Heads Down, Two Thumbs Up: Recent Episodes
Bill Selak & Carla Silver
We like to talk about movies that talk about school, and we bet you do too. This podcast is for anyone who works at a school, goes to school, or ever went to school – so basically, YOU! Movies about school have shaped our national narrative about what school is like, about the relationships between teachers and students, students and students, and the role of school as both friend and foe.
In this episode of Heads Down Two Thumbs Up, Bill and Carla discuss School of Rock. This iconic movie features Jack Black as a slacker musician who, in a moment of desperation, lies to get a substitute teaching gig at a pretentious elementary school. Joan Cusack plays the uptight principal who only lightens up when she hears Stevie Nicks. Does this movie stand the test of time? Does it accurately portray life in an elementary school classroom? Is Jack Black the single best or worst substitute teacher ever? Listen and find out!
In this episode of Heads Down Two Thumbs Up, Bill and Carla discuss Almost Famous. Written and directed by Cameron Crowe, this semi-autobiographical story is NOT set in a school, but it is about learning. When high school student William Miller gets the chance to follow his passion of music journalism and is invited to […]
• episode transcript (click to read) In this special edition episode, we focus exclusively on the music of movies. The soundtrack. The score. We love this quote from Underground Press: As music can tell the story and explain the plot, filmmakers use it very carefully to build the tone and mood of a film. Also, […]
Travel back to 1988 with Bill and . . . Carla, as we have a MOST excellent adventure together taking about another favorite movie that talks about school. When two disengaged high school students, Theodore Logan and William S. Preston, Esquire, are faced a failing grade in history class, they have just one option left […]
You watched the movie, you listened to the podcast, and now it’s time to listen to the B-Side from The Karate Kid. Bill sits down with Jesse Lubinsky for an extended interview. If you’re completely lost, go back and listen to full episode of The Karate Kid, and then listen to this. It’ll make more […]
This month, Bill and Carla talk Karate Kid, the iconic 1984 movie staring Ralph Macchio as the young Karate student of Mr. Miyagi played by Pat Morita. We discuss the relationship between master teacher and student apprentice, the Dojo as school for life, bad fashion, and the many filming locations of the film. If you […]
It’s our first episode of the 2021-22 season. We’re talking about Stand and Deliver, the true story of high school teacher Jaime Escalante who finds himself teaching math in East LA. He finds a group of students who find his less-than conventional teaching methods to be inspiring and he takes them all the was to […]
We’re back! After our pandemic hiatus, it felt great to be back in the studio to record Episode Six. Coming off of one of the craziest elections seasons in American history, we made the obvious choice. Election was released in 1999 and starred Matthew Broderick as Jim McAllister, a high school civics teacher, and Reese […]
You watched the movie, you listened to the podcast, and now it’s time to listen to the B-Side from Rushmore. Carla sits down with Greg Bamford for an extended interview. If you’re completely lost, go back and listen to full episode of Rushmore, and then listen to this. It’ll make more sense.
If there is one thing Max Fischer loves, it’s his prep school Rushmore. “I guess you’ve just gotta find something you love to do and then… do it for the rest of your life. For me, it’s going to Rushmore.”Although he is the king of extracurriculars, has the ear of the administration, and befriends a […]
If you ever went to school – so basically everyone – you knew a pack of Mean Girls. Gretchen Wieners, Karen Smith and the ultimate Queen Bee, Regina George, rule the school. They wear pink on Wednesdays and are SO Fetch. When homeschooled Cady Heron moves from Africa to the Chicago suburbs, she becomes “mainschooled” […]
You watched the movie, you listened to the podcast, and now it’s time to listen to the B-Side from Remember the Titans. We sit down with Issac Vaughn for an extended interview. If you’re completely lost, go back and listen to full episode of Remember the Titans, and then listen to this. It’ll make more […]
Based (oh, so very loosely) on the real events of the T.C Williams high school football team in Alexandria, Virginia during 1971 as the school is integrated. Black and white football players are forced to play together AND get to know each other as human beings. This is a story about leadership through change and also about how school is often a place where students experience huge social change. Denzel Washington stars as the hard-ass Coach Boone. Ryan Gosling, in his early, awkward days, can’t be missed. If you ever had a coach who taught you about much more than just “the game” then take a couple of hours to watch this movie (free now on Disney +) and then join us as we talk about it. Because that is what we do; we talk about movies that talk about schools.
Our guest this month is our friend Issac Vaughn, the Senior VP of business operations at Zenefits, Trustee emeritus at Hillbrook School, and a terrific storyteller. Issac shares his stories of playing football at Lincoln High School in San Francisco before he became the first (and last) African American QB at Santa Clara University. You’ll want to hear the full B-sides interview later this month!
Side note: Lots of people talk about the soundtrack of this movie. You can listen to it here on Spotify. Thank us later.