Kids in America(2005)

SHORT VERSION:
The various protests staged by Holden, Charlotte, and their friends against Principal Weller and her campaign to become state school superintendent pay off exactly as they hoped: Weller fails to win the election, having only managed to capture 8% of the vote. She quits as principal soon after, and all of the students that she suspended or expelled are allowed to return to the school, plus Holden, Charlotte, and their friends all received recommendations that opened up the doors to good colleges for them. The group thanks Mr. Drucker – a teacher who filmed a documentary about their crusade to stop Weller – for his support, telling him that they couldn’t have done any of this without him, and Drucker ends up titling his documentary as “Kids in America.”

In a mid-credits scene taking place six months after the film’s events, Holden and Charlotte are seen leaving a movie theatre together, having just finished watching Drucker’s documentary there. They get to talking about famous movie kiss scenes again, and Holden brings up the longest screen kiss in film history which occurred in the 1941 film You’re In The Army Now, where Jane Wyman and Regis Toomey shared a kiss that lasted for three minutes and five seconds. Charlotte tells Holden that she wants to rewrite film history, so they share a kiss for the rest of the credits that becomes (as of 2022) the new record holder for the longest screen kiss in film history, clocking in at six minutes and twelve seconds.

LONG VERSION:
One night, Holden (Gregory Smith) leads Charlotte (Stephanie Sherrin), Lawrence (Alex Anfanger), Emily (Emy Coligado), Walanda (Crystal Celeste Grant), Katie (Caitlin Wachs), and Chuck (Chris Morris) onto Booker High School’s football field to execute another stunt aimed against Principal Weller (Julie Bowen) and her campaign to become the state school superintendent, this time by taking some gasoline and writing out “Weller” with a slash through it into the turf, then setting it on fire. Unfortunately, the plan goes awry when Lawrence accidentally gets some gasoline on his right pant leg and it subsequently catches fire when the rest of the gas is ignited. He sustains second-degree burns on his leg and is hospitalized, and the other kids are arrested and brought to the police station. They are all individually interrogated about what transpired on the field, but none of them confess to anything.

Emily, Walanda, and Katie get bailed out quickly, but Holden, Charlotte, and Chuck wind up spending the night together in a holding cell (Charlotte explains that she could’ve called someone to bail her out, but she instead decided to stay in the cell out of protest). Charlotte gets angry with Holden because he didn’t try to call their former teacher, Mr. Drucker (Malik Yoba), and ask him to come to the station and get them out, and he tells her that he didn’t do that because he felt that he screwed things up with him (having earlier insulted him by telling him that he gave up being a thought-provoking documentarian in order to teach high school in the middle of nowhere), and then he says that he screwed up a lot of things in general. Drucker bails out Holden, Charlotte, and Chuck the next morning, and he criticizes Holden for what he did on the football field, calling it stupid and dangerous and not in the vein of the wisdom that he has tried to impart to him and the others. Holden apologizes to him for his earlier insult, and Drucker accepts his apology before telling him that his and his friends’ crusade against Weller has inspired him to make a new documentary about it all. Meanwhile, Emily, Walanda, and Katie visit Lawrence in the hospital, and he tells them that, though they have made a big mistake, they need to make it right, and since the state school superintendent election is just two days away, they are going to have to pull out all the stops if they hope to achieve their goal of preventing Weller from winning.

That day, the gang (minus Lawrence) talks to many of their fellow students at Booker High and implores them to help them in their fight to stop Weller and spread the word around to the others, and Katie – through flaunting her sexuality – persuades one of the star players on the school’s football team (and a past fling of hers), Rick (Damien Luvara), to convince his teammates to no-show a game that they have tomorrow night. When Weller and her lackeys Ben (Todd C. Smith) and Stratton (Andrew Shaifer) show up outside the field for the aforementioned game, they hear noises typical of football games, but upon entering, they are shocked to find that there isn’t a soul present. After we see someone turn off a cassette player emitting football game noises into the loudspeakers, Weller goes onto the field and finds the cover of a Baldwin County phone book lying there. It turns out that this is a symbol of one of the major things that the students are doing to turn everyone against her: The featured teens, as well as most – if not all – of the other students at Booker High, have spent the day calling up everyone in the phone book and explaining in detail to every caller why Weller is unfit to be state school superintendent. They also stage a live talent show over the Internet that night where they further urge people not to vote for Weller, and come time for the people to cast their ballots the next day, the students cap off their crusade with a nonviolent protest outside of the polling station.

Their efforts pay off exactly as they hoped: Weller fails to win the election, having only managed to capture 8% of the vote. She quits as principal soon after, and the students she suspended or expelled are allowed to return to the school, plus Holden and his companions all received recommendations that opened up the doors to good colleges for them. The group thanks Drucker for his support, telling him that they couldn’t have done any of this without him, and Drucker ends up titling his documentary as “Kids in America.”

As the credits roll, we see interviews conducted with real teenagers where they share stories of how they were suspended or expelled from school for exercising their right to free expression in various ways and the media support that they received once their struggles got out. In a mid-credits scene taking place six months after the film’s events, Holden and Charlotte are seen leaving a movie theatre together, having just finished watching Drucker’s documentary there. They get to talking about famous movie kiss scenes again, and Holden brings up the longest screen kiss in film history which occurred in the 1941 film You’re in The Army Now, where Jane Wyman and Regis Toomey shared a kiss that lasted for three minutes and five seconds. Charlotte tells Holden that she wants to rewrite film history, so they share a kiss for the rest of the credits that become (as of 2022) the new record holder for the longest screen kiss in film history, clocking in at six minutes and twelve seconds.