Top Ten Movies That I Was Forced to Watch

As many of you may know at this point, I am a writer. It must sound surprising, but yes, I do enjoy doing a pencil-to-paper from time to time, so I thought it would be a good idea to go to school for it, and that's exactly what I did. As with most schools, we've been forced to witness multiple movies, some I enjoyed, some I have not. Today, I will be taking films that I've watched in school and ranking them on my own, truly terrible, bias, in a top-ten-based format. I do not remember most movies I have watched in school, and this will only be ten of them, so this will not be a complete list, just what comes to me while writing. Some of these films are educational, some are just that we watched them at the end of the year because there was no more lesson plans and the teachers didn't know what to do.

10. Frozen

My sixth grade class watched this film about a year after it came out, and it was the first time I had seen it. The year was 2014 and all the buzz and hype about Frozen was straight up gone from existence. All of my classmates had previously seen the film, and my best friend (at the time) told me that his twin sister owned and watched the movie about once a week. I couldn't believe it. Whatever this movie was about some girl that has ice powers must be good. I watched it, and I enjoyed it, of course it wasn't all I had hoped for based on all the astounding reviews of it. It gains a spot on this list because it was fun to see all the girls in my Social Studies class burst into "Let it Go".

9. Captain America: Civil War

I don't agree with this film being played in a school. I have been forced to watch it four times in my life, the first in the theater with my father, second in seventh grade math class, third during a MCU marathon with my father, and fourth in my eighth grade English class. So I have watched it twice in school. This brings up a problem to me, I have nothing against the action or violence or even the multiple uses of shit and bitch, but the fact that they would play movie that takes place in the middle of a series without also showing the other films. How dare they assume that every child being forced to watch the movie isn't seeing spoilers for a movie that they had not seen yet. They could have at least shown the first Captain America movie, as it has little to do with previous films in the series, but no, they had to show the movie that gives spoilers for basically every previous film in the franchise. It just pisses me off that they would do something like that, but nonetheless, I'm giving Captain America: Civil War a spot on the list because I think that it is a well put together movie and it is enjoyable the watch, not necessarily on the fourth time though.

8. Sugar

I watched Sugar fairly recently, about a few months ago in my Spanish class, and I thought it was pretty good. I knew some people who hated the movie, and I just didn't get why they wouldn't like it. It certainly doesn't seem like a movie I'd like, I mean, it's about sports and I just have never been able to get down with those. There was something about the story that really grabbed me and I'd like to watch it again. Of course, there were some things that I didn't like, such as every time there was a shirtless guy my friend would look at me and say, "Oooh, Joseph, look at that big man," as a way to make fun of me, as he does it during every movie we watch together where a nude man is present. Thanks friend. 

7. High School Musical

Viewed in elementary school. I'm not completely sure about the year but I remember it fairly well. It is not an amazing movie by a long shot. but it certainly had some sort of effect on me. There is almost nothing to say about this movie except that 1) Zefron is a very good man, and 2) High School Musical is a super weird film and I'm not sure if it should be a kids movie.

6. The Great Gatsby

It is certainly not as silly as other films I have watched in school, it's more of a drama than anything else. I also watched it just a few months ago, and I must say it was not the Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire edition, much to the dismay of me and my classmates, but the 1974 one that's definitely less jazzy. An enjoyable film all around, even without Leo and Tobey having fun, the other guys were cool with their homoerotic sexual tension too I suppose.

5. Aladdin

Aladdin is my favorite animated Disney flick. I watched it in elementary school, once again not knowing exactly what year it was, but I know I did watch it in school. I haven't watched it in a few years, so the only things I really remember are those good-good songs that pop up. "Friend Like Me", "Prince Ali", "One Jump Ahead". All the songs are truly beautiful bangers that I can get down with at most times of the day, except for while I'm sleeping. I can't jam out to music while I sleep.

4. Jumanji

Pretty funny film where Robin Williams plays a little boy that fell inside the board game of the same name, Jumanji. Of course. this situation probably won't happen to any real boys & girls as they try to play their favorite board games, but who knows, maybe one day I'll be sitting in a chair playing Monopoly with all my fun friends and I'll be transformed into the thimble. I'd totally get down with playing some Jumanji, but I would most certainly die before the end of the game, I wouldn't be able to deal with all those big ass spiders.

3. Hook

Robin Williams, once again, breaks into this list for the third time and now he's in another fantasy realm as some sort of wacky tacky Peter Pan movie thing. Big fan of this one. I watched it in eighth grade and it was totally not the first time I saw it. Hook featured some wacky things happening and I'm not sure if anything about the movie is legal, unless it's a Disney product, in which case, completely legal and I'm not going to jail for owning it.

2. Stranger Than Fiction

I also watch this one very recently, just last week in fact, and I love it. I had heard a lot about it but I never really knew what it was about, when I was a boy, a little boy, I used to think that Stranger Than Fiction and Pulp Fiction were the same movie because they both were for adults and they both had fiction in the title. This is, of course, a clear misjudgment on my part, as to me, 'for adults' meant boring. I thought Pulp Fiction, now one of my favorite movies, was boring when I first heard of it. What the hell was wrong with me. Besides my idiotic viewpoint as a lil' baby boy, Stranger Than Fiction was a silly little film that might have made me cry at the end.

1. Blackfish

Okay, okay, okay, okay. I know what you're thinking. "Really Joseph, a biography is the best thing you've ever watched in school?" well here's the answer. Yes, it it. Now you shut up and listen to me. I watched the film halfway through my eighth grade year and it was just an amazing experience to behold. I don't know why the teacher thought it would be good for us to watch, but y'know, it happened, and I'm glad it did. It showed me things that I hadn't seen before. Those were real things that happened in that movie, and it showed it. I saw death in school and it was because of an animal. I hate documentaries, but this one just makes me so emotional and excited and just... amazed in general that it had to be number one. If you disagree, good. If you think I'm an unstable human being because I'm fascinated by seeing death, okay, cool, I just think that it's interesting. Come fight me loser, I am Spartacus.