Freedom Writers (HD DVD, 2007, Widescreen)

Fresh out of training, young teacher Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) arrives for her first job at Wilson High and is thrown into the deep end with a class of ethnically mixed juvenile delinquents, most of whom are underprivileged and/or racial gang members. They are not interested in Homer unless it's Simpson, but Erin perseveres, much against the wishes of her department head Margaret Campbell (Imelda Staunton) and other colleagues who think Erin is wasting her time on kids who are destined for the dustbin of society. Slowly and with difficulty, Erin finds a way to capture their attention just as they manage to capture hers and they change each other. The diaries she encourages them to write as part of the English learning process comes to be christened Freedom Writers, alluding to the civil rights activists, Freedom Riders, who rode on racially integrated buses in the 60s, 30 years before.