood era , the film chronicles the relationship between Mank and Orson Welles ( Tom Burke ) during the production of Citizen Kane . As he wrestles with creative control of the film, Mank is forced to deal with the rise of propaganda filmmaking in Hollywood.

Mank is a richly entertaining and thought-provoking window into history in which Oldman captures the mannerisms of a larger-than-life historical figure. While the excellent production design transports the viewers back to the world of classic Hollywood, it’s Oldman’s depiction of an artist fighting for independence that makes Mank such a powerful indictment of studio interference. Oldman’s performance earned him a well deserved Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

Mank can be streamed on Netflix in the U.S.

Watch on Netflix

6 ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)

Directed by christopher nolan.

The character of Commissioner Jim Gordon is one of the most important in the entire Batman mythology. While he gave an impressive debut as the character in Batman Begins , Oldman explored Gordon’s ethical dilemma with his performance in The Dark Knight . As he works alongside Batman ( Christian Bale ) and Harvey Dent ( Aaron Eckhart ) to put Gotham City’s criminal days behind it, Gordon questions whether the ends justify the means. He’s often the most relatable character in the film, as his desire to protect his family makes him more vulnerable.

While not every character in the trilogy was well-utilized , Gordon is the real heart of The Dark Knight . Oldman showed that Gordon recognized what true heroism really is, and delivered a fiery monologue that concludes the film on an empowering note. The film’s ending set up another great performance from Oldman in The Dark Knight Rises .

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight can be streamed on Max in the U.S.

5 ‘JFK’ (1991)

Directed by oliver stone.

Director Oliver Stone is no stranger to controversy, but JFK created a media firestorm due to his assertions about the conspiracy to assassinate the United States President John F. Kennedy. JFK is a thought-provoking thriller that forces viewers to question assumed truths and take a deeper dive into the 1960s and the Cold War. Oldman’s performance as Lee Harvey Oswald is certainly important in giving the film a basis, in fact; it’s also one of the scariest roles he’s ever had, as he was drawing inspiration from a real person.

While it’s a film that has inspired heavy speculation among conspiracy theorists , JFK is a compelling espionage drama that showcases Stone’s brilliant craftsmanship. Oldman’s part is a relatively small one, but it’s crucial in Stone’s theme that the assassination itself was just one moment within a more insidious scheme.

JFK can be streamed on Amazon in the U.S.

4 ‘Leon: The Professional’ (1994)

Directed by luc besson.

Director Luc Besson changed the action movie genre forever with Leon: The Professional , a stylized thriller that combined hypnotic visuals with gritty gunplay. Although both Jean Reno and Natalie Portman earned their breakout roles in the film, Leon: The Professional is best remembered for Oldman’s menacing performance as a corrupt cop. It’s easily one of the best action movie villains of the 1990s; Oldman perfectly captures the warped persona of a man who will not listen to reason. No one can scream insults and threats quite like Oldman.

Leon: The Professional became very influential in the development of action cinema , as Besson himself would return to make similar crime thriller films . However, Oldman’s work has yet to be topped; while the character gets a tad eccentric at times, he’s clearly modeled on real corrupt cops and the outsized danger that their actions create for society.

Leon: The Professional

Leon: The Professional can be streamed on Netflix in the U.S.

3 ‘Sid & Nancy’ (1986)

Directed by alex cox.

The subgenre of musician biopics has become increasingly popular in recent years, with films like Elvis and Bohemian Rhapsody becoming both box office successes and award season darlings. However, Sid & Nancy offered a far more gritty depiction of the life of the Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious , who tragically died at the age of 21. Oldman perfectly captures why Vicious was so influential within the punk scene; it's a performance that is simultaneously inspiring and haunting. The film serves as an important depiction of history for those interested in learning about the birth of the punk movement.

The dynamic between Viscous and his love interest Nancy Spungen ( Chloe Webb ) makes the film even more tragic.

While the film recreates some of the most iconic concerts of the Sex Pistols’ career, Sid & Nancy succeeds in detailing Viscous’ romantic life. The dynamic between Viscous and his love interest Nancy Spungen ( Chloe Webb ) makes the film even more tragic, as Oldman manages to prove himself as a romantic lead.

Sid & Nancy can be purchased on DVD from Amazon in the U.S.

Buy on Amazon

2 ‘Darkest Hour’ (2017)

Directed by joe wright.

Occasionally, the Academy Awards will give acclaimed performers a “career Oscar” that is representative of their entire contributions to cinema rather than just one performance. However, Oldman’s Best Actor win for playing Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour couldn’t have been more deserving. Playing a figure as influential as Churchill comes with tremendous expectations, but Oldman managed to capture the sharp wit, undeniable intelligence, and affability that inspired one of Great Britain’s most beloved Prime Ministers.

