The low-budget comedy "Chalk" provides a welcome antidote to all those inspirational, cookie-cutter crowd-pleasers like "Freedom Writers" and "Dangerous Minds" that Hollywood routinely proffers in answer to our troubled schools.Although this is a scripted, fictional film, co-writers Mike Akel (who is also the director) and Chris Mass (who also plays one of the teachers) have given "Chalk" the look and feel of a slice-of-life documentary. Director Akel has trained his cameras on a handful of young teachers and one first-year administrator as they go about the business of molding young minds at a fictional school called Harrison High (though the location remains unidentified, the movie itself was filmed in Austin, Texas). Yet, these are not your typical movie "super teachers" who, through sheer force of personality and a series of well-crafted lessons, are able to convert their initially hardened students into lifelong lovers of learning. Rather, the teachers here are well-meaning but imperfect mortals who wage a daily battle with students who won't learn, copiers that won't copy, and colleagues who often don't see eye-to-eye even on the most rudimentary aspects of teaching and learning, let alone on how best to run a school. Frankly, it's a good day for these teachers if the students aren't fighting in the lunch area, hiding the chalk as a lame practical joke, or arguing about why they aren't allowed to use a cell phone in class. And there are times in which the teachers themselves come across as more insecure, petty and immature than even their own students. Yet, there are also those special moments when the teachers and pupils manage to connect on a meaningful level - those little flashes of hope that the whole frustrating ordeal might just possibly amount to something worthy in the end.With a droll sense of humor and a flair for gentle satire, the filmmakers poke affectionate fun at the life of a teacher, while at the same time evincing a genuine respect for the characters and what it is they are trying to do. The movie acknowledges that teaching is a difficult profession, yet it doesn't insult those who dedicate their lives to it by pretending that all one need have to be successful is a magical combination of motivational speeches and good intentions.The cast members, most of whom are newcomers to the movies, never undercut the joke by winking at the camera or treating the material with anything less than total earnestness. They genuinely appear to be ad-libbing their lines, lending to the film the air of spontaneity and improvisation befitting a documentary. And the movie ends on a note of quiet poignancy that reminds us of just how powerful a tool restraint can be in making a point.By refusing to resort to either melodrama or hyperbole, "Chalk" paints about as realistic a portrait of life in the classroom as I've seen in quite some time.

I saw this film at the Tom Cruise Scientology Laboratories Religious Propaganda Festival, and I must say the crowd absolutely LOVED it. Afterward, we all chanted and lost ourselves in a quick, pulsating rhythm of spirituality that is in the very nature of our alien beings... Xinatthrusta-humda!Seriously now. Why do some IMDb-ers start their comments with "I saw this film at such and such festival"? Who cares where you saw the film. As if the location and the circumstances matter. In fact, I saw "Chalk" in my bathroom while standing upside-down and juggling tennis balls with my feet. Does that make my experience any more or less worthy, interesting, valid?I see no problem in someone combining Christopher Guest's mockumentary style (very obviously quite influential here) with a bit of Woody Allen thrown in. The improvisations are quite solid, the cast is good (amateur or not) and fairly likable, and there is even a pleasant little song at the very end of the end-credits. However, there are no laugh-out-loud moments - unless, of course, if you were watching this film with an eager festival crowd who carried you with their unbridled, uncritical enthusiasm, almost forcing you to laugh along with them. The gags i.e. the observations about the teaching life are clever, somewhat amusing, and "cute", but hardly what one could call hilarious. Although an indie film, it succumbs to the old Hollywood formula sentimentality trap which has ruined man a comedy by infiltrating itself like a virus into the last third of the movie. I can't say I was annoyed by the quick deterioration of comedy to melancholic semi-schmaltz, but a mockumentary should end just as it had begun: with humor. I am a proponent of the "Seinfeld" school of "zero sentimentality" comedy, as opposed to the "cheap weepy drama twists" school of "Friends", an approach tailored toward easy-to-please sheep. Hence that is the one rule that they should have definitely obeyed in the Christopher Guest Manual of Making Fake Documentaries. Although not a perfect film, the makers of "Chalk" can find consolation in the fact that their little movie is much better than Guest's "A Mighty Wind", which was a major disappointment.I had never heard before either of the "Teacher of the Year Debate" or the "Spelling Hornet". Did they make this up, or do these two absurd events actually take place in American high schools? You are welcome to e-mail me with an answer to that one. (I can't be bothered to surf the net for that...) If so, then no wonder the U.S. pre-college education system is in such poor shape. Teachers debating in front of students over who should win "teacher of the year"?? Teachers being tested in spelling those ridiculous new slang words?? You gotta be kidding me...All in all, I consider "Chalk" to be a cut above the rest of the independent films coming out in recent years. It was interesting to observe that the makers of the movie thank a few dozen festivals for supporting them from the beginning - and yet the supposedly "hip", "underground", and "trend-setting" Sundance festival wasn't mentioned. However, this doesn't really surprise me. The reason Robert Redford and his cronies (initially?) ignored this film is simple: "Chalk" is a totally unpolitical film, lacking the left-wing propaganda bits that Redford looks out for.So my advice for "Chalk 2: The Sequel" is this: invite Michael Moore to have a cameo appearance in which he will mock a Capitalist or a policeman, and include a sub-plot about a dumb Republican teacher that everyone hates. That would definitely please His Royal Redness, Robert Ford the Red One...

I rented the DVD because I come from a family of teachers, and one of them recommended that I watch the film in order to gain a better understanding of their jobs. I found it to be entertaining, but I obviously didn't appreciate it as much as teachers seem to, just as they probably don't appreciate all of the humor I find in "Office Space".The teachers who call this "true to life" must mean this in the same sense that a Korean War veteran once told me that M*A*S*H was true to life-- as a good caricature of some of the more extreme people and situations, intermixed with some reminders of what daily life was like, not as anything close to a realistic snapshot.I don't want to believe that there are really very many high school teachers like that. I wouldn't expect students to feel much respect for any of them.Time for me to get back to my TPS reports.

I'm a big Christopher Guest fan and honestly went into this film expecting to be disappointed, but wound up being pleasantly surprised. Chalk was very entertaining, often hilarious, at times touching, and even managed to pull everything together to actually tell a story pretty well. The development of the Mr. Lowery character from start to finish was great. There were only a handful of actors in the film (the rest were real students, principals, teachers, etc.) and they were great. Troy Schremmer was excellent. Anyhow, I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys finding comedy in the ridiculousness of life or basically anyone who enjoys good mockumentaries. Or, people who are teachers or are related to teachers and know that world. Two thumbs up.