Help me pick a movie

[pogokat]

I am a high school English Teacher, and I'm currently teaching a Contemporary Literature class. We are finishing up The Road by Cormac McCarthy and I'd like to show the students a movie with a similar thme. Here's the requirements: The movie must be rated Pg-13 or less and I need to be able to get it at bestbuy or netflix. other than that, fire away

[homer]

I would say Road to Perdition but that's rated R. I'll think about it some more.

[DougJones43]

"The Stand" was a mini-series adapted by Stephen King, and has a post-apocalyptic theme. It was made for TV, so you should be safe as far as ratings go. Only problem is that is runs like 6 hours, so it might be longer than what you're looking for. If you have that kind of time to spare with the class, it might be cool. I'm sure your class wouldn't mind being able to watch a movie every day for a week plus. hahaha.

[pogokat]

ok. i guess i should have said it needs to be 2.5 hours at the longest:)

[nate82]

wikipedia list of post-apocalyptic movies

Most of the movies that I know of that deal with post-apocalyptic are R rated movies. You could always go with Waterworld (not my favorite) Mad Max, The Ultimate Warrior, and the Postman are some of my favorites. But all are R rated movies. Waterworld is the only one that I know of is PG-13 and I believe is 2.5 hours at the longest.

[JoeHova]

I don't know, it's hard to think of a good movie with a similar plot to "The Road". Too bad the movie isn't out yet.

 

The only thing I can think of is to use a war movie like Apocalypse Now or a western like High Plains Drifter because those often have a similar feeling of desperation. Both of those are rated R though.

 

On that note, "Grave of the Fireflies" is an animated movie that has a pretty similar theme to "The Road", in the sense that it's about two young children (rather than one kid and one adult) trying to stay alive while Kobe is being firebombed during WWII. A lot of people consider it one of the greatest war movies ever, as well as one of the greatest animated movies ever. It's only an hour and a half long. It's unrated by the MPAA but it was originally shown in Japan as a double feature with "My Neighbor Totoro" (by the same studio), so it is safely below an R. That's the best fit I can think of off the top of my head.

[homer]

I guess it would help to know what 'theme' you are thinking of. When I read The Road I thought of the bond between Father and Son and how that bond gets them through the absolute worst that humanity/nature whatever has to throw at them - the post apocalyptic part was just the setting they were in.

[pogokat]

it's an advanced clip...the good of humanity ---bond of father and son aspect sticks out a lot more than my temptation to show dawn of the dead or a boy and his dog..

 

grave of the fireflies is actually a good call...is that studio ghibli? I didn't realize that... edit: actually thinking life is beautiful might be a good choice now as well

[homer]

Life is Beautiful is a great call.

 

Try and get the version with subtitles as opposed to the English dubbed version. At least, that's my personal preference. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Katuluu]

Hmm...love between a father and son and the good of humanity? That's easy.

 

[RobertR]

The rating kind of limits your options. Road to Perdition or the Lone Wolf and Cub movies would fit well. There's certainly no shortage of "road" movies out there, Smoke Signals springs to mind. Although it's tough to mix the two with the apocalyptic atmosphere of The Road.

 

I'd probably go with a bona fide classic, BICYCLE THIEVES, as perhaps the closest you can come.

 

Robert

[jazzytrav]

Life is Beautiful is a great call.

 

Try and get the version with subtitles as opposed to the English dubbed version. At least, that's my personal preference. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

You mean make them read? Psshh.

[pogokat]

iron eagle is a good call too...we watched Raisin in the Sun a couple weeks ago, and lewis gosset jr. was in there...continuity is a good thing...

[EdgarDiazRocks]

On the Beach

[parkside21]

I don't know anything about the book that you read, but if it sounds like you're looking for a post-apocalyptic theme, I can't overstate enough how great the movie "Testament" is. It's an older film, 1982 or 1983 rings a bell. It's about how a town tries to survive after a nuclear attack. It's character driven, and really shows nothing about the actual bomb itself, rather it deals with how the people in the community react, and is way more "realistic" than any special effects "hollywood" movie that depicts a nuclear attack that I've seen. It's incredibly sad, and you latch on to the main family quickly. It's about 90 minutes long. I can't imagine it's rated worse than PG-13, because though it's been a few years since I've seen it, I don't recall any terrible language or gore, though it might be rated PG-13 just based on the subject nature. I think it might have actually been intended for TV, but they instead decided to release it as a studio movie because they were afraid it would scare too many people on tv, especially during our relationship with the USSR at the time. At least that's what I thought I heard.

 

It's a bit tough to find, as it's out of print now, but I first found it on blockbuster online a couple of years ago, so I would imagine Netflix might have it. I got got lucky and found my copy from a local blockbuster store and I "lost" it. The 14.99 replacement fee was much cheaper than the 50-60 dollars it was going for on secondhand websites.

 

I've recommended it to many people, and while they thought it was good, they wish I would have prepared them a bit better for it, but I think that's all part of the shock and what makes it such a great film.

 

Good luck.

 

edit: here is a link to it on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086429/ and below are the first two paragraphs from Ebert's 1983 review of the movie, that both he and users gave 4/4 stars:

 

"Testament" may be the first movie in a long time that will make you cry. It made me cry. And seeing it again for the second time, knowing everything that would happen, anticipating each scene before it came, I was affected just as deeply.

 

But the second time I was able to see more clearly that the movie is more than just a devastating experience, that it has a message with a certain hope. The film is about a suburban American family, and what happens to that family after a nuclear war. It is not a science-fiction movie, and it doesn't have any special effects, and there are no big scenes of buildings blowing over or people disintegrating. We never even see a mushroom cloud. We never even know who started the war. Instead, "Testament" is a tragedy about manners: It asks how we might act toward one another, how our values might stand up, in the face of an overwhelming catastrophe.