BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Michael Eagen I am a C&E (Christmas and Easter)Catholic and survivor of 12 years of Catholic education. With an entry like that, one might think I'm about to flame the Church and the education it provided me. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I loved my 12 years, the first eight in the hands of the Benedictine Sisters and the last four in those of the Augustinian Fathers. They both did right by me and my three older sisters (who had the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet for their high school years). We were from working to lower middle class backgrounds, and all matriculated at good universities from which we all graduated. We couldn't have done that without the fine start those first 12 years gave us. We all also came of age in the 60s and in my case, early-70s.Having said all that, ad having gone to a well known all boys high school in a major west coast city from 1970 to 1974, I will happily confirm that pretty much everything I saw in this film rang true. We didn't have swimming, but if we had, I have no doubt that it might have been in the nude. Otherwise, we had our share of jerks as teachers, both religious and lay, that we had to navigate, but it is amazing what having some hurdle like that to overcome will do for the "esprit de corps" of the entire student body. These people, and the lengths to which we went to get over on them, became the stuff of legend, and because they often were employed as teachers well beyond their usefulness, they became legends across more than one generation. In fact, they became a kind of whetstone upon which our characters were honed; usually with success. Personally, if I were to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing, and one of my great regrets is that I couldn't do for my children what my parents sacrificed to do for all of us. However, the tuition these days has skyrocketed to a layer of the stratosphere where my parents never dreamed of treading. That annual tuition is more than what most public universities are charging these days. Hell, my parents never even made in a year what the schools are now charging for one year. I am managing to put my three through college and consider that I am fortunate to be able to do that. Anyway, it was a great time to be alive, and a great experience that I will cherish to the day I die.

JasparLamarCrabb Director Michael Dinner's wildly unheralded film about life in a Catholic boy's school in Brooklyn circa 1965. Andrew McCarthy, in what is probably his best performance (and role), is the new kid at the school, which is run by strict principal Donald Sutherland and ruled with an iron paddle by psychotic Brother Jay Patterson . Kevin Dillon is the school bully and Malcolm Danare is Cesar, a woefully incompetent brain. The movie is full of great things, capturing the look and feel of the mid-1960s with a lot of great (mostly Motown) music. Dillon and Danare are very funny and the supporting cast features Patrick Dempsey, John Heard, and, in an almost sublime cameo, Wallace Shawn, who reminds the attendees of a school dance that LUST is the BEAST WITHIN! McCarthy has great chemistry with love interest Mary Stuart Masterson. The exceptional screenplay is by Charles Purpura, who, it's hard to believe, went on to write the Justine Bateman vehicle SATISFACTION.

shabbona91 I disagree with previous reviewers who called this movie anti-catholic bigotry. I think the humor is in good fun, and the film is ultimately respectful of Catholic worship and traditions. I am catholic and I am not offended. I also think the corporal punishment scenes are quite real and not "over the top." The catholic high school I attended did allow slapping, punching, kneeling on cement, being in push up position, kicks in the butt, slams into lockers, and hard paddlings. Frankly I was glad I never had to take that scary stuff on the open palms; brothers who used paddles or straps were mercifully allowed to strike only the buttocks. We also had to swim nude, but after the first embarrassing freshman day it was no big deal. Virtually all boys at all schools had to use public showers, so why is nude swimming a big deal? A brief synopsis: Michael Dunn is a Boston teenager sent to live in Brooklyn. His chain-smoking grandmother has delusions about him being a priest someday, and he is sent to a rigid, stern Catholic boys academy. After befriending the school's brain and a group of non-academic goofballs, he ends up in trouble with the school's strictest teacher, the unethical Bro. Constance. Michael falls in love with a local girl, a truant who runs a soda fountain and takes care of her disabled father. The brothers shut down the shop, and the police take the girlfriend away. A hilarious prank is launched for revenge, and chaos ensues. This film succeeds on two levels: it is both a comment on Catholic education and an engrossing character study. You really come to love and root for the characters.

bkoganbing A friend of mine who's an organist at a Catholic parish in New Jersey told me that the school used for the setting of Heaven Help Us is not to far from him in New Jersey. The area looks more like Brooklyn in 1965 than Brooklyn does. Having graduated a public high school in Brooklyn of that year, I can attest to that.I can also attest to the fact that for people I knew in Catholic school at the time this movie really does hit the mark. Those who were taught by Brothers as they were here, told me that they ranged in character from idealistic John Heard to the sadistic Jay Patterson to father figure Donald Sutherland. And a few in between also with some issues.One has to remember that this was the New York City of Robert Wagner in his last year as Mayor and with Wagner's blessing, Cardinal Spellman still had virtual carte blanche over his domain. Tommy Becket would have envied what he achieved over civil government. When you see those brothers invading that candy store, that's no exaggeration.When I was a lad in Brooklyn, we had a candy store around the corner from a Catholic grade school. It was run by Mr. Lobenstein who was Jewish. Yet it was a refuge for the Catholic grade schoolers like the store that Mary Stuart Masterson is running for her Dad. The nuns would think nothing of going there to haul their charges back to class should they be late.The nude swimming in the high school pool is no exaggeration. It's a boys school so presumably we all have nothing to hide. I did love Philip Bosco as the brother gym teacher telling the Catholic youth they had to get in shape to fight the Communists. This would have been standard dogma from Spellman. Of course some poor closeted gay kid would have been going completely out of his mind in that setting. And as we see in the end there was at least one.The five student protagonists are Kevin Dillon, Andrew McCarthy, Malcolm Denare, Patrick Dempsey, and Stephen Geoffreys. Stephen Geoffreys the poor sexually frustrated kid who was constantly doing some self fulfillment left acting for a career in male porn. However it is the dynamic of the relationship between Kevin Dillon and Andrew McCarthy that drives the film. I met quite a few back in the day who were like both Dillon and McCarthy. Dillon is the school rebel, but McCarthy is the one who commits the ultimate act of defiance.The best performance in the film is by Jay Patterson as Brother Constance. The only thing I can say is that the man had issues. I really can't say more, you have to see Heaven Help Us. The man on some level truly thought he was building character.Last year the movie Saved came out and did for Protestant Christian schools what Heaven Help Us does for Catholic education. That's the best description I can give it.