Cameron Diaz: Gifted Or Grotty?

Manolo Blahniks of the New York Times may have lost her head for Cameron Diaz in “Bad Teacher,” but Anthony Lane keeps a cooler mien: ‘There are few genres that I dread more than the teaching movie. This is because, more often than not, the mechanics of actual teaching are sidelined in favor of a public lecture on Ways to Inspire. I still recall the wrath with which I simmered through “Dead Poets Society,” “Dangerous Minds,” and—heaven preserve us—“Mr. Holland’s Opus,” all of which left me with a renewed respect for Mr. Gradgrind, the stony tyrant of the schoolroom in Dickens’s “Hard Times,” described as “a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts.” The heart sinks in inverse proportion to the eagerness with which such movies command it to soar, and there is a wild relief to be had in seizing upon the exceptions, like “Rushmore” and “Election,” which politely inform Mr. Holland where he can stick his opus.’

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