Sex Ed

Okay, so it's not very original, but the director clearly stole the premise of School of Rock which happens to be a favorite of mine since I am a guitar player of 28 years. The best way I can put this movie into perspective is that it is School of Rock with rock and roll replaced by sex education. The kids were great, Hayley Joel Osmant was great, the supporting adults were great, just a great movie. I gave it 7/10 but that's a really strong 7/10. I rarely write reviews...mainly because I suck at writing them, but this is a good movie and don't believe the naysayers. I was thoroughly entertained and it was also fascinating to see HJO in a role other than the "creepy-kid". Best movie ever?.....certainly not. Boring?.....certainly not. Give it a chance. I loved it and the bad reviews are just snobby know-it-alls.

I started out, thoroughly enjoying this movie. Admittedly, I was a bit bowled over by the movie being made in my hometown, and the novelty of not only recognizing all of the locations they filmed, but then actually seeing those locations get their time to shine as part of the plot (especially The Hub, which is one of the coolest dive-bars in town - not remotely as 'bright' as the film portrayed it, but still fun, nonetheless). So the movie started out great for me. I was amused by things like 'cock bagel' and basically everything involving Matt Walsh.

But then, everything just kinda fell flat, and it seemed like no one was paying any attention to details. Hector was a very one- dimensional antagonist, and while I now love, and want to see more of, Lorenza Izzo, her character was one of the worst developed in the film. The scene where Eddie goes to have dinner with Tito and his family, and his mother has Eddie rub spices into the pork, only to show, one scene later, that they're having fish? Was no one bothering to keep any sort of continuity in this film?

Overall, great acting in a bad story, but with a good underlying message. Poor direction, stilted dialogue, and amateur camera work makes this feel very much like a college film you make before you go off to Hollywood.

I hated that HJO guy when he was a child actor. I couldn't stand his petulant facial expression and his wooden acting. But I love the guy as an adult underdog.

Look, in the secular world this character is a loser. No motivational psychobabble can change that fact. You should be having sex if you are secular, and if you can't get any, you've got a real problem. It deserves sympathy, but it is embarrassing.

If you're religious however, you have a good justification for remaining a virgin, and you don't have to apologize to anyone for it. But this guy seems to have been secular.

We see this large black lady giving him excellent life advice throughout, but we never hear her back story. How did she get so wise? Although her advice was on point, it was super awkward having her dispense it without any background. Also, guys don't want advice about how to be a man, from a woman.

I'm sorry, but I don't want to hear underage kids talking about sex in a movie. Forget that. I don't even know how they did it legally. It ruined it for me.

There are no really funny scenes. I don't want to see someone vomit on screen. That's such a cheap gross-out 80's rip-off. I would have liked to see much more photography of the Tampa Bay area. They hardly even utilized their surroundings.

How could a guy pay for an apartment and have a life based on one after school class? Were those kids on "detention" throughout the movie, because he had the same kids in the class all the way through. They originally said they were on detention.

The best part of the movie was the main character's male best friend. He was a funny guy who reminded me of a young Aaron Eckhart. The wise-cracking black kid was a cheap ploy. What a cliché. It fell flat.

The real message here was that alpha-males get the girls, because confidence is the main thing that attracts women to men. It's that simple.

It's nice that they included a Reverend's point of view, and his was the one that I made at the beginning of this review. I think they treated a religious figure with respect here. Even if the message of the film was the opposite of his.

Well, I made it through, and I give HJO the credit for that, because he was an underdog worth rooting for. Otherwise, this one lacked background and laughs, and needed a clearer message.

This was a really awkward movie, but I liked it. I guess it's because it's a secular movie that strives away from the secular mentality. If that makes any sense. Sure some viewers might bash the heck out of this, pointing their fingers at how much of a loser the protagonist who is a sex ed teacher played by Haley Joel Osment is. But I was personally rooting for the underdog, because he is the few that had that sense of moral code that is actually quite rare now a days. We now live in a time where if you are a virgin you are labeled as a loser. But this movie tries to show that it's okay to wait for the right person. Even if it's done in a very awkward fashion. I am sure the viewers that were once a very very nice guy that wasn't getting any can relate to this movie to a degree (which is quite a lot). If that is your choice that is your choice. This movie didn't seem to have a clear cut message, but that was one of the points it was trying to make and I kinda respect that. Now I personally like Haley Joel Osment as an actor, he isn't the cute kid he was in his younger years but he knows how to utilize what he has now and I respect that as well. I personally watched this movie because of Haley Joel Osment and actually enjoyed it. It's not a hilarious in your face comedy but it was kind of endearing. Looking at the title and it being labeled as a comedy I thought it would be super crude it's actually not so much. And I liked how it didn't rely on a ton of crude stuff to get some laughs out of the audiences.

6.5/10

Sex Ed ended up being a far better film than I ever would have anticipated. Going in my expectations were about as low as they get, so perhaps that helped.

Putting me off was the star of the film. His performance ultimately was much better than expected. The picture of him on the cover put me off watching this movie for years, if looking like a loser was a fragrance then that fragrance would be called HJO.

The film does swap around quite a bit from low level comedy to low level who is thinking of the children. In spite of this at the end of the day it still mamaged to entertain so it sits just above average :)