Darkest Hour made the smart decision to only focus on a chapter in Churchill’s life rather than exploring his childhood and old age. The film focuses on Churchill’s battle to give support during the Dunkirk situation, which helped save the Allied Forces from collapse. While the battles take place in political meetings and not battlefields, Oldman’s incisive performance makes Darkest Hour relentlessly thrilling to watch.

Darkest Hour

Darkest Hour can be streamed on Netflix in the U.S.

1 ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ (2011)

Directed by tomas alfredson.

The work of the great author John le Carre has inspired many impressive adaptations, but Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of the greatest espionage thrillers of all-time. Set during the height of tensions between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy stars Oldman as the veteran spy George Smiley, who is tasked with uncovering a mole. Oldman shows how Smiley’s years of his experience have prepared him for a mission that has serious ramifications for the future of his country; his performance earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is unique among spy thrillers , as it focuses on subtle moments of espionage rather than climactic gun fights. While the film ended on a satisfying note that allowed Oldman to bring Smiley’s journey to an end, the possibility of a Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy sequel is undeniably an exciting one.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy can be streamed on Amazon in the U.S.

Rent on Amazon

KEEP READING: The 10 Best Pierce Brosnan Movies, Ranked

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“old skool” starring tessie tomas and angel aquino: film review + official trailer (showing on nov 4).

Is there an age limit to happiness? In Old Skool, 69-year old Lola Fely realizes that it is never too late and one is never too old to fulfill one’s dreams. The quest for happiness is a universal journey and Old Skool shows us one roadmap to get there. The debut feature film of director Cia Hermosa-Jorge and latest release from Till I’m 90 Films follows the story of 69-year old Lola Fely (played by Tessie Tomas), who found herself lost following the death of her husband. Having spent five decades playing a role to fulfill the happiness of others, as a wife and as a mother, she is now faced with the question of her own happiness. She sought the answers in fulfilling a lifelong dream — to receive her elementary diploma. With newfound determination, she goes back to school to finish Grade 6, only to discover the ruthless world of pre-teen campus life. The movie sees Lola Fely navigating lunchroom politics, bullying, making friends, and dealing with the pressures of school.

Through graceful storytelling, Old Skool tugs at the heartstrings with great subtlety. Generous on the comedy and punctuated with genuine heartfelt moments, it is a movie with a bold message—in your journey to happiness, your dream is your north star.

I was lucky enough to be invited to the premiere of Old Skool, which for me is a breath of fresh air amidst the usual big-budget Hollywood films and slew of love team-driven local movies. It’s an inspiring movie that celebrates the power of dreams and the love for learning. It’s not action packed, but it is packed with deep emotions brought to the viewers through fine directing and graceful acting. Tessie Tomas is wonderful as Lola Fely—she brought an unforgettable kindness to a character that has spent much of her life prioritizing the happiness of other people over her own. Only with the death of her husband did her own yearnings to fulfill a lifelong dream start to stir, and that is to complete her elementary education. I’m not much for technical analysis of a movie—like most viewers I pay more attention to the movie’s impact on my own thoughts and emotions—but I did notice how perfectly the musical score matched Lola Fely’s inner struggles.

As she fretted at her house, feeling lost, not knowing what else is there to do, single piano notes followed her around. When she saw some school paraphernalia, and an idea or a memory made her expression change, the piano notes combined into a melody. This scene in the movie I found breathtaking. There was tension as something indefinable was building, but instead of breaking, it transformed into a positive forward movement taking Lola Fely to her dream of completing school.

So often, old people can only look forward to dying, as if significance dies with youth. This movie defies that mindset, insisting, “ t here is no end date for following your dream and reinventing yourself .”

This theme resonated strongly with Cia, who felt her own foray to filmmaking paralleled Lola Fely’s journey. The mother of three first peered through the lens of a movie camera only in 2010, under the direction of the late veteran director Marilou Diaz-Abaya. “Before studying film, I held a really good corporate job for over six years. At that time, my eldest son was starting to develop into his own person and that’s when I knew I had to set a good example for him and follow my passion. I wanted him to see his mother put in 100% to pursue her dream because that’s how he’ll learn how to soar,” says Cia. “On the first day of film school, I was so nervous because I was 30 and everything was uncertain. But I was so hungry to learn. Direk Marilou taught me that being a filmmaker is a vocation. A calling. You touch people’s hearts, you inspire action, and you make people realize things through film. It is a huge responsibility. Only five years later, and of course through blood, sweat, and tears, we have Old Skool.

