Right here is another post for you's and this one will cover another movie and I've opted to go for a comedy and this one will be The School of Rock starring the manic Jack Black in the lead role. So let's strap on the guitar, turn the amps up to...10 and give this mother a looksee.....
Sooooo to begin with the obligatory plot summary the story starts with its main character, Dewey Finn (Jack Black) who is the member of a rock band named "No Vacancy" who ends up getting kicked out of the band because of his onstage antics. Dewey also potentially faces eviction as his flatemate, Ned Schneebly (Mike White) is pressured by his pushy girlfriend, Patty Di Marco (Sarah Silverman) to make him leave their apartment as Ned always has to pay Dewey's rent. The following day as Dewey attempts to sell some of his guitars to make rent money, he receives a call from Horace Green private prep school who are looking for Ned, who is a substitute teacher and Dewey takes it upon himself to pretend to be Ned in order to make some money. At the school Dewer meets with the uptight school principal Roz Mullins (Joan Cusack) who introduces him to the class, however he has no experience in teaching so he tells the class to take "recess" instead.
The following day however Dewey overhears the class during a musical studies period and is impressed by their musical ability and decides to put together a band from the students and compete against No Vacancy in the upcoming Battle of the Bands event. And from here Dewey starts to teach some of the students how to play different music instruments, although some of them are already very talented such as Zack (Joey Gaydos Jr) who plays guitar and Laurence (Robert Tsai) who plays keyboards and he teaches them in the ways of classic rock performance. Dewey also get's the rest of the class to be groupies and roadies in order to give them something to do and together they also work on stage lighting and soundproofing for the classroom although he nearly incurs the wrath of the class's prize student, Summer (Miranda Cosgrove) when she finds out what a "groupie" actually is and he makes her band manager to get her happy. And the class together start to perform well as a band in rehearsal and Dewey becomes impressed by Zack who has written his own song, which they end up rehearsing. However its not long before Roz grows suspicious of what is going in Dewey's class and at the same time Ned and Patty wonder just where Dewey is going each day. And from here Dewey finds himself walking a tightrope between keeping his musical activities secret from Roz and also trying to conceal his pretending to be Ned from Ned so he can carry out with his plan to put on a show at the Battle of the Bands....
As far as comedies go, The School of Rock is a really charming, funny and entertaining one which is helped along by the fact it is also good natured as well. The film also in a way pokes fun at rock bands as well particularly at the long haired rock bands to the slushy rock bands in which Dewey's former band goes between both extremes at the start and end of the movie as a band who take themselves just a bit too seriously. And Dewey despite his over enthusiastic attitude is also a likeable character who ends up gaining the respect of his students and for the few weeks he teaches them about rock music he also manages to get them inspired and fired up about something. And that is where the film succeds in actually being quite heartwarming with ever being overly sentimental, which remains one of its main strengths and a big part of its appeal.
Which brings me onto the performances which are all pretty good starting with Jack Black who is great in his role as the over-enthusiastic but well meaning Dewey who takes it upon himself to pretend to be a teacher in order to get some money to pay his rent. Jack has numerous fun moments in the film such as the scene where he first goes into the classroom and meets the class and says to the kids "OK, I've got a hangover does anyone know what that is??" and one of the students says "Doesn't that mean you're drunk??" and Dewey replies "No. It means I was drunk yesterday!". And in the scene when the kids walk back into class after their musical studies period, they all see that Dewey has got his keyboards, guitars and amps set up and he says to them "I heard your music class. You guys can really play! Why didn't anyone tell me???!". And as Dewey sets his plan in motion to get the band together he says to them "Let's get rockin!!". Another scene is where Dewey is forced to give an example of musical teaching skills to Roz as he plays his guitar and sings about Math "Math is a wonderful thing. So get off you ath and do some math" and he starts doing some basic math with the kids and lastly he sings to one of them, Marta "And 54 is 45 more than, what is the answer, Marta?" and Marta says "Nine" and Dewey sings "No its eight" and Marta sings back "No its nine!" and Dewey corrects himself singing "Yes... I was testing you, its nine! And that's a lucky number.....!". Another funny scene is when Dewey teaches the class about singing different types of songs and he asks them to give him an example of an angry song and says to them "Now what is it that makes you angrier than anything else in the whole world???!!". And in the scene Dewey previously noticed one of his class, Zack, get a hard time off his father as he dropped him off for school, and he says to Zack during class "And what would you say to a bully, Zack?? What if someone was really up in your face??? What would you say??" and Zack quietly says "I don't know. Step off??" and Dewey furiously sings "STEP OFF! STEP OFF!! STEP OFF!! STEP OFF!!!" and pretty soon the whole class joins in. And this is followed by a nice little moment after the class during lunch hour when Zack approaches Dewey in the canteen and says to him "Hey Mr S? I just wanted to say that was a really cool class today" which leaves Dewey looking pleased with himself realising he has done something good for Zack. And another funny moment is when Dewey tries to get the kids an audition for Battle of the Bands but they end up being late and Summer devises a plan to allow them to get on the bill as she has them pretend to be all critically ill. And in the scene Dewey says to the director of the event (played by Frank Whaley) "They're terminal every single one of them. Those kids have a rare blood disease "Stick-it-to-da-man-niosis" and the director says "I've never heard of it" and Dewey says "You're lucky. Because it's hell!". And last of all there is the scene where Dewey finally has to admit during a parents meeting at the school that he is not a teacher and he says "My real name is Dewey Finn and no I'm not a licenced teacher, but I have been touched by your kids....and I'm pretty sure I've touched them!" only to think about what he has said for a moment as all the parents look on horrified and he bolts it out the door!
