High School

Director: Frederick Wiseman
Year Released: 1968
Rating: 2.0

Documentarian Wiseman takes his camera to Northeast High School in Philly to film the Baby Boomers attending classes (English, Spanish, Physical Education, etc.), arguing with their teachers, making phone calls during lunch, briefly discussing the Vietnam War and so on.  I've brought up issues I have with the director's "approach" in the past and have no desire to repeat them, but when all you offer the audience is fragments of interactions with no context behind them, the effectiveness is limited - if his intention was to just make a time capsule of the era, that's fine too.  It's nice to see how my parents' generation (my Mother graduated in '68) were just as disinterested in schooling as their disaffected offspring.  Not acceptable by today's standards: all the fat shaming and creepy close-ups of the girls' legs.  Very acceptable by today's standards: master grammarian Lil Uzi Vert attended this very school just a few years ago ("She's sipping Moët, and yeah, I swear it get her wetter / My Louboutins new, so my bottoms, they is redder").