Rewatchables Reference

• O Captain My Captain – the ending where the kids stand on their desks. Not a lot of movies have the guts to end on a moment like that with no coda.
• Todd freestyling the sweaty-toothed madman poem with the circling camera – could have gone wrong in so many ways with the wrong actor.
• 'Seize the Day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary' – the first classroom scene.
• Ripping out the Understanding Poetry introduction pages.
• The Conformity walking scene – two roads diverged in a wood.
• Dalton punches Cameron the fink.

• Great villains – the headmaster, Cameron the fink, and Neil's dad.
• Young Ethan Hawke – all the seeds of what made him have a really good, awesome long career are in this movie.
• The camaraderie between the kids – you can tell those guys are all genuinely friends.
• The themes – perspective, finding yourself, the poetry, 'What will your verse be?' Apple turned that into a commercial.

• Charlie Dalton's paddle punishment – hard to explain in 2019.
• Neil's mom just sitting there chain-smoking, unable to intervene while her husband bulldozes their son.
• The gut punch of Neil's suicide in a crowded theater – that was unbelievable to experience.

• Kurtwood Smith as Neil's dad – only in about four scenes but devastatingly effective.
• Cameron also fits the award – comes off the bench at the end, gives that speech, then gets punched in the face, which is very Dion Waiters.

• Neil's dad: 'My son! My son! My poor son!'
• Cave Dalton playing the sax.
• Neil's mom: 'He's okay. He's okay. He's okay'.

• Original script had Keating dying of leukemia, which was removed by Peter Weir.
• The studio wanted to make it a musical.
• They burned the original sets outside Atlanta when Robin Williams didn't show up.
• Cameron was supposed to stand on the desk but the actor vetoed it.
• Robert Sean Leonard ended up playing a doctor on House – Mr. Perry wanted Neil to be a doctor and Neil became a doctor.

• Robin Williams – this plus Good Morning Vietnam was his peak. It paved the way for him to do whatever he wanted.
• Robert Sean Leonard – after this it was him vs. River Phoenix for best young actor of the next generation.
• Gale Hansen (Charlie Dalton) – leaving this movie you'd have thought he'd be a big star, but he stopped acting almost immediately.

• Keating goes to get his personal stuff during the only class he teaches – couldn't he have done that at 7 PM when nobody was around?
• Mrs. Perry doesn't hear a gunshot going off in her own home – she's probably six cocktails deep.
• Not nearly enough blood in the study after the suicide.
• The investigation after Neil's death is conducted entirely by the school.
• Knox goes to Chris's school and a random person in a random hallway tells him exactly where she is.

Are we sure Keating didn't contribute to Neil's death? He knew the kid was lying about talking to his dad and did nothing. Maybe he deserved to get fired.

• Was Keating the soccer coach? How did the team do? What formation did they use?
• What's the deal with Keating's wife/girlfriend in London?
• What's Keating's next job after getting fired from Welton?
• How long do Knox and Chris date? Josh Charles himself said he didn't think it had legs.

Yes – it's been 30 years and a whole generation doesn't even know what this movie is.

Robin Williams – nobody else can do those classroom scenes like him. Bill, Mallory, and Chris all agree.