As for the other cast members Joan Cusack is also excellent in her part as the uptight school principal Roz and she get's one of the film's best lines when the next day after the parents meeting, all the parents come to her office to complain. And in the scene Roz get's out of her office for a breather and in the meantime the kids have all left to go and get Dewey to do the show, and Roz later walks back in to her office and says to them "I've just been informed that all your children are missing!". And then there is the scene where Dewey befriends Roz and get's her out for a drink and driving her back to the school she having had a little too much to drink confesses to Dewey that "And if something goes wrong its my head in the smasher! And these parents will come down on me like a nuclear bomb! I can't make a mistake! I gotta be perfect! And that pressure has turned me into something I never wanted to do be!" And she mouths the words "a bitch!".
Mike White is also quite good as Dewey's rather meek room mate, Ned, who Dewey who pretends to be for the sake of the job and is also continually pestered by his pushy girlfriend, Patty. And Mike's best moment in the film is a crowd pleaser near the end when Mike wants to go and see Dewey play his show and Patty nags at him for the last time and Mike finally shakes his head, leaves and slams the door in her face! And then we get to Sarah Silverman who is also good in her role as Patty, Ned's nagging girlfriend who continually puts pressure on Dewey to leave their apartment. And Sarah get's a good line in the film after Dewey has been found out to be a fake by the school and she says to Dewey "I told you to be LIKE Ned, I didn't tell you to BE Ned!".
And last of all the stars of the show aside from Jack are of course the kids as they provide some of the funniest lines as well in the film. Starting with Miranda Cosgrove who is great in the film as the class teacher's pet, Summer who has some good moments in the film such as the scene where Dewey is looking for singers to audition for the band and Summer says "I can sing" and Dewey says "Alright Summer, belt it!" and she starts to sing the song "Memories" horribly out of key and Dewey quickly stops her and says "Yeah that's great!" and looks away in shock. And then there is the scene where Summer waits angrily outside the school for Dewey as he arrives she says to him "A groupie??? You want me to be a groupie??? I researched groupies on the Internet. They're sluts! They sleep with the band!". Then there is Joey Gaydos Jr as Zack who starts off as a somewhat stiff classical guitar prodigy and ends up being a proper rock guitarist and later on after Battle of the Bands one of the "No Vacancy" band members says to him how awesome he is and Zack says "Thanks. I use to play classical but now I play rock". Robert Tsai as Lawrence is also priceless in some scenes such as the one where Dewey asks the class what annoys them and to tell him off and Lawrence, the keyboardist says "You're a fat loser and you have body odour!" and later we see him do a classic rock pose of pointing his finger at the crowd while playing keyboards. And lastly there is Kevin Clark as Freddy Jones, the band's drummer, who asks earlier on in the film during one of band sessions "Um, are we gonna be goofing off like this every day?" and Dewey sharply says "We're not goofing off, we're creating musical fusion!" and Freddy asks "Well um are we gonna be creating musical fusion every day?" and Dewey says "Yeah, get used to it!". And later Freddy discusses with one of the girls in the class, Katie, "I'm just saying, name two great chick drummers" and Katie says "Sheila E? Meg White from the White Stripes" and Freddy says "She can't drum!".
Moving onto the film's director, Richard Linklater, who has done a very nice job here with TSOR as he keeps the film nice and light hearted and also get's the tone just perfect as the film never becomes sentimental or slushy at any time, yet he also manages to still somehow make it charming and at times even uplifting. The film also features a really good soundtrack with such songs as "Sunshine of your love" by Cream, "Back in Black" by AC/DC, "Immigrant song" by Led Zeppelin, "Edge of Seventeen" by Stevie Nicks, "The Wait" Killing Joke's song covered by Metallica and also there is the band's own titled theme song "The School of Rock" which is a good little song in its own right.
As for flaws???? Well OK its not quite a perfect film and it has to be said the story in itself is nothing too original and its pretty flimsy with not much more to it than a guy just needing to make money and also get back at his former band mates for kicking him out of their band. It also has to be said that while Dewey is likeable the thing about Jack Black is you either like him or hate him (I quite like him though as an actor and performer) and there even times where I think Jack overdoes it and he becomes a bit too overbearing to watch when he's at full tilt carrying out his onscreen antics. And this can make Dewey quite an irritating character as well as he never really seems to switch off (well except when he is sleeping that is!) at any given time or chills out as he is pretty much always full on and not much else in between. And there are scenes where you think that Jack is starting just to get back into Tenacious D mode, especially during the scenes where he sings to himself in class, or performs his "Black Sabbath" frantic guitar solo (which is pretty funny!) and also when he sings at full pelt to Roz as he drives her back to school and she even has to say "Will you stop that please??". I like Tenacious D but I also think Jack at times is almost trying to do a crossover and at any moment you could expect Kyle Gass (the other of Tenacious D) to barge in! But these are pretty minor niggles all the same and never really detract from the film too much.
So that's it for my look at The School of Rock which is very enjoyable, funny and even charming film which is well worth a look if you haven't already seen it.
And with that I shall bid yee all goodnight!
