Lean on Me

Lean on Me (1989)

2 audio problems - chronological order

(4 votes)

Audio problem: After throwing what looks like a toilet through the window, the two guys give each other a high-five. Their hands almost completely miss each other, yet we still hear a loud clap.

Matty Blast

Audio problem: In the scene when Joe Clark takes Thomas Sams and the other boys into the music room, he slams Thomas Sams into the piano and you hear what sounds to be like keys being pressed down. However, he hit the side of the piano, so the only way sound could have come out is if his hands were over the keys. The way he hit the piano, it was not possible to produce any type of sound.

Factual error: In the scene where Joe Clark and the Vice Principal go to the project buildings to see the young girl's mother, they walk down a short ramp to an apartment. Those project buildings are in Paterson,N.J. (where the story takes place), but walking down that ramp takes you to the boiler room, not an apartment. None of those buildings have apartments like that.

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Trivia: Although in real life Principal Joe Clark improved the discipline problems at Eastside High School, he did not, contrary to what the film has you believe, improve the academics in any meaningful way. Although test scores improved very slightly his first couple of years as principal (partly due to the fact that he expelled so many bad students) from 1986 to 1988, during his time as principal, Eastside High School had the lowest state exam passage rates in all of New Jersey. One of these years in particular, under Clark's tenure, Eastside High's passage rate was as low as 24.1%.

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Question: At the very beginning of the movie, Joe Clark is enraged when he finds out that there is a meeting going on without him. What exactly is the subject of this meeting (other than the obvious dismissal of Mr. Clark)? Why is Mr. Clark accusing them of "selling out," and what do the people in the meeting refer to when they say, "You want to be posturing, etc., but we just want to work."?

Matty Blast

Chosen answer: They are discussing some of the things that Mr. Clark has done that has "embarassed" the school. They are debating what to do about him. And by "posturing," they mean his insistance on wearing African dress and espousing his political beliefs.

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