The movie also stars Angel Aquino and Buboy Villar of Kid Kulafu . Angel is the loving but ever-anxious daughter who bears financial responsibility for her mother and daughter. Not very supportive of her mother’s dream at first, her character nevertheless was who I resonated with most. There was a point in the movie where she almost could not catch her breath from worry and so was I so many times in my own life that seeing this on film was almost cathartic — like it was telling me I’m not alone in this feeling.

Buboy, as the tough kid whose exterior hides a sweet soul, is a gem. I liked him best when, curious yet wary about Lola Fely’s concern, he would pretend to ignore her, trying to be nonchalant about his situation, yet secretly pleased with the attention.

The other cast also performed well. There are no histrionics in this movie. The lines are delivered naturally. Old Skool is a sweet, feel-good movie invested in the story-telling. The viewer is slowly immersed in the world, not bombarded by special effects and fast-paced action. I wish there will be more local movies like this.

If you want a break from all the terrifying events and pessimistic views saturating the air, if you want a validating and hopeful experience for a change, just breathe and enjoy the feeling that everything will be alright eventually if you dare to follow your dream, I suggest you watch Old Skool.

Old Skool, starring Tessie Tomas, Angel Aquino, and Buboy Villar, premieres on November 4 exclusively at SM Cinemas nationwide.

About The Author

Bookworm. Animal lover. Tree hugger. Read her book blog at www.artseblis.wordpress. Find her at the Flips Flipping Pages book club on Facebook. Volunteer with her in animal welfare, ATD Philippines (poverty alleviation), Samahan ng Sining at Kultura ng Pilipinas (heritage preservation), Pandacan Ecology Ministry (environment protection), or Advocate for Environmental and Social Justice (community development).

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The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time.

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30 years ago, The Critic enrolled six year olds everywhere in film school

Al jean and mike reiss’ dark comedy about the world’s saddest profession was a big hit on the playground.

Three decades ago—on January 26, 1994, to be precise—two glorious words graced the ears of 26 million ABC viewers for the first time: “It stinks.” Cartoon film critic Jay Sherman (voiced by Jon Lovitz) had a massive audience but would be gone a year and a half later. The brainchild of early Springfield residents James L. Brooks, Al Jean, and Mike Reiss, The Critic may have had a short life, but its legacy lives on. Personally, I can’t untangle myself from Jay Sherman. But as lovely as it has been to be compared to a guy who takes literal orders from his stomach and whose ex-wife regards him with the warmth of a guard at Abu Ghraib, I can’t deny the show’s impact on my life. It was my first exposure to a broader film culture.

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The Critic has been with me my entire adult life and most of my childhood; the jokes from its 23-episode original run are never far from lips. I remain one of the few, the proud, still using the word “Duke-a-licious,” a situation that can only be described as a “Duke-tastrophe.” When I sat down to rewatch the show this year, I faced another Duke-tastrophe: I am now the same age as Jay Sherman, work in his field, and share similar opinions about the sequels and reboots that get made over actual movies. It stinks. It all stinks.

I was already obsessed with movies and TV when The Critic came to town. Nursing between six and 11 Coca-Colas a day, I’d bounce on my couch in a caffeine-induced bender and pray aloud to the gods of HBO to play Batman , Beetlejuice , or Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure next. Stuck in my Tim Burton cul-de-sac, I’d suffer through the afternoon until The Simpsons began its nightly rerun marathon. When ads for The Critic , a new show “from the creators of The Simpsons ” about a guy who “hates everything he sees,” began airing during Home Improvement , who was I to resist?

My parents didn’t have time to worry about my viewing habits. My mom was diagnosed with M.S. shortly after I was born, and my dad owned a small business when he wasn’t cooking for, picking up after, and driving around my sister and me. There was no time to monitor, but my dad would facilitate my TV addiction. It was the only way to shut me up. When South Park premiered in 1997, he taped it for me because it aired after bedtime. When Bigger, Longer & Uncut came out two years later, he defied the box-office attendant’s warning that the movie wasn’t appropriate for 11-year-olds with a resigned “I know” and escorted me into the theater. Decades later, he told me he figured I’d be fine. How wrong he was.

