Freedom Writers (Full Screen Edition)

Freedom Writers (Full Screen Edition)
by Richard LaGravenese

Freedom Writers (Full Screen Edition)
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DVD details

Actor: April L. Hernandez, Hilary Swank, Imelda Staunton, Patrick Dempsey, Scott Glenn
Director: Richard LaGravenese
Brand: PARAMOUNT PICTURES
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Color, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 122 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-04-17
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Paramount

DVD Reviews of Freedom Writers (Full Screen Edition)

DVD Review: 3 stars out of 4
Summary: 4 Stars

The Bottom Line:

Freedom Writers sometimes cleaves to formula, but the emotions it generates are real, its characters reasonably nuanced, and its acting high caliber enough to raise the film above the tired genre of "inspirational teacher" films.

DVD Review: Grest purchase
Summary: 5 Stars

This movie was delivered as advertised, on time and in perfect condition. Will use this Amazon supplier again.

DVD Review: Seniority versus love
Summary: 5 Stars

The central subject of any pedagogical project, and not a project like the dilapidated new housing projects for ghetto people who are not kept in a ghetto any more but in a separate urban area where they are supposed to only hurt themselves or one another, is teaching. Teaching as a project, but what is that? It is to flush down the toilet the syllabus, the pre-digested and pre-fabricated classes and courses, you know that course that is produced once and for all till the teacher retires. Comfortable for do-little personnel. But totally deadly and morbid for the kids, but who cares about the kids who are flunkies and unable to be anything else. A project it is to let the students dictate the class, the syllabus, the method, the themes and the objectives, though the objectives are also slightly determined by the teachers from time to time, at least by making the students discuss them and agree on them. That's not very difficult actually, because they want to know how to read, write, speak English and even calculate, compute, multiply and divide at ease. But that is only the easy part of the project because it is the jam that is going to bring the sweet teeth and sweet tongues of the students together. The most difficult part is to love the students. In the film the English teacher says "like" not to antagonize the colleagues, not to give them an easy argument to speak of perversion. But it is "love" that is needed her. You have to love them and make them feel happy and glad to be loved and free to love back, and that love is called respect. They may one day have a sharp word with the teacher and some angry remarks about the class or the school. But love is the real wrapping of this little pebble, the wrapping that provides everyone with the warmth that may take you across the winter, the spring flood of the local river or a divorce. The worst things the do-nothing-change-nothing self-satisfied senior teachers may say will come then when they realize the relation has become personal between the teacher and the students. They will insinuate that it is far beyond that personal and has reached the intimate level. And there some may even get scared, or frightening to others, parents particularly, with innuendo and slandering. The film is discreet about this last part of the opposition to that new method of dealing with "flunkies", but it is constantly present in the back of their eyes (the dirty voyeurs they are) and of their minds (if they have a mind of their own). A very delicate and tender film about the least tender people in the world, the kids from the projects that have replaced the ghettos after the last riots in Los Angeles. It gives you a taste of change so you can toast change on a pit and enjoy the sweet marshmallow that stuffs that change to the very brim.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID

DVD Review: Amazing Film for teens and adults
Summary: 5 Stars

I can't begin to explain how phenomenal this movie is. I would encourage everyone to watch it...I think it would be great for teachers to watch with their students and parents to watch with their teens. I think it would inspire some great conversation.

DVD Review: MOVING STORY
Summary: 5 Stars

TRUE STORY ABOUT A TEACHER WHO CHANGES A CLASS OF MINORITIES, HOW TO UNDERSTAND THAT THERE WERE PEOPLE WHO WERE TREATED WORSE THAN THEY ARE. TEACHES THEM ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST

Description of Freedom Writers (Full Screen Edition)

Hilary Swank stars in this story about a teacher in a racially divided school who gives her students what they ve always needed - a voice. Swank plays Erin Gruwell the real-life teacher at Long Beach s Wilson High who inspired her students to overcome the gangs that divided them and the education system that forgot them. Based on the book The Freedom Writers Diary and supported by a cast of first-time actors who drew from their actual experiences on the street Gruwell teaches us all an important lesson about tolerance and trust.System Requirements:Running Time: 122 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:?DRAMA Rating:?PG - 13 UPC:?097361243245 Manufacturer No:?124324
Though the "inspirational teacher" theme may feel done to death, Freedom Writers succeeds because it emphasizes the students as much as the teacher. Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby, Boys Don't Cry) comes to a southern California high school bubbling over with naive optimism, but quickly discovers that her unruly classroom isn't easily won over by her good intentions. After a few floundering attempts to connect with her students, Gruwell gives them the assignment of keeping journals about their own lives--an assignment that the class bites into with relish, which eventually bonds them together and pushes racial rivalries aside. This plotline has been made before, sometimes well, sometimes poorly; Freedom Writers, by drawing heavily from the published journals of the students--and thanks to a (mostly) unheroic script, direction that emphasizes individual characters over stereotypes, and rigorous performances from the whole cast--makes the story seem fresh and genuine. Swank does solid work, but the standouts are April L. Hernandez as a girl whose gang wants her to lie and send an innocent boy to jail and Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) as a teacher who resents Gruwell's offbeat success. Also featuring Patrick Dempsey (Grey's Anatomy), Scott Glenn (The Right Stuff), and a plethora of strong young actors. --Bret Fetzer

Beyond Freedom Writers

More Inspirational Teacher Films on DVD

The Freedom Writers Diary
by Erin Gruwell

More DVDs Starring Hilary Swank

Stills from Freedom Writers (click for larger image)







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