School of Rock (Widescreen Edition)
by Richard Linklater
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Adam Pascal, Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Lucas Papaelias, Mike WhiteDirector: Richard Linklater
Brand: Paramount
Writer: Mike White
Cinematographer: Rogier Stoffers
Editor: Sandra Adair
Producer: Scott Aversano
Producer: Scott Rudin
Producer: Steve Nicolaides
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 108 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-03-02
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of School of Rock (Widescreen Edition)
Movie Review: oddly entertaining in the only Jack Black way
Summary: 5 Stars
Oh, how to best convey the majesty that is Richard Linklater's 'School of Rock', starring Jack Black and Joan Cusack? Maybe I could say it rocked? Nah, too obvious. Maybe I could talk about the music? Nah, anyone can see what the soundtrack was just by looking at the relevant IMDb page. Maybe I should say how guilty yet excited I feel to have enjoyed this movie far more than all the arthouse stuff and Oscar-bait I've seen this year - but that makes the film seem like a guilty pleasure, and there's nothing wrong with holding your head up high and saying you love Linklater, Black, Cusack, writer Mike White and co-star Sarah Silverman.
Or maybe - just maybe - I could say that when I got in last night, I still felt charmed and elated and deliriously happy by the spell that this movie - this silly, sentimental little commercial movie - had cast on me. This is a feel-good movie where the feel-good ending is actually the best part, rather than a syrupy, predictable letdown. The characters have damn well earned that happy ending, and you want them to get it so badly, even as Linklater adds enough grace notes of harsh reality to let you know that our heroes may not succeed. And he sells you on this, too.
Up until recently, the playfully philosophical Linklater's most mainstream movie was his glorious 70s ensemble comedy 'Dazed & Confused' (1993). Dewey Finn, the central character in this movie, played by Jack Black as an even goofier extension of Jack Black, feels like one of the kids from that movie all grown up - or rather, not grown up. Dewey still believes in the power of rock to change lives, to change the world, even - but The Man has ground his spirit down. Many reviews note how Mike White's script doesn't really seem to believe in the power of rock as much as Dewey does, and it's true that 'School of Rock' is hardly an underground missive from the scene like, say, Alex Cox's rock films are. But that's intentional. Dewey is adrift without a 'scene' to back him up, and he slowly has to accept that no, there's nothing he can do about the fact that The Man rules the world. All he can do is build his little corner of it.
And build it he does. Dewey's audacious plan is to pose as a substitute teacher and use the kids under his tutelage to form the most rocking band who ever were - The School Of Rock - and blow his old band off the stage at the Battle of the Bands. What's good about the kids is a microcosm of what's good about the film - the audience never laughs at them, always with them, and their appreciation of music is sincere and unaffected. The kids are non-actors (like the kids in Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund's 'City of God') chosen for their musical ability, and it's a joy seeing their fingers dance dexterously around a panoply of instruments. They rock, too - so many movies about music are brought down by the unremarkable nature of their fictional bands, but if School Of Rock were a real band, man, I'd buy their CD in a heartbeat.
The other good quality shared by the kids and the movie is this; they both know their stuff, and while adhering to the structure of a formula comedy, enough esoterica and clever parodies are thrown in to tickle even the most [...] of rock lovers. The references can get as obscurely hilarious as the countless operas, wines and psychology in-jokes in 'Frasier': it just deals in a different area. So we get Dewey waxing lyrical about the keyboard solos on Yes songs, film clips of Angus Young and Keith Moon are shown without spelling out who they are for the audience, and the winning band at the climatic Battle sound hilariously akin to inexplicably popular post-grunge whingers Staind.
'School of Rock' captures the giddy excitement of being young and cocky and creative like no film I've ever seen; it features the best performance to date from Jack Black, a whirling, borderline-psychotic, hilariously hammy tornado ripping through the film; it allows the frequently underused Joan Cusack to be funny and even sexy within the confines of an 'authority' role; it is the best film about rock and roll since 'This Is Spinal Tap' and it succeeds in transporting Linklater's style, imagination and vital humanity into the mainstream without compromise in a way that, say, the Coen brothers have yet to do. Everyone involved should give themselves a pat on the back, or better yet, a big, sweaty, post-gig group hug.
Summary of School of Rock (Widescreen Edition)
SCHOOL OF ROCK - DVD MovieTurbo-charged comic Jack Black shakes School of Rock to its foundations, wailing with born-again metalhead passion as Dewey Finn, a guitarist who gets kicked out of a band because he grandstands too much--or, to put it another way, enjoys himself. Through an intercepted phone call, Finn gets a job as a substitute teacher for a fifth grade class at a private grade school. Neither students nor teacher quite know what to do with each other until Finn discovers that some of his young charges can play instruments; at once he starts turning them into a blistering rock & roll troupe that can crush his former band at an upcoming competition. School of Rock is silly and formulaic, but director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused), writer Mike White (The Good Girl), and especially Black and co-star Joan Cusack invest the formulas with such glee that the movie is irresistibly fun. --Bret Fetzer
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