Rising from the ashes of a Today Show parody and a failed Krusty The Clown spinoff set in New York , The Critic follows the tragic tale of Dr. Jay Sherman, PhD, a Pulitzer Prize-winning adopted son of a billionaire, who rakes in a six-figure salary saying Jurassic Park II “stinks” on his nationally syndicated film review show, Coming Attractions . Despite the appearance of a charmed life, Jay is often the focus of New York’s ire. Every episode opens with him receiving bad news, a bird stealing his toupee, and him cracking the ice at Rockefeller Center. But Jay isn’t as cynical as his catchphrase makes him appear. He’s a vigorous defender of the arts who, in the name of good movies, refuses to cow to the demands of his Ted Turner-inspired boss, Duke Philips (voiced by a brilliant Charles Napier). Jay spent his career criticizing Hollywood hacks, instilling in viewers that, maybe, not every movie was good. The message stuck.

Art always seemed under attack on The Critic , in absurd and relevant ways. His father smashed Guernica for fun, and his boss, a proto-Jack Donaghy, digitally created ad space in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest . In the world of Critic creators Jean and Reiss, even arthouse fairy tales like The Red Balloon can become The Red Balloon 2: Revenge Of The Red Balloon . The unsubtle parody “Clint Eastwood is Dirty Harry in Robo Canine Cop And A Half 2 " made sure I wouldn’t look at my precious RoboCop 2 the same.

While most of the references went over my head, one doesn’t need to know the specific works to find “ Take that, Guernica ! ” funny . The Critic always excelled at jokes over plot, playing to its grade-school audience that hadn’t seen Goodfellas or The Piano . Thankfully, the spoofs were never too sophisticated, often simple black-out sketches the size of a Mad Magazine panel with targets only a half-step removed from the real thing. Nightmare Before Christmas became Nightmare Before Hanukkah , in a sequence that probably took way more time than it was worth. Meanwhile, a Goodfellas parody can be a setup for another of Jay’s memorable catchphrases, “Hi, guy.” The under-10 crowd might not get the Picasso jokes, but Jay’s ridiculously basic catchphrases, like “buy my book” and “hotchie motchie,” gave us plenty to chew on as the deeper references wormed into our subconscious.

Like all good criticism, The Critic expanded my view of the wider cinematic world. More than parodies of memorable moments, the show introduced me to Orson Welles, whose blocky frame, “country goodness and green pea-ness” became a fixture of my pop culture understanding. The Critic didn’t always treat him kindly, often reverting to fat jokes, but voice actor Maurice LaMarche’s impression is still what I hear in my head when I think of Welles’ dulcet tones.

The Critic often had a complex relationship with creators. Jay’s pitch for his second Pulitzer, an essay entitled “Chaplin, Polanski, And Woody: Three Men And A Little Lady,” teases a more complex, systematic situation. Nevertheless, the show’s opening credits and Han Zimmer’s theme are a direct homage to Woody Allen’s Manhattan and its use of the New York skyline and George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue.”

Of course, the show made critics worthy of celebrity, too. At that point, the extent of my interest in film criticism was the 1993 book Movies On TV And Video Cassette and the Blockbuster Video guide. But the series aired at the height of Siskel and Ebert’s television fame , so in the critics’ section of L’ane Riche, the exclusive restaurant Jay frequents, Gene Shalit raves about linguine, Pauline Kael gets a name check, and Rex Reed is calling Ebert for a job. The show wasn’t a critical darling, but despite getting panned by Siskel and Ebert on At The Movies , the pair appeared in the second-season classic, “Siskel & Ebert & Jay & Alice.” It’s still the show’s most famous episode.

After its 1995 cancelation, the series existed as a dream only accessed through the Simpsons crossover episode “ A Star Is Burns .” The crossover might be controversial for Matt Groening , but it’s a fan favorite responsible for some of the show’s most beloved jokes, like “Saying the quiet part loud,” “That’s the joke,” and “Boo-urns.” Quoting those lines was my only connection to the Shermometer until Comedy Central added the show to its late-night offerings in 1997. Couched between other comedies far too adult for my delicate disposition, like Dr. Katz and the USA “Up All Night” classic Duckman , The Critic played the sleepover circuit. My friends and I would stay up well past midnight to glimpse “ Ghostchasers III ,” cackling our heads off at a skyscraper-sized Ed Koch, asking, “How’m I doing?” Who cares if I didn’t know who Ed Koch was? I didn’t know who Michael Dukakis was, either.

The Critic offered a primer for the film and cultural canon. It gave me junk food parodies of The Lion King and Indiana Jones and prepared my brain for a more expansive pop-culture universe populated by a flirty Elephant Man and a ghostly Orson Welles. But more than that, it instilled in me a belief that good movies were worth defending and that movies, in general, were an interest one could have. The people who make movies and the people who talk about them are all part of the same absurd, hostile, and fascinating world, a world I wanted to join.

