Economics at the Movies - Utility of Decorative Pillows

A lovely two minute clip from Along Came Polly starring Ben Stiller who plays a character who spends eight minutes a day (or two days a year of his life) placing and removing decorative pillows on his bed. Polly attempts to liberate him by tearing the pillows apart and asking what else he could be doing with the time - a classic example of opportunity cost and a great clip to show in introductory economics.

Here is the clip via You Tube

Economics at the Movies - Foods that Make Billions [15 Jan 2012]
Economics at the Movies - The Joy of Stats [14 Jan 2012]
Economics at the Movies - Monty Python Money Programme Eric Idle Sketch [11 Jan 2012]
Economics at the Movies - Freakonomics [9 Jan 2012]
Economics at the Movies: In Time [13 Nov 2011]
So many economic concepts in one article - Indian tomato production. [11 Oct 2011]
Economics at the Movies - Too Big to Fail [28 Sep 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Sleep, Money, Happiness and Choices! [25 Sep 2011]
NHS spending good, private provision bad? [5 Sep 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Up in Smoke [2 Sep 2011]
Starter Activity: Health Economics [1 Sep 2011]
An activity for the first Economics lesson of the year! [31 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Seabiscuit and the Depression [31 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Local Hero - Valuing our heritage [30 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World! [29 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: The Cove - Trade in Dolphins [28 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Castaway Revisited [27 Aug 2011]
Page One - a movie about the New York Times [26 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: A Beautiful Mind [26 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Wayne’s World & Product Placement [26 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Plastic Surgery - Need or Want? [26 Aug 2011]
Economics at the Movies - The Game of Chicken [18 Jul 2011]
Tech & Pop Culture in Teaching Economics [17 Jul 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Opportunity Cost - [11 Jul 2011]
AS Micro: Offering heart drugs by default [5 May 2011]
Man’s best friend or unacceptable opportunity cost? [18 Feb 2011]
Economics at the Movies - Margin Call [23 Jan 2011]
Switching Off Street Lighting [10 Nov 2010]
The unkindest cut of all? [5 Nov 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Four Yorkshiremen and Happiness Economics [31 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - The Dark Knight and Game Theory [30 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Bank Run Scene from A Wonderful Life [30 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Wedding Crashers and Free Riders [29 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Our Daily Bread [28 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Couscous [27 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - The Vanishing Bees [27 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Austin Powers and Inflation [23 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Reggie Perrin’s inebriated speech and economic growth [22 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Hudsucker Proxy and Consumer Demand [21 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Billy Ray Valentine learns commodities [20 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - For the Love of the Game [20 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Goodbye Lenin [20 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - The Damned United and the Principle Agent Problem [19 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Pretty Woman, Consumer and Producer Surplus [19 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - A Boring Economics Teacher! [19 Oct 2010]
A £113m lottery win - link to opportunity cost [14 Oct 2010]
Bad Snow Fall in London? [11 Oct 2010]
Substitute goods, scarcity & the recession - Toshiba’s OLED TVs [4 Oct 2010]
Running out of Monet [1 Oct 2010]
Lesson Worksheet - Production Possibilities and Opportunity Cost [8 Aug 2010]
Drug rationing - the role of NICE [4 Aug 2010]
Spare swine flu vaccine - government failure or good planning? [8 Apr 2010]
Revision Presentation - Public Goods [23 Feb 2010]
Bangernomics and asymmetric information [13 Jan 2010]
Green gold in Tanzania [14 Dec 2009]
Lessons from an Ad Man - Superb microeconomics! [25 Oct 2009]
Too much choice is bad for you [20 Jul 2009]
The Price of Life [21 Jun 2009]
The Opportunity Cost of Debt [3 Apr 2009]
Snow ploughs and The Economic Problem [2 Feb 2009]
Darling’s Tough Love [19 Jul 2008]

ECONOMICS TEACHER RESOURCE NEWSLETTER

Join over 6,000 other Economics Teachers in the UK and around the world who receive the tutor2u regular Economics Resource Email Newsletter. Get special offers, first news of latest resources, teaching ideas, conferences and workshops + loads of great ideas for teaching economics from our blog authors.