Skip to content

Top Movies

  • Home
    • Contact Us
    • Disclosure Policy
  • Best Movies
    • Free Movies
    • Comedy Movies
    • New Movies
    • Youtube Movies
  • Theater
    • Movies Coming Soon
    • Movie Times
    • Good Movies
    • Movies Out
  • General Articles

My Old School Review – Wild Doc Effort Delivers

December 8, 2022 by Eliza

I have to confess that documentaries aren’t my favorite genre of film, despite the fact that documentaries manage to be some of my overall favorites. Generally, the ones made by people too close to, or in fact part of, the subject have the least chance of winning me over. At best they tend to be stylistically odd, and mostly they misunderstand what’s actually interesting about the story.

Thus, My Old School has everything going against it. It’s made by Jono McLeod, who has a few other documentaries under his belt, so at least this isn’t his only reason for becoming a documentarian, and he is indeed very close to the story. It’s also a rather simple mix of animated “recreations” and interview footage, with a hint of archival footage. Topping things off, Alan Cumming stands in as the subject for interview clips in which he lip syncs to interview audio. It’s as straightforward, potentially boring, and perhaps distancing a way to tell a story as you could imagine.

But somehow, it’s absolutely mesmerizing, and it isn’t just the fact that this is the craziest story you’ve ever heard.

Though this was a widely publicized story, I don’t want to give everything away, and I mostly mention that because you’re going to think I am (let that be your spoiler warning). Oh no. It’s much weirder. In 1993, Brandon Lee showed up for the first day of Fifth Year at Bearsden Academy in Glasgow, Scotland. The first thing Alan Cumming says in the trailer (see below) is, “Well, you’d have known me as Brandon Lee,” which rather lets the cat out of the bag.

Alan Cumming in “My Old School”

Perhaps the most compelling part of the delivery here is that classmates and faculty revisit the “Brandon Lee” story they lived through while piecing together information they didn’t know and, in some cases at least, coming to terms with their own memories. The interview subjects we’ll see are remembering parts of the most fantastic events they will ever live through, but they were 16 (give or take) at the time, and their continuing journey with this story is as much a part of the film as anything.

Meanwhile, perhaps the most shocking thing about the story is that while Brandon Lee is clearly out to get away with something, it doesn’t fall apart until after he’s already gotten away with it. Lee, you see, has already been to Bearsden Academy, decades earlier, but has decided to start over and go through school again. In something of a twist, it’s a scheme that his classmates all thought they were on to from the beginning, as the film opens with them remembering that they assumed he was perhaps a student teacher when he showed up. Before long everyone let it go though, and he was just the kid who looked a bit old. As they say themselves, “Why?” It’s easy to dismiss the idea that he must be an older person, because you can’t wrap your head around a motivation. Who would just enroll in school and go to classes all day… for a year?

As I said, that isn’t even the beginning of how weird this story gets, or what a unique character “Brandon Lee” is, and Alan Cumming will never get the credit he deserves for the stunning delivery he gives here. Often with almost nothing to work with, he nevertheless gives us a character so bizarrely rich and detailed you might have gone to school with him yourself. As the film approaches its conclusion we get some archival footage of the real man, and you think, “Yep. That’s him.” It reminds of Ian McKellan in Mr. Holmes, who often had to get you to understand things just by staring past the camera oozing emotion.

I suspect this is a documentary that will prove easy to overlook and underrate. It is somehow a bit “soft.” The interviews are cheery, even as the pennies continue to drop and the subjects put things together in new ways. We aren’t “after” Brandon in a way that might prove more gripping to some. But, while our subject character is certainly bewildering and fascinating, the film works best when it looks at “Brandon Lee” as simply an inexplicable event that happened to all these other people. Finding out what makes the storm tick is certainly of some value, but the real story is how living through it changed people.

We didn’t cover it as much as I’d have liked in our podcast, and we will make up for that in future, but we did cover it below.

Just as a note, another fascinating aspect of this story is the number of people involved who have pretty impressive acting CVs.


Post navigation

Previous Post:

She-Hulk: Attorney At Law Review – Marvel Switches Gears… Again

Next Post:

Christmas Horror Movies With Santa Claus In Their Titles

Recent Posts

  • Crackle, Watch Full Free Movies Online & Streaming TV Shows
  • AEW 2023 Week 1 Recap
  • Break, 2019 | Horror Movies Reviews
  • “New Year, New You”, 2018
  • Bloody New Year, 1987 | Horror Movies Reviews

Archives

  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016

Categories

  • Best Movies
  • Comedy Movies
  • Free Movies
  • General Articles
  • Good Movies
  • Movie Theater
  • Movie Times
  • Movie Trailers
  • Movies
  • Movies Coming Soon
  • Movies Out
  • Movies Playing
  • New Movies
  • Other Articles
  • Theater
  • Youtube Movies

About Us

  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • Disclosure Policy
  • Sitemap
© 2023 Top Movies | Built using WordPress and SuperbThemes