Over the years, my love for The Critic receded into the background. But whenever I see another Jurassic Park sequel, a voice from the deep recesses of my memory cries out: “It stinks.”

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Why Britain Keeps Giving Classic Movies New Ratings

As the attitudes of moviegoers evolve, so do the guidelines of the ratings board, which has reclassified dozens of films including “Mary Poppins” and “Rocky.”

By Christopher Kuo

The British Board of Film Classification has been busy.

Last year, the group rerated more than 30 older films to meet contemporary standards. In February, it gave a stricter rating to “Mary Poppins” because of racial slurs. And last week, it began using an updated set of guidelines after surveying thousands of British moviegoers to gauge shifting public attitudes.

Based on that survey, the new guidelines acknowledge that audiences have grown more lenient about depictions of cannabis use but are more concerned about intense violence and, for younger viewers, bad language.

“We follow what people tell us, and we update our standards as societal attitudes change,” said David Austin, the board’s chief executive.

When distributors rerelease movies in theaters, on streaming services or on DVD, they may be required to resubmit the films to the ratings board. Many voluntarily choose to do so, Austin said, in hopes of receiving a lower rating or to ensure that the rating matches the content. What was once considered acceptable onscreen may no longer be.

Under the newest guidelines, the board said, both the 2018 Transformers movie, “Bumblebee,” and the 1963 James Bond classic, “From Russia With Love,” would be rated 12A instead of PG if they were resubmitted for updated ratings.

(The ratings for theatrical releases are U, for universal; PG, for parental guidance; 12A, 15 and 18, for certain age restrictions; and R18, for pornographic content.)

A distributor is legally required to ask for a new rating when it rereleases a movie that was classified before the introduction of the modern ratings in 1982. The B.B.F.C. said that about half of the theatrical releases it rerated in the past two years were mandatory submissions.

“Rocky,” which was released in the United States in 1976 and in Britain the following year, received a 12A rating for its 2020 theatrical rerelease because of moderate violence, mouthed strong language and domestic abuse. “Enter the Dragon,” a 1973 film starring Bruce Lee, went from an outdated X rating to 15 as attitudes evolved regarding the weapons and violence depicted in martial arts movies.

Although older films are regularly reclassified in Britain, similar changes rarely happen in the United States, where studios do not have to submit their films for reclassification, even if the films were rated before 1984, the year that PG-13 was introduced.

The American ratings group, the Classification and Ratings Administration, does not have a systematic process for updating the guidelines for its ratings (G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17). It provided one example of a film that it rerated: In 2010, a singalong version of “Grease” was rated PG-13, instead of its original PG in 1978.

The group is a division of the Motion Picture Association, a trade organization representing major Hollywood studios. Its board is made up of parents who have school-age children, a CARA spokeswoman said.

CARA conducts regular surveys with American parents to gauge attitudes about violence, nudity and other content in films, and the board uses that feedback when it rates movies, according to an M.P.A. spokesman. The results from the most recent survey , which were released in April 2023, show that parents are most concerned about graphic sexual content, nudity, sexual assault, suicide, use of hard drugs and racial slurs in movies that children might see.

Movie studios in the United States prefer to self-regulate their films, said Kevin Sandler, an associate professor in the film and media studies program at Arizona State University and the author of a book about Hollywood film ratings .

“When there’s some kind of controversy that’s brewing and push comes to shove, they’ll change it,” Sandler said.

Last year, viewers of “The French Connection” on Apple TV+ and Amazon noticed that a scene with a racial slur for Black people had been quietly excised . On Disney’s streaming platform, the company has added warnings about “negative depictions” and “mistreatment of people or cultures” to classic animated films like “Dumbo” and “Peter Pan.”

The British Board of Film Classification, which consists of business leaders, former journalists, a former lawmaker and a social worker, is nongovernmental and a nonprofit, according to its website. But the government does designate the board’s leadership with the power to classify video releases.

Its classifications can have a significant effect on which movies British parents allow their children to see, said Julian Petley, a professor at Brunel University London and one of the principal editors of The Journal of British Cinema and Television.

“They have a massive public consultation process,” Petley said. “They’re not just guessing at what people think or reading off newspapers.”

In recent years, the board reconsidered “Watership Down” (1978), which went from U to PG because of mild violence, bloody images and language, and “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (2001), which changed from PG to 12A for its fantasy violence. “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980), originally rated U, received a PG rating for several violent scenes, including one in which Luke Skywalker’s hand is severed.

Christopher Kuo covers arts and culture as a member of the 2023-24 Times Fellowship class. More about Christopher Kuo