KMC Forums - Three O'Clock High

I can't believe there isn't a thread for this classic high school bully movie! confused

I rarely recommend a movie out of the blue, but I remember when I was in high school, this movie seemed to speak to me. I think it may still apply today. I dare you to rent this, if you can find it. Here's some guys critique of the movie, some dude who pretty much sums it up:

Three O' Clock High Suburban High School Masterpiece � 10 (classic)

Have you ever brought a weapon to school? Let's be honest now, and, yes, the brass knuckles count. It's not something I'm proud of, but one day I bought a very large sheathed knife to middle school concealed in my backpack, one that I had bought off my friend. I showed it to a couple friends but never took it out. I guess it made me feel powerful during a time when the vivid colors of youth were slowly fading into a bleak black and gray. I was wearing Metallica T-shirts and black leather every day and growing more and more cynical about human nature with each passing semester. Everyone had their cozy cliques. The pretty girls knew they were pretty, the blacks and Latinos formed their own coalitions, and then there was me gripping my lunch tray amidst a cafeteria of hostile eyes. Middle school for me was poop-in-my-pants fear in bullet time.

At age thirteen, I was beginning to question my place in the flux of society. Did I belong to that group or that group? Little did I know that I was to hit puberty soon, whereupon a new cocktail of hormones would knock my brain out of childhood and into the world of minimum wages, TV, and weapons of mass destruction.

No other movie I can think of captures that sense of stark naked individuality as poignantly as THREE O'CLOCK HIGH. This brilliant film features a hero and a villain, both of whom are loners. The hero, played by Casey Siemaszko, is a born loser, the one who realizes that his fly is open during public speaking class and faces the laughter of all the normal kids. The villain, a young and fresh Richard Tyson, who was born to play this role, is the psychotic biker thug who never says a word and never allows anyone to touch him. The two loners have an unlucky encounter one morning, and as Jerry Mitchell apologizes he accidentally touches Buddy Revell's jacket. That's where the shat goes down, and soon the whole school is abuzz with the latest news: fight at three o' clock. Buddy Revell vs. Jerry Mitchell.

THREE O' CLOCK HIGH is directed and edited with supreme wit. Every second of the day is stretched to darkly humorous extremes. Each tick of the clock brings the audience closer to doom and a zoom closer into Jerry's sweaty forehead. Anyone who's set foot in an American school will be up in stitches suffering from that kind of uncontrollable laughter that bubbles up from the sternum. As he over-interprets the things he sees around him, Jerry Mitchell's fear reaches out through the screen and tickles your stomach. No other pathetic loser role has been played as well ever or since in my opinion.

I don't think that any of the cast & crew of this classic film have had the industry standard "illustrious" career, but who cares? They all came together in 1987 to make a movie that changed the course of my life. Stephen Spielberg was involved in THREE 'O CLOCK HIGH's production, but I don't know exactly where. Anne Ryan did a stellar job as Jerry's Proto-goth girlfriend. Who knows what she's doing now? By now the children of 1987 are all grown up and running the rat race in a gerbil wheel.

THREE O' CLOCK HIGH will resurface all of the high school emotions that you want to forget. Do you remember wetting your pants, the puppy dog love, or being abandoned by your close friends? One thing is for sure. Watching this movie will evoke those emotions, including the deepest of thrills � overcoming the odds and getting that half-ass-ed paper in on time.

JY

Jimboduck-dot-com