Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

SnoopyStyle What the heck just happened? The WWE logo comes on, and a serious drama comes on. Is this a new effort to broaden out the WWE brand? This is a coming-of-age story of 12 year old Andy Nichol (Chase Ellison) in 1965. He's a normal kid who's trying to survive school when Mr. Simon (Ed Harris) forces Andy with the school's biggest outcast the quiet giant red head Stanley (Alexander Walters).Writer/Director Michael Pavone must have binge watched "The Wonder Years". This was filled with all the clichés, all the bully, all the first love drama, and even has the iconic older-self narration. Everything is jammed in there that it felt much more derivative than it needed to be. However to say something is derived from an icon like "The Wonder Years" isn't necessarily a bad thing.

perkypops All the good work done in this film, and there is much to admire especially from Ed Harris as Mr Simon, was undone by the crass after- stories in the credits which completely destroyed the film's main message.The important message here was about dignity and integrity which bring their own rewards even in the light of what many would regard as failure. The eighth grade messages within the narrative and screenplay are so very well stated and acted out by an array of potential stars in the making, held together by the experienced Mr Harris who plays his part with extraordinary sensitivity. Mr Simon is the school's most popular teacher and yet there are "flaws" in his personal life because he doesn't fit the profile some parents would prefer, especially when he nails one student in the act of physical assault of another.Indeed the film plays hard on the idea of students flawed because they are more academically gifted than others, something I guess we have all witnessed on a school campus. The differences between people and their need to survive are all central to a plot that is threaded in many ways.And the film winds its way to a believable conclusion rather than one that may leave us with an artificially massaged happy nerve. Until the credits roll that is.And so up until the credits this film is worth a seven but with those darned credits in place I'm sorry guys but for me you ruined all that effort. Five out of ten.

alinsteglinski This movie is definitely not worth the hour and a half that it is in time. This movie is a poorly put together plot. Very bland and not funny at all. I really wish that critics and other reviewers would have rated this movie lower. What a waste of an hour and a half. I am so glad I waited for this to come on DVD / Netflix because having wasted over $30 on this at a movie theatre would just make me feel even worse about it. Overall to some people this movie might be worth the time, but for most, it's not.If you are a school teacher or in school or a school staff member, this movie might be worth the time for you, but if you can't relate to it much then its not really going to have much of an impact on you.

TxMike I managed to see this one on Netflix streaming video.Except for Ed Harris and Amy Madigan, who are each very experienced and very good, the rest of the cast are fairly inexperienced. Still, it comes over well.The title relates to what three different characters declare, at three different times in the movie. "I am a writer, that's what I am." "I am a singer, that's what I am." "I am a teacher, that's what I am." It is reinforcing the idea that we need to figure out what we are, and then become that in our lives. Plus tolerance, the need to accept others and opinions that may differ from our own.Ed Harris is Mr. Simon, generally considered the best and favorite teacher. He reads "Joan of Arc" to these 8th graders. One of his students, destined to be the writer, is Chase Ellison as 12-yr-old Andy Nichol. Bright, delivers newspapers on his bike in the story set in 1965, but rather small and an easy target for bullies.In an English class assignment to write a paper, Mr Simon pairs Andy with Alexander Walters as Stanley, better known in school as Big G. He is taller and stronger than the others his age, has big ears and bright red hair, and hangs with the geeks. But he is meek, more of a peacemaker than a fighter. Until certain situations arise. Amy Madigan is Principal Kelner at the school.This is a coming-of-age story for several of the kids, but mostly for Andy. There is a secondary but important issue, when one of two kids start to refer to Mr Simon as a "homo", and soon even the parents are wondering if their kids are safe. The lesson here was, Mr Simon refused to say one way or the other, feeling that his record should stand for itself, not what he might or might not do in his private life. Rather than deal with it he resigned at the end of the school year, planning to move to Florida, near his sister, and teach there. But when Andy visited him at home, and saw a photo of Mr Simon's wife, they discussed the fact that she had died some 19 years earlier, she was his only love.Filmed mostly in Jefferson Parish, near New Orleans. The area looked like Kenner or